Meetings Ahead
Most meetings in Eastham are in-person, typically with an online-attendance option. Go to eastham-ma.gov and click on the meeting you are interested in for details. All meetings are at Town Hall unless otherwise indicated.
Thursday, April 27
- School Improvement Council, 2:15 p.m., Elementary School Library
- Board of Health, 3 p.m., Earle Mountain Meeting Room
Thursday, May 4
- Council on Aging Board of Directors, 9:15 a.m., Earle Mountain Meeting Room
- Board of Assessors, 11 a.m., Small Meeting Room
- Zoning Board of Appeals, 5 p.m., Earl Mountain Meeting Room
Conversation Starter
A Letter on Year-Round Rentals
The select board has drafted a letter to the legislature’s Joint Committee on Housing in support of a bill filed by Sen. Julian Cyr to allow municipalities to purchase deed restrictions that would restrict housing to year-round occupancy in perpetuity.
The letter is addressed to the committee’s chairs, Rep. James Arciero and Sen. Lydia Edwards, pointing to the Outer Cape’s difficulty in finding and retaining staff as a symptom of the housing crisis. “Our businesses are suffering due to the lack of personnel to manage and operate them. This is driven by a lack of appropriate housing,” the letter reads.
Bill SD.1040 is modeled after a similar program in the resort town of Vail, Colo., which has succeeded in creating hundreds of deed-restricted rental units since the program’s conception in 2018.
The bill aims to preserve housing stock for the “missing middle” — those who earn too much to qualify for subsidized housing but not enough to compete with “buyers with deep pockets who are looking for vacation homes,” the letter reads.
“With affordable housing programs already in place for people who earn up to 80 percent of the area median income (AMI), or about $60,900 for an individual, there is a serious need to help working people bridge the gap between what they earn and what the housing market demands,” the letter continues.
The bill has also won the unanimous support of the Cape and Islands Municipal Leadership Association, the letter said. —Sam Pollak
