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affordable housing

    TRURO TOWN MEETING

    Walsh Zoning and Solar Plan Pass in Truro

    Under the town’s white tent, a tug-of-war takes place over housing

    By

    TRURO — Beneath the spring sunshine and the vaguely Cirque du Soleil white tent under which Truro now holds its town meetings, a peaceful but unmistakable showdown unfolded on May 3.

    Scanning the room to see how neighbors are voting is a cherished tradition at New England town meetings — but Truro’s voters endorsed a one-year trial of electronic voting equipment anyway. (Photos by Paul Benson)

    The speakers on one side were largely millennials — working people and business owners, many raised in town, some with parents and children in tow. The speakers on the other side were long-term residents as well, veterans of the town’s civic process, who frequently spoke on housing-related measures to say the cart and horse were disarranged.

    No one claimed to oppose affordable housing — instead, resistance came dressed in the language of water protection, procedural concern, and the need for more study. The two marquee housing votes of the night, one accepting the state’s new “seasonal communities” designation and another to create a zoning overlay district for the town-owned Walsh property, were both close. Both passed.

    Truro select board members Sue Girard-Irwin (left), Nancy Medoff, and chair Sue Areson (right) seated in front of Town Moderator Paul Wisotzky at town meeting on May 3.

    There were 423 voters — more than turned out in Provincetown or Wellfleet last month — and Town Moderator Paul Wisotzky opened the six-hour session with a stirring nod to colonial times, reminding attendees that town meeting was once a revolutionary act derided by British governors.

    “I’m not suggesting with today’s history lesson that we need to be troublemakers and rabble rousers,” said Wisotzky, but rather “for us to embrace the freedom to raise our voices, the freedom to express differing viewpoints, and the privilege and opportunity to work together respectfully, kindly, and honestly to shape our collective future.

    Town meeting has many heroes, but the people who staff the refreshments tent are high on the list. From left, Cookie Glatzel, Krista Edwards, Travis Frey, and Beth Cook, whose efforts kept the electorate’s mood — and blood sugar — on the level.

    “Upholding this democratic practice is more important than ever now,” Wisotzky added.

     

    Free Cash and Taxes

    The town’s $27.7-million operating budget was approved with no discord, but Article 3 — a 16-part buffet of free cash spending — devoured the morning. It included funding for zoning bylaw consultant Kennan Rhyne ($45,000), a climate action coordinator position held by Chris Palmer ($40,000), and a test run for electronic voting next year ($20,000), all of which voters approved.

    After a 90-minute dissection of the town’s free cash habits, voters briskly greenlit a $3.2-million borrowing and debt exclusion to clean up PFAS contamination at Town Hall Hill.

    They also backed $200,000 for design work on stormwater improvements along Pond Road and $250,000 for HVAC and roof repairs at Truro Central School.

    Debt exclusions add to the amount of property tax the town can levy, while free cash is the money remaining on hand after last year’s budget has been closed out. Because they directly raise taxes, debt exclusions are hotly contested in many towns — but in Truro this year, free cash took all the heat.

    There was one more debt exclusion measure: Article 13, which authorized $5 million in borrowing to install solar arrays on town property. The proposal had been brought forward by the energy committee, and “it would produce enough clean electricity to power all municipal buildings three times over — or about 150 Truro households,” Palmer said.

    Energy committee co-chair Brian Boyle introduced a $5-million debt exclusion proposal that would finance large-scale solar power installations on town property. The measure sailed to approval.

    Energy committee co-chair Brian Boyle said solar power could bring in $550,000 a year with $90,000 in annual maintenance costs. It passed overwhelmingly.

     

    Seasonal Communities

    Article 27 asked voters to accept the “seasonal communities” designation created by the state’s new Affordable Homes Act — a provision authored by Cape and Islands state Sen. Julian Cyr, a Truro native.

    The designation gives towns with a high percentage of seasonal or vacation homes — Truro is at 67 percent, according to the Cape Cod Commission — tools to promote year-round housing.

    Housing authority chair Betty Gallo called it “a pathway to addressing much-needed attainable housing” that could be targeted at the “missing middle” who make too much to qualify for affordable rental apartments. “This includes medical employees, teachers, fire and rescue workers, and others who serve vital roles in Truro,” Gallo said.

    Housing authority vice chair Mara Glatzel said that she had lobbied for the designation at the state level alongside others “working really hard to creatively meet housing needs on the Cape.”

    Opponents including Dennis O’Brien, Clinton Kershaw, Laurie Lee, and Michael Forgione didn’t buy it. They said the town lacked adequate information to move ahead with a vote.

    A teller count was slowly tallied — but when the section-by-section results were announced, microphones weren’t working and tellers spoke over each other. To eliminate any doubt the entire count was done again. When that one was announced, Tim Hickey challenged it.

    Wisotzky declined to order a third count, and the measure passed, 196 to 132.

     

    Walsh Overlay

    Article 32 was the main event: a zoning overlay district for the 70-acre Walsh property to set the stage for a mix of multi-family housing, retail use, and dedicated open space. Whether the proposal supplanted or supported last year’s Walsh Committee recommendations was a disagreement the two camps could not bridge.

    Housing authority vice chair and zoning task force member Mara Glatzel said that numerous meetings and countless volunteer hours went into the Walsh zoning proposal. Steven Stahl, behind her, asked why the planning board was divided on the proposal, and Kolby Blehm, behind Stahl, said that “we are changing the culture of this town to not delay in bad faith.”

    “It has nothing to do with water, sewage, traffic, infrastructure, or building design,” said zoning task force vice chair Darrell Shedd. “If you are for affordable housing in the least little bit, you cannot be against an article that simply makes it possible.”

    Supporters lined up at the microphones: Glatzel, Ellery Althaus, Kenneth Oxtoby, Jeff Fischer, Anne Greenbaum, Jackie Fein-Zachary, Kolby Blehm, and Nancy Medoff.

    Greenbaum, vice chair of the planning board, tried to assuage fears about water before they had even been raised. Protecting groundwater “is the given we start with,” but planning for other uses can happen in tandem, she said. “Let’s do water. Let’s do housing. We’re one town — let’s do them together.”

    Michael Forgione objected to numerous spending measures in the first half of the meeting and worried that 660 units would be built at the Walsh property in the second half.

    Opponents were not convinced. Forgione warned of a 660-unit “Walsh City” and cast doubt on the term “attainable housing.” “This is funding the rich,” he said.

    Planning board clerk Jack Riemer said the overlay “fails to consider water protection,” and planning board chair Rich Roberts said it was “ahead of the hydrology and ahead of the science.”

    “Water should be at the top of the planning process,” said Karen Ruymann, advocating against the measure. “Vote like your children’s futures depend on it.”

    It took only one teller-counted vote this time: the overlay passed 154 to 127.

     

    Citizens’ Petitions

    Clint Kershaw had placed two petitioned articles on the warrant — one that aimed to use free cash to lower taxes and another to allow the town to plow private roads — but neither was in a legal format to become operative and both were indefinitely postponed.

    Delia Medley and Vincent Althaus sported matching shoes on Saturday.

    Dennis O’Brien’s first petition was to ban finance committee members from holding committee seats appointed by the select board — something other towns do to maintain the committee’s complete independence, he said.

    Select board member Stephanie Rein said that “in a town as small as Truro” it can be hard to fill committee seats, and former Town Moderator Monica Kraft said that she had “never seen any kind of conflict, ever” in the years that she appointed finance committee members. The charter amendment failed.

    O’Brien’s second petition — and the last article of what was now the late afternoon — was a nonbinding resolution capping the cost of a new DPW facility at $20 million and calling for two competing designs. It lost, too, albeit in the closest vote of the meeting.

    “Cost needs to be the driving force behind this project, not design,” O’Brien said. “Let’s send the message that we will not support the inflated project.”

    The very next speaker, Kenneth Oxtoby, called the question.

    Fred Gaechter received the town’s Fred Todd Community Service Award at town meeting. Among his feats of civic engagement, said select board chair Sue Areson, are having served as chair of the select board, finance committee, charter review committee, Walsh Property Community Planning committee, Barnstable County charter review committee, and the board of directors of Outer Cape Health Services.

    After a section-by-section teller count, the results were announced: 100 voters in support of O’Brien’s petition and 117 against.

    “With that, we are done,” said Wisotzky, and the crowd clapped and cheered, spirits largely intact.

    TOWN MEETING

    Wellfleet Says Yes to Funding Maurice’s RFP

    Seasonal communities label and money for marina repairs are also approved

    By

    WELLFLEET — The 328 voters at the April 28 annual town meeting owed their first unexpected vote to resident Brian Stern, who moved to block a $225,000 capital budget item for affordable housing site development at Maurice’s Campground by making it contingent on passage of Article 26, which would be a step toward development and which he said he opposed.

    HOUSING AT MAURICE’S

    A Master Plan for Campground Is Unveiled

    Planners project that number of year-round units will drop from 300 to 250

    By

    WELLFLEET — Nearly three years after the select board signed a purchase-and-sale agreement for the 21-acre Maurice’s Campground, a master plan for affordable housing there is coming into view.

    A painting of a Cape Cod Village by Paul Suggs. Maurice’s Campground Planning Committee vice chair Carl Sussman said that the master plan was guided by design principles that comport with “Cape Cod Village”-style architecture.

    Members of the Maurice’s Campground Planning Committee were prepared to present the plan in its current iteration to residents at the Wellfleet Elementary School at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, April 2. The committee held two meetings last fall for comments on the project.

    “This is different from the first two community meetings, where the emphasis was on getting feedback,” committee vice chair Carl Sussman said. “This is the final report, presenting what we’re proposing. I’m sure people who are both strongly opposed and people who are advocates for affordable housing will be there asking questions.”

    Roland Blair, a member of the planning committee who lives next to the campground, sees the town’s need for new housing as “drastic.” He pointed to a finding in Wellfleet’s 2023 Housing Production Plan that 495 households spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing. “That’s just cost-burdened people,” he said. “Then you have the teachers and firefighters, DPW workers, police. They can’t find housing, and we can’t hire people.”

    Cape Cod Commission data from 2023 show that 56 percent of Wellfleet’s housing stock is seasonally vacant, and only 6.8 percent of housing units are occupied by renters. There are no buildings in town with more than 10 units, according to the data.

    That would change in the latest draft of the Maurice’s master plan, which was reviewed by the Independent. The plan offers four alternative land-use “schemes” that could serve as a basis for development — two modified from the “Petals” plan and two modified from the “Loop” plan that were discussed at a November 2024 meeting.

    A variation on the “Loop” plan for affordable housing at Maurice’s, with a loop road and wooded perimeter. (Images courtesy Maurice’s Campground Planning Committee)

     

    A variation on the “Petals” plan, with clusters of buildings in “micro-neighborhoods.”

    Each alternative incorporates commercial buildings, open space, and seasonal-worker housing, with a fairly equal ratio of two- and three-story buildings; the plans envision between 250 and 290 housing units and 40 to 90 seasonal worker beds. The three-story buildings, Sussman said, had been moved toward the center of the development because of objections from abutters.

    The master plan was developed in collaboration with Studio G, an architecture firm in Boston, and consultants JM Goldson, Langan, and Boston Communities, which provided input on landscape engineering, zoning, and financing, Sussman said. He added that the team’s work would be complete by the end of April.

    Sharon Rule-Agger, another member of the planning committee, stressed that the master plan’s “schemes” are not the final designs. This stage “was for master planning, looking at what could feasibly go on the site,” she said.

    In the next stage of planning, committee members expect the town to hire additional consultants to help write a request for proposals from developers. The committee will present the master plan to the select board on April 29, the day after town meeting, and the board would have to vote to start the RFP process.

    Sussman said the master plan resembles a traditional “Cape Cod Village” style of architecture more closely than other areas of Wellfleet. A Cape Cod Commission design manual on that style helped to guide the planning committee’s work. “If you read it, what’s described as a ‘village’ really incorporates what we now call ‘smart growth’ principles: higher density, compact, and walkable,” Sussman said.

    To maintain those design standards, Sussman said, the planning committee expected the maximum number of year-round units would decrease from 300 to around 250, a move also intended to ease worries about density.

    “The Studio G people came back and said, ‘We could put 300 units here, but it’s not going to have that same look and feel’ ” of Cape Cod-style architecture, Sussman said. “We’ve all basically conceded that we can’t go ahead if it doesn’t satisfy that requirement that it’s a place that fits in.”

    Parking and Lighting

    In the months since the November 2024 community meeting, the committee has been revising the plan to incorporate residents’ input.

    Aside from moving the three-story buildings, notable revisions include an increased number of parking spots, which are now designed so that headlights will not shine in the direction of neighbors. Per abutter requests, the revised plan also accounts for “dark skies” lighting to minimize light pollution.

    “We’ve been meeting with any abutters that wanted to meet one-on-one,” planning committee chair Ryan Curley said. Despite those efforts, Sussman and Curley both said that some abutters remain opposed to the project.

    Curley said that those conversations had underscored the need for more community spaces in town — because there were so few places in Wellfleet to sit down and get a cup of coffee.

    “I grew up here,” Curley added. “There used to be Uncle Frank’s down at the harbor — it was basically a greasy spoon, but a lot of people would meet there. We had the Lighthouse restaurant, and people would meet there as well. Those are gone.” He said the project, with its commercial buildings and open space, would help to supply some of those missing places.

    Though Blair lives on neighboring Spring Brook Road, “I don’t really see it affecting my day-to-day life at all,” he said of the project. In summer, he estimated, traffic at the project would be comparable to the current volume because of the seasonal workers who live at the campground. “The only difference will be year-round, but in the winter, tourism traffic is gone, so I don’t think it’ll make that big a difference,” he said.

    A New Village Center

    Sussman said one aim of the project, aside from addressing the housing shortage, was to provide a new “village center” benefitting residents of North Eastham and South Wellfleet. Locals and committee members wanted to maintain a commercial market on Route 6 where the Billingsgate Market is located.

    The historic house at 70 Commercial St. in Wellfleet that committee members say offers an example of three-story local building design.

    “We’d like to see it expand a little and maybe have some other amenities: a co-working space, art studio, or a little coffee shop,” Sussman said. The plan lists those possible uses for the site along with a central open space, possibly for a playground, dog park, pollinator garden, or amphitheater.

    In practice, amenities could emerge from a more organic process. “It takes a spark to light a fire,” Rule-Agger said. “It may be that there’s a perfectly lovely, sunny spot, and people living in the neighborhood that is now Maurice’s Campground are passionately interested in growing vegetables.”

    Blair formerly lived in a camper on the site for several summers. “I had a little garden out front, with some tomato plants and lettuce,” he recalled. To this day, he strolls through Maurice’s and the surrounding woods several times a week — a routine that he doesn’t envision changing.

    “I enjoy very much going for a walk through there,” he said, “and I still will when it’s housing.”

    HOUSING

    After 3-Year Delay, an Affordable Housing Trust Takes Shape

    Truro Housing Authority readies MAHT draft for select board approval

    By

    TRURO — Nearly three years after town meeting voters approved the creation of a municipal affordable housing trust (MAHT), the town has yet to appoint trustees or file the paperwork needed to get its work underway.

    “I think everybody got sidetracked,” housing authority chair Betty Gallo told the Independent. That’s no longer the case.

    At its March 20 meeting, the housing authority finalized draft recommendations for the MAHT’s board composition and operating structure. After a public forum on April 2 and any resulting revisions, the recommendations will go to the select board to put the trust to work.

    Truro already has an affordable housing trust fund (AHTF), established in 2002. It holds funds from town meeting appropriations, the sale of town-owned properties, and tax-title property sales to be spent on housing programs. The fund has no board. Instead, decisions on its use are made by the select board and town meeting.

    The new fund was made possible when Truro adopted the state’s MAHT statute in 2022. One goal of the MAHT is to ensure that towns’ housing needs are met in more community-specific ways.

    It allows for the creation of a trust with more autonomy — one that can acquire property, manage funds, and support affordable housing without returning to town meeting for approval of each decision. Still, the housing authority’s draft proposes that the select board be consulted on decisions with significant budgetary or staffing implications.

    Once the MAHT is operational, funds from the AHTF intended for creating housing solutions for people earning up to 100 percent of the area median income (AMI) would be transferred to the new trust.

    Gallo said that the funds remaining in the AHTF would continue to be allocated as before “until there is another option.” One such option might be a new year-round housing trust for households earning above the 100-percent-of-AMI threshold. That’s a proposal under the “seasonal communities” designation article headed to town meeting in May, she said.

    The housing authority’s recommendations on the MAHT include a preference for participation on the board by full-time residents with experience in housing development, finance, or real estate, or who have lived in affordable housing or experienced housing insecurity.

    “We wanted people outside the town government to be on this trust,” said Gallo.

    “What we’re looking for is a lot of forward-facing transparency about money in and money out,” said vice chair Mara Glatzel.

    At the same time, the MAHT also “adds some layers of approval — or scrutiny at least — that don’t exist right now,” said member Kevin Grunwald.

    The draft recommends a seven-member board with two-year terms, composed of five voting members, two alternates, and the town manager or designee as a nonvoting participant. One member each from the select board and housing authority would be required, and the select board would appoint all members.

    The housing authority got help in arriving at its recommendations. It heard two presentations by Shelly Goehring of the Mass. Housing Partnership, who Gallo described as one of the state’s foremost experts on MAHTs.

    At a Sept. 12 joint meeting with the select board, Goehring said that most MAHTs draw funding from a mix of Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds, free cash, donations, and other mechanisms like tax overrides. In Orleans, for instance, a $275,000 annual tax override has made that town’s trust eligible for a line of credit, she said. Wellfleet’s version aims to raise $1 million annually through short-term rental tax revenue, CPA funds, and donations.

    The housing authority also hired Michelle Jarusiewicz, who lives in Truro and retired from her job as Provincetown’s housing director in 2023, to compare how housing trusts across the Outer and Lower Cape are structured and funded and how they set their goals.

    Some residents are skeptical of the trust board’s broad authority. At the March 20 meeting, Gallo said she had received several phone calls from people concerned that “nobody can control what the group does,” said Gallo. “That’s just not true.”

    Glatzel pointed out that the MAHT had passed easily in 2022. “It’s about having more infrastructure for affordable housing,” she said. Glatzel also said she wanted to “turn down the volume” on concerns about the board’s makeup.

    “This is not a rogue entity,” she added. “It’s a concentrated working group that is hyper-focused on housing. This has a select board member. This has the town manager or designee. This has a housing authority member. It’s not a group of randos who have their own separate agenda.”

    The housing authority will hold a public forum on the MAHT recommendations at town hall at 5 p.m. on April 2.

    HOUSING

    Lottery Open for 62 Affordable Units at ‘Phare’ in Orleans

    Apartments are being built on land sold by Cape Cod 5 to for-profit developer Pennrose

    By

    This article was updated on March 4.

    ORLEANS — Applications are now open for a new affordable housing development at the site of the old Cape Cod 5 Bank headquarters on West Road. The development is being built and will be managed by Pennrose, a Philadelphia-based for-profit firm, as the company’s second affordable housing venture on Cape Cod after Eastham’s Village at Nauset Green.

    A construction lift sits outside the old Cape Cod 5 headquarters in Orleans, currently being renovated as 62 affordable housing units operated by Pennrose. (Photos by Parker Mumford)

    The project, called “Phare” after the French word for lighthouse, includes 62 units for mixed-income residents; 52 units are in the refurbished and expanded headquarters building. The remaining 10 are in two new buildings on the lot.

    The units are a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments. Tenants’ income for 43 of them is capped at 60 percent of the area median; for 10 units, income is capped at 80 percent of AMI. In Barnstable County, AMI for a family of four is $126,650, according to 2024 data from the Mass. Housing Partnership.

    The remaining nine units in Phare — five with one bedroom, three with two bedrooms, and one with three bedrooms — are reserved for applicants with very low incomes, up to 30 percent of AMI. For a family of four in Barnstable County, that’s $37,995. Those units will be made available through the state’s Project Based Voucher and Mass. Rental Voucher programs.

    Tenants will be chosen in a lottery, for which applications close on April 8.

    The interior of one of the nearly finished affordable units at the site of the old Cape Cod 5 headquarters.

    The lottery will be conducted on April 22 over Facebook Live and will give preference to applicants who live, work, or have children who go to school on the Outer and Lower Cape. Winners won’t be guaranteed a unit at Phare — rather, they’ll be able to participate in the full application and interview process, which is set to begin as soon as the lottery is over. According to Pennrose’s website, residents could be moving in as early as May.

    Phare’s website advertises the development’s proximity to Routes 6 and 6A, as well as its proximity to the Skaket Corners shopping center. The website also promises a community playground, garden, fitness center, and resident lounge to be located in the complex.

    Cape Cod 5 President Bert Talerman said that the project is “a higher and better use of the property” than what his company had been doing. “Does it solve the tremendous shortage of housing we have in this community? Absolutely not,” he said, “but it makes a dent.”

    Cape Cod 5 vacated its old headquarters in January 2020, when the bank moved corporate offices into a new building off Route 132 in Hyannis.

    The bank agreed to delay the sale of the old headquarters when the town of Orleans opted in 2019 to do a feasibility study of the 23,000-square-foot property as a possible site for affordable housing. “It was determined that it would be a fantastic site,” said Orleans affordable housing coordinator Elizabeth Jenkins. Once Pennrose stepped in, Jenkins says, the town took on the role of a “funding partner.”

    The total price tag for Phare’s construction was $37 million, according to Karmen Cheung, a Pennrose vice president; $2 million of that was provided by the town of Orleans through Community Preservation Act funds, and $500,000 was provided by other towns’ CPA funds. The remaining money was provided by the state through MassHousing, ARPA, and low-income housing tax credits.

    A Private Transaction

    Talerman said that Pennrose first reached out to Cape Cod 5 in early 2020, just before the bank moved into its new headquarters. Pennrose bought the bank’s old headquarters on Jan. 4, 2024 for $3,250,000.

    Two additional buildings have been constructed next to the old Cape Cod 5 headquarters, each containing five affordable units.

    The town wasn’t involved in that transaction, Jenkins said, despite the fact that it was working with Cape Cod 5 at the time on the feasibility study. “As we were working cooperatively with Cape Cod 5, Pennrose reached out independently and did a private transaction,” she said.

    Many of the Cape’s affordable housing projects involve the town as landowner, Jenkins says. “We don’t have a lot of large developers working here on the Cape,” she said, “but in the broader world of housing it’s not uncommon at all.”

    Jay Coburn, president of the nonprofit Community Development Partnership, said the cost of land is to blame. “It’s impossible for an affordable housing project to pencil out without free land,” he said. “Usually developments happen on a town-owned parcel that the town put out an RFP for, typically with a 99-year ground lease.”

    Onsite mechanical foreman Roberto Perez outside a second-floor entry to the old Cape Cod 5 headquarters, which he and his team at Emond Plumbing & Heating have been outfitting for tenants set to arrive in May.

    Coburn said that this particular transaction makes sense, given that the land was already privately owned. Nevertheless, he called the situation “unfortunate,” saying that he would rather see multiple developers compete through the issuance of an RFP than have landowners select a single developer on their own.

    Talerman declined to comment on whether Cape Cod 5 entertained multiple proposals for development. “Pennrose had worked with the town of Orleans,” he said, “and we were happy to enter into a contract to sell to them, knowing what they were going to ultimately do.”

    Pennrose was also a candidate to redevelop the Governor Prence Inn in Orleans after the town purchased the property in 2021 for $2.9 million, but the company backed out in June 2024 after concerns were raised that then-affordable housing trust chair Alan McClennan had been trying to help Pennrose secure the project. McClennan resigned from his position less than a week later, apologizing for his “procedural error” in communicating with Pennrose after the company had already sent its bid to the town.

    Editor’s note: Because of inaccurate information provided by the town of Orleans, an earlier version of this article, published in print on Feb. 27, incorrectly stated that the total cost of construction was $71.6 million. The correct figure is $37 million, according to Pennrose.

    OPPORTUNITY ZONE

    Eastham Task Force Plans a Walkable Business District

    New zoning codes aim for middle-income homes and year-round businesses

    By

    EASTHAM — It hardly looks like the Eastham so many of us know. Locals chat on benches edged with flowers, while visitors dine under red umbrellas at the sidewalk’s edge. What was once a barren parking lot is a bustling town center featuring year-round businesses on ground floors and year-round housing up above.

    The barren parking lot at Town Center Plaza is at the center of Eastham’s plan for a vibrant district of mixed-use buildings. (Photo by Parker Mumford)

    That’s the vision, at least, that underlies the proposed new zoning code for the North Eastham Business District, which runs along Route 6 from Old Orchard Road to the Wellfleet town line.

    On Jan. 21, the town’s Zoning Task Force led a workshop at the Eastham Public Library outlining the new code, which will come before town meeting voters on May 5. Members of the select board, planning board, and zoning board of appeals were in attendance as the task force outlined a plan that would change the look of the business district over decades.

    To maintain the visual character of a Cape Cod village center, the new “form-based code” would include complex rules for the size and shape of buildings, said Community Development Director Paul Lagg, but would be less strict about the use of buildings. Building owners would not be forced to change their properties now, but future development would be shaped by the new rules.

    “Nothing in the plan is a mandate,” said Mary Nee, chair of the Zoning Task Force. “We aren’t land developers. We just wanted to look very comprehensively at all the planning the town has done,” Nee said, adding that the task force had written zoning rules that conform to those plans.

    Nee said that addressing the lack of year-round business opportunities was a major goal of the revision. The town’s 2021 market study had found that business opportunities in Eastham were limited by a “lack of quality retail establishments oriented toward year-round residents,” as well as a “high percentage of seasonal residents limiting the year-round customer base.”

    According to the town’s housing production plan, which was updated last year, the median price of homes in Eastham more than doubled between 2010 and 2023 — from $381,000 to $775,000.

    The housing production plan also found that more than 300 year-round rental housing units in Eastham had been lost since 2000. As a result of these changes, the town is “rapidly losing younger residents,” Nee said, with a 32-percent decline in residents between ages 18 and 34 since 2000.

    Lagg said the town should focus on housing for the “missing middle” — residents who are looking for housing options between single-family homes and large apartment complexes. “We don’t need more single-family homes,” Lagg said, adding that the town does need more accessory dwelling units, duplexes, and “top of shop” units built above commercial spaces.

    To accomplish these aims, the new zoning code would incentivize mixed-use buildings with the maximum height increased from 30 to 39 feet.

    “The way these private properties redevelop is going to dictate where we as a town end up on housing in the future,” Lagg said. “We won’t get everything we need from a few scattered sites owned by the town.”

     

    An Eight-Year Journey

    The road to the new zoning codes began in 2017, when Eastham received a proposal from the Boston firm Lisciotti Development to build a Dollar General store on a vacant lot on Route 6.

    A rendering shows how buildings along Brackett Road, just south of Town Center Plaza, might look if they were redeveloped under the town’s proposed new zoning code for the North Eastham Business District. (Image courtesy Town of Eastham)

    Despite the backlash from residents, the store would have conformed to the town’s zoning rules for the area, Lagg told the Cape Cod Times in June 2017.

    Eastham found other ways to fight back, though. Later that year voters designated a 280-acre corridor from Old Orchard Road to the Wellfleet town line as a “district of critical planning concern,” temporarily freezing development in the area so the town could rewrite its zoning regulations. The empty lot where the 9,100-square-foot Dollar General would have stood is now the location of Cedar Banks Landing, a condo complex built in 2020.

    Since then, Eastham has adopted a number of town plans that are unsupported by its zoning, Nee said, including a strategic plan, a Village Center Master Plan, and the housing production plan. The Zoning Task Force was assigned in 2023 to examine the district of critical planning concern and produce a zoning code that would match those planning documents.

    “In some cases, the vision was very ambiguous,” Nee said. “The current zoning calls for a ‘traditional New England village,’ but it doesn’t provide any detail on what that means.”

    The new form-based code provides lots of detail, though it could be decades before many properties are redeveloped. Two large town-owned parcels might be among the first to be redeveloped under new rules, Nee said.

    Eastham voters purchased the defunct T-Time driving range, which sits on an 11-acre parcel, in 2019 and the 3.5-acre Town Center Plaza in 2021. The redevelopment of those properties into housing and new commercial space hinges on the town’s ability to develop and finance a wastewater management plan, the Independent reported last year.

    Nonetheless, the town’s future projects at those sites will “establish the expression of the zoning,” Nee said. “The benefit of the town being the first to market is that it can demonstrate what the architecture and land use can be.”

    “These are significant changes when we talk about density of housing and height of housing” in the central business district, said Martin Ridge, who is a member of the zoning board of appeals and the Zoning Task Force. “Everyone in this room needs to dig down into the materials and fully understand them” so they can advocate for the new code with voters, he added.

    Nee said the ultimate purpose of the new zoning was to establish opportunities for Eastham’s young people. A parent who had seen the new plans, Nee said, told her that she finally believed