EASTHAM — At the select board’s last discussion of the residential tax exemption (RTE) in January 2024, the four members who were present were evenly split: Aimee Eckman and Jerry Cerasale voted against adopting it while Jamie Demetri and Suzanne Bryan voted for it. Without a majority, the exemption was not adopted; then-select board member Art Autorino, who was out of town, had previously announced his opposition.
That discussion will begin anew on Jan. 6 when the board will decide whether to adopt the RTE for the fiscal year that begins on July 1.
The rules for the RTE are written into a 1979 state law that gives towns the option to redistribute their property tax burden within the residential class.
The RTE allows year-round residents to exempt some of the assessed value of their property from taxation; as a result, the residential tax rate goes up, and that new tax rate is applied to all residential properties in town, year-round and seasonal homes alike.
Each year’s exemption is a fixed amount: a certain percentage of the assessed value of the median residential property in town. In January 2024, the median residential property in Eastham was assessed at $748,794, according to Assistant Town Manager Rich Bienvenue. The select board can set the exemption as high as 35 percent.
After subtracting the exemption amount — 35 percent would have been $262,078 — the rest of a year-round property’s value is still taxed at the new, higher rate. That means that owners of year-round properties with a sufficiently high assessed value can actually experience an increase in their property taxes, even after applying the RTE.
Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown have all adopted the RTE: Provincetown and Truro at 35 percent, the maximum allowed, and Wellfleet at 32.5 percent. Thirteen other cities and towns in Massachusetts have also adopted the RTE, including Boston, Chelsea, and Somerville, all of which set it at the maximum rate.
Provincetown and Truro also allow the owners of year-round rental properties to claim the RTE, although Bienvenue told the Independent it was unlikely Eastham would consider such a policy until an RTE for homeowners had been in place for a few years.
Arguments Against
Tom McNamara of Weymouth, president of the Eastham Part-time Resident Taxpayers Association (EPRTA), bought his Eastham house 10 years ago.
He’s been visiting Eastham since 1972, he told the Independent, and said he thinks that adopting the RTE would create tension in town.
“An RTE would drive a wedge between the full-timers and the part-timers,” McNamara said. “I don’t think that’s really acceptable.”
Part-time residents are important contributors to the local economy, McNamara added, and the RTE would unfairly punish them to benefit full-time residents.
“We want a successful town, but we also want solutions that are equitable and fair,” McNamara said. “Let’s use the programs that are already available.”
He said the state’s Affordable Homes Act, signed on Aug. 6, would do a better job of addressing the root cause of unaffordable housing.
“The problem of affordable housing is really being driven by the shortage,” McNamara said. “That’s a national issue that municipalities everywhere are struggling to address.”
A Year-Rounder’s Perspective
Brigid McKenna, who rented in Wellfleet before moving to Eastham in 2018, told the Independent that living in a seasonal community magnifies her financial stress, and that balancing that hardship is the point of the RTE. “Everyone is dealing with inflation and price gouging,” she said, “but being in a seasonal community without many options during the winter, you just have to go with whatever’s available.”
An RTE of 35 percent could save the owner of a $500,000 home in Eastham more than $1,500 in property taxes. McKenna said that could help her buy groceries or pay off student loans.
“Full-time residents are the ones who keep the economy going during the off-season,” McKenna said. “I don’t understand why it’s controversial.”
McKenna said that from her perspective it was part-timers lobbying against the policy that were accentuating divisions. “Having a part-time residents’ association drives a wedge between us by nature,” she told the Independent.
Most of the letters the select board receives about the RTE are against it, Demetri said. She believes that’s because many of the year-round residents who would benefit most from the RTE don’t have time to campaign for it. “They’re busy working and raising their families,” she said. “The reason they vote for members of the select board is because they assume we’ll carry on their voice.
“The RTE is designed to offset the tax burden on year-round residents, and it does that very directly,” Demetri said. “We’re at a time and place when we should be using every tool we have to assist our year-round residents.”
A 60/40 Policy
In the background of these discussions is an earlier vote by the select board, taken in response to a motion by Demetri in January 2020, to establish a “60/40 policy.”
That meant the board would adopt the RTE when seasonal homes make up at least 60 percent of the town’s total inventory for two years in a row.
Demetri, Eckman, and then-members Martin McDonald and Jared Collins voted for the policy; then-member Al Cestaro abstained.
Even if the 60 percent threshold hasn’t been reached, though, Demetri said she favors implementing the RTE next year.
“We have to acknowledge some of the upcoming costs that will impact our tax rate, like the wastewater plan,” Demetri says. State regulations require Cape Cod towns to reduce the amount of nitrogen that seeps from septic tanks into designated waterways; Barnstable County Commissioner Sheila Lyons told the Independent in October that the new regulations were “coming out to be very expensive.”
The EPRTA has argued that the select board’s 2020 resolution means an RTE should not be implemented now. Only about 55 percent of the town’s residential parcels were owned by non-residents as of early 2024, according to Bienvenue, and McNamara says it’s unlikely that Eastham will have reached 60 percent by next month.
