Harbor Hill: A ‘Failed Project’
To the editor:
I read with interest Paul Benson’s article on Harbor Hill [Jan. 30, page 8], which was purchased with great fanfare in 2017. I’m not sure what the town was thinking in purchasing and then planning on subsidizing housing for the middle class. The cry that I’ve heard for years is the need for “affordable housing” and, more recently, low-income housing, given the median income for Provincetown residents is approximately $45,000.
Last year the town, I thought, wisely approved an additional $492,000 to correct the multiple deficiencies found at Harbor Hill. Now we have to continue to subsidize a failed project. While there may be a Pigouvian tax in economics, there is also the law of misapplied repair: in fixing one problem, you create another. More simply: putting good money after bad.
Here are some facts:
$12.7 million in bonds to acquire and renovate Harbor Hill.
$150,000 annual deficit forecast in February 2017 when they pitched this project. Didn’t happen.
The Year-Round Market-Rate Rental Housing Trust claimed they could cover this deficit for five years, as they had $1.5 million in the trust. Didn’t happen.
The town was forced to approve an additional $492,000 subsidy for FY 2020 to complete the renovations and prepare the complex for leasing.
Rents were lowered significantly to entice people to lease, and the new annual subsidy is still unknown but expected to be at least three times the original $150,000 forecast. Probably $500,000 through FY21.
As of today, more than $11.2 million has been invested in Harbor Hill. This works out to $400,000 per unit — so far. To me, that’s large. And it’s going to get larger with each passing year.
Are Provincetown taxpayers OK with subsidizing apartments for people making up to twice the median income? For a single person, that could be up to $127,000 a year.
Think about it.
Laura Logue Rood
Boston and Provincetown
A Lost Art
To the editor:
In your Jan. 16 front-page report on the resignation of Wellfleet Town Administrator Dan Hoort, one sentence didn’t finish the way my mind assumed that it would.
“He’s very hardworking and fair,” you quoted Justina Carlson saying, “and hasn’t forgotten the fine art of…” my mind assumed: “the handwritten note.” The actual sentence ended: “the beautifully written email.”
Gentle reminders of aging seem to increase with the years.
Tom Parker
Gwynedd, Pa.
Banning Hydration
To the editor:
Banning the sale of single-use plastic water bottles [Jan. 23, page 1] would be detrimental to Cape Cod’s vital tourism economy. After all, being unexpectedly inconvenienced isn’t included in anyone’s vacation plans.
More important: neither is being dehydrated, which is a public health issue.
Mike Rice
South Wellfleet
