Twenty-five years ago, families who made $60,000 a year could afford to buy a house here. Today, households making less than $300,000 a year struggle to find housing on the Lower and Outer Cape, and many workers are forced to look for a more affordable home off-Cape, requiring long commutes that clog roadways and bridges.
We are on our way to becoming a museum of the rich, like our neighbors on Nantucket. The people who have built our businesses, our civic life, and our communities are being displaced. Soaring costs have put homes out of reach for many of the year-round workers who keep the Cape running: our health care and hospitality workers, teachers, child-care and elder-care providers.
As housing advocates, we look for ways to stop these losses. So, we worked closely with our legislative delegation to advance the “seasonal communities” provision of the Affordable Homes Act, signed into law by Gov. Maura Healey eight months ago.
The new law is a game-changer for the housing crisis. Seasonal communities are towns that have a high proportion of seasonal housing units — at least 35 percent on the Cape. They can now opt in to a new suite of tools that will allow them to create more year-round housing.
The seasonal communities provision was not something dreamed up on Beacon Hill. It was created by planners and town leaders on the Cape — the people who know the Cape best — and housing advocates who developed the concept and collaborated with our legislators to push for enactment. The legislature saw the data and realized there are market forces here that need to be addressed in order to save our communities.
The nine outermost towns on the Cape are eligible for the seasonal communities designation along with communities in the Berkshires. Other Cape communities can seek the designation as well. Towns must individually opt in through a town meeting vote. Several of these nine communities have town meetings coming up in the next few weeks where they will make this decision.
Seasonal communities will be empowered to acquire year-round housing occupancy restrictions; create a preference for municipal workers; establish a year-round housing trust fund; create artists’ housing; assess housing needs; allow tiny homes to be built by right and used year-round; and increase the property tax exemption for homes that are owners’ primary residences. With these powerful new tools at our disposal, it is time to stop wringing our hands.
Anyone who believes that the Cape needs more housing for our workforce should embrace this designation and recognize its potential. This is not just a housing inventory problem; it is also a utilization problem. Too many homes sit vacant for much of the year, limiting the availability of housing for those who need it year-round. The seasonal communities provisions will give our towns the flexibility they need to create solutions that are right for them.
We welcome both the summer tourists who drive our economy and new year-round residents doing remote work who bring vibrancy during the off-season. The reality, however, is that both features of the Cape’s economy are crowding out the lower- and moderate-income residents who have made the Cape their home for generations and who deliver the vital services on which everyone, whether here for a week or year-round, depends.
Enabling communities to allow smaller homes on smaller lots will only enrich our towns. After all, the Outer Cape was home to cottages long before year-round homes were abundant. Edward Hopper never painted a seascape with a McMansion in the foreground.
Why, then, do some part-time residents oppose local adoption of the seasonal communities designation? They seek to pause acceptance, they say, until state regulations are drafted. Yet those regulations are being crafted with strong input from local people who know the needs of our communities. This is the same old game of kicking the can down the road.
We cannot afford to lose any more housing or year-round workers. We can’t watch more school districts consolidate just to keep the lights on. Now is the time to flip the power differential and take back our communities.
Provincetown voters adopted the seasonal communities designation on April 7. We urge residents of other Cape towns to make their voices heard by attending town meeting and voting to opt in as a seasonal community.
Jay Coburn is president & CEO of the Community Development Partnership in Orleans; Alisa Magnotta is CEO of Housing Assistance in Barnstable and Orleans.
