Meetings Ahead
Most meetings in Provincetown are held in person, typically with an online-attendance option. Click on the meeting you want to attend on the calendar at provincetown-ma.gov for a link to an agenda and details. All meetings are at town hall unless otherwise noted.
Thursday, Aug. 1
- Council on Aging, 10 a.m., Veterans Memorial Community Center
- Zoning Board of Appeals, 6 p.m.
Tuesday, Aug. 6
- Conservation Commission, 6 p.m.
Wednesday, Aug. 7
- Historic District Commission, 3:30 p.m.
Thursday, Aug. 8
- Board of Assessors, noon
- Planning Board, 6 p.m.
Conversation Starters
Affordable Ownership
Twenty-seven people applied for the town’s latest affordable-homeownership opportunity, a one-bedroom condo at 50 Nelson Ave. Unit 1, and 25 of them met all the criteria for the unit, Town Manager Alex Morse said on July 22. That is the largest number of qualifying applicants ever, he said.
The unit will be sold for $189,685 to the winner of a lottery that will be held in the first half of August. Applicants must be first-time homebuyers, must commit to making the property their “year-round sole domicile,” must have less than $100,000 in household assets, and must earn less than the county’s area median income, currently $85,890 for a single person or $98,160 for a two-person household.
The town’s down payment and closing cost assistance program will also be available to the lottery winner if they completed a first-time homebuyer workshop. That program offers $30,000 or 10 percent of the purchase price, whichever is lower; for the winner of 50 Nelson Ave. Unit 1, the total assistance would be $18,968.
ADU Incentives
The community housing council wants to implement an ADU incentive program similar to one in Wellfleet, according to a note in Morse’s biweekly report to the select board. Wellfleet has allocated four grants of $10,000 to property owners looking to create or renovate an ADU, but production of ADUs in Provincetown has been slow, even though the town has revised its bylaws multiple times to make them easier to build.
ADUs could also be legalized statewide as part of the housing bond bill currently being debated in the state legislature, but it is still unclear exactly how that law might affect Outer Cape towns that have long allowed the units but have imposed various use restrictions. —Paul Benson
