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accessory dwelling units

    STATE GOVERNMENT

    Housing Bill Is Still on Track, Say Cape Legislators

    The ‘most significant housing legislation since 40B’ will go to hearings in January

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The state legislature has been roasted by the Boston Globe and WBUR for its slow pace of lawmaking this year — the first in which Democrats have held both the legislature and the governorship since 2014.

    Nonetheless, both state Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro and state Rep. Sarah Peake of Provincetown are confident that Gov. Maura Healey’s $4.1-billion housing bond bill, one of her centerpiece priorities in her first year in office, will pass in 2024.

    “There are a number of smaller bills that are stuck in committee,” said Cyr. “Often you need to find a larger legislative vehicle to get those advanced. The good news is that, on housing, we have that vehicle. The governor has identified this as one of her highest priorities, and we will have a bill here.”

    “Don’t believe everything you read” about a stalled legislature, said Peake, a member of the House leadership. “We have done a very major gun safety bill, a nursing home and long-term care reform bill, a $58-billion budget, and a major supplemental addressing the migrant crisis. More will follow — including this housing bill.”

    The state’s first secretary of Housing and Livable Communities, Ed Augustus, called Healey’s bill “the most significant housing legislation filed in Massachusetts since 40B, 50 years ago,” according to the State House News Service. In addition to allocating more than $4 billion, the bill would legalize accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, of up to 900 square feet in every single-family zoning district in the state.

    Most of Provincetown is zoned for multifamily dwellings, and Eastham legalized duplexes town-wide in 2022 — but nearly all of Truro and Wellfleet are single-family zones.

    According to a map produced by the Boston Globe Spotlight team, 78 percent of single-family lots in Truro, 79 percent in Wellfleet, and 92 percent in Eastham are large enough to hold an ADU.

    Healey’s bill, currently numbered H.4138, would also allow tenants to seal court filings related to “no-fault” evictions, preventing those records from appearing on their credit reports and harming their ability to find new housing. A similar provision passed the legislature but was vetoed by Gov. Charlie Baker in 2021.

    The bill also includes a local-option real estate transfer fee on the portion of a home sale over $1 million — a provision that Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, and Chatham have endorsed at recent town meetings. But towns would have to vote to implement the transfer fee again after Gov. Healey’s bill is signed.

    Partly as a result of years of advocacy work for a transfer fee by housing leaders on Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Cape Cod, the bill also includes a new “seasonal communities” designation and a Seasonal Communities Coordinating Council that can develop policies tailored to the problems of the state’s beach and mountain towns — such as an acute need for mid-market housing opportunities that are generally not subsidized by the state.

    “We brought this up to Secretary Augustus during a meeting on the transfer fee, and we’re extremely grateful that it resonated,” said Tucker Holland, Nantucket’s housing director. “Seasonal communities have unique challenges.

    “I have profound respect for the 40B law, for example, but it’s not working as intended on Nantucket, where new market-rate units sell for $2 million,” Holland said. “We think there could be a special provision in seasonal communities where half the new units in a 40B project go to year-round residents.”

    The Vail Program

    One policy idea that has garnered support in seasonal communities recently — a deed restriction program to create a “second market” of year-round-only housing that was developed in Vail, Colo. and copied in Lake Tahoe, Calif. — is not in Healey’s bill.

    Provincetown, Nantucket, and the six towns of Martha’s Vineyard have all filed home rule petitions to allow them to purchase this type of deed restriction, which requires residents (either owners or renters) to live and work in the county but does not include any income limits or verifications.

    Sen. Cyr has also introduced a bill that would establish the year-round-only deed restriction as a local option that towns across the state could use, he said. He is trying to bundle that bill, S.861, into the larger housing bill.

    “One of the uses of home rule petitions is to get a number of towns on the record as wanting a certain policy,” Cyr said. A statewide local option can become the vehicle for securing that policy.

    “The big train is now moving — the hearing on the governor’s bill is in January — so you’ll hear a lot more about all of this soon,” Cyr said.

    The home rule petitions could also move forward separately, Peake said. “I haven’t heard anything negative, so like all home rule bills, we will keep working it through the system,” she said.

    Transfer Fee at Town Meetings

    The housing bill will still be in flux when warrants for annual town meetings begin to open and close this February and March. Cyr said, however, that he wants to see more home rule petitions for transfer fees on town meeting warrants this spring.

    “This is not an easy issue; there are opponents,” Cyr said at an Oct. 24 event with Gov. Healey in Yarmouth that was covered by the State House News Service.

    “What I need from you and all our municipal friends here,” Cyr said, are “home rules on transfer fees on spring town meeting warrants across the Cape and Islands showing our support for this policy.”

    Those home rule petitions would almost certainly not become law, as they would be superseded by the governor’s housing bill. Nonetheless, discussions of them could become heated.

    Healey’s proposal allows towns to adopt any amount between half a percent and two percent as the transfer fee on the part of a sale over $1 million. The entire amount raised would be dedicated to housing and would depend greatly on the percentage chosen.

    The percentage that is endorsed by town meeting voters next April or May could easily become precedent for town meeting votes that October — when the transfer fee might be a reality, not just a proposal.

    Cyr told town leaders at the October event in Yarmouth to “sink your teeth” into that fight.

    “We have got to move housing policy forward,” Cyr said. “This is not a problem that we can just solve on Beacon Hill, for better or worse.”

    THE HOUSING PUZZLE

    Resource Center Tries to Light the Way for More ADUs

    But even with help, most owners are deterred by high costs

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Spend enough time learning about Cape Cod’s housing crisis and you’ll eventually hear something about ADUs, or accessory dwelling units. By definition, an ADU is a smaller residential unit, usually a one-bedroom or studio apartment, that can be legally added to a single-family home. Because Cape Cod’s existing housing is overwhelmingly composed of single-family homes, ADUs are sometimes described as an ideal solution for the Cape, a potential route to hundreds or thousands of smaller new places for people to live.

    Andrea Aldana, chief program officer at the Community Development Partnership. (Photo courtesy CDP)

    The theoretical promise of ADUs has been in stark contrast to their reality, however. All 15 towns on Cape Cod now permit some kind of ADU in their zoning bylaws, yet very few have been built.

    Brewster and Falmouth have had more success than their neighbors and have each permitted more than 20 ADUs over the last few years. In most other Outer and Lower Cape towns, however, you can count the number of ADUs on one hand.

    The ADU Resource Center, a joint project of the Community Development Partnership (CDP) and the Homeless Prevention Council, was created last April to help homeowners in the eight Lower and Outer Cape towns with permitting and building new units. It was funded with a $1-million earmark that state Rep. Sarah Peake attached to a spending bill in November 2021.

    The Resource Center offers free guidance to homeowners at every step of the process, especially when it comes to understanding what their town’s zoning rules might permit them to build and what it might cost. The Resource Center can also provide a $10,000 forgivable loan, which can be paired with other assistance from the Housing Assistance Corporation of Cape Cod, the Cape Light Compact, and even some individual town programs, said Andrea Aldana, chief program officer at the CDP.

    Terri Barron, who oversees the Resource Center, described some of the obstacles that the center can help with — and some that it can’t.

    “We do a feasibility study of the property for free, in which we go over all the rules that will apply to them, including lot coverage, square footage, and septic,” said Barron. But the rules might require an actual site survey, which can cost $5,000.

    State and town regulations on septic systems often stop homeowners in their tracks, Barron said. The state’s Title 5 septic rules limit the number of bedrooms per acre regardless of other zoning requirements, Barron said. New construction can trigger town rules about septic system upgrades, which can cost $30,000 or more.

    Terri Barron, director of housing rehabilitation programs at the Community Development Partnership. (Photo courtesy CDP)

    Then there is the cost of an architect — “usually $3,000 to $5,000,” Barron said — and the time to go through planning or zoning boards.

    According to the Cape Cod Commission, nearly every town permits some kind of ADU configuration by right — but in Barron’s experience it’s usually not so easy.

    “For very few people has it been a straightforward slam dunk like that,” Barron said. If any circumstance doesn’t fit the bylaw, then homeowners have to ask their planning or zoning board for a special permit, which can take months.

    Construction costs are the ultimate obstacle, Barron said, with an average cost around $450 per square foot. For an 800-square-foot ADU, that’s about $360,000.

    There are financing options, Barron said, and many people can pull money out of their existing house with a home-equity loan. But depending on interest rates, the rental income from the ADU might not be enough to cover the new loan.

    Of the 64 homeowners who have contacted the Resource Center this year, only about 10 appear likely to finish the permitting process and actually build an ADU, Barron said. Most of them have specific reasons to want the extra unit — typically, either adult children or elderly parents are moving in.

    “We have some people who just want to help with the housing crisis” and create a rental unit, Barron said, but they’re more likely to be deterred by the high costs and long process.

    “We think $50,000 would be enough of an incentive to unlock some of that larger second pool of people who don’t have family reasons but are interested in building,” Aldana said. “But that means that ADUs would be both time-intensive and resource-intensive, and at that point I think a wider conversation is warranted.”

    Compared to the recent past, three new ADUs per town per year would be a big improvement — and yet still completely dwarfed by the scale of the crisis. A study commissioned by the Housing Assistance Corp. last fall predicted that 829 households earning less than $100,000 per year would be displaced from Cape Cod this year.

    Even after they are created, ADUs require oversight from town staff to ensure that restrictions on their use are being enforced. This ADU at 249 Gross Hill Road in Wellfleet is deed restricted to affordable year-round rental only. Wellfleet town staff have struggled to decide whose job it is to enforce the affordable deed restriction, however. (Photo by Nancy Bloom)

    “Each unit is valuable, but these towns need lots of units,” Aldana said. “The strategies that will get us there are having multifamily zoning by right in village centers, having towns release their technicalities around how bedrooms are configured on a site, and allowing maximum residential density as long as wastewater regulations and environmental protections are followed.”

    In most residential parts of Cape Cod, a four-bedroom house would be legal; a three-bedroom house and a one-bedroom ADU might be legal; and a duplex consisting of two two-bedroom units would be forbidden. State wastewater laws control how many bedrooms are allowed, Aldana said — but whether they are in a single-family home, a house with an ADU, or a duplex is entirely up to the towns and their zoning choices.

    “We don’t need to put dense residential development everywhere,” Aldana said, “but we do need to concentrate development in village centers that have more amenities, better infrastructure, are more walkable, and are better for the climate.

    “We can do this in a beautiful way, with good design and open space,” Aldana added. “This is still very controversial in most of the towns. But you’re never going to get the number of units with ADUs that you’ll get from these larger-scale developments.”

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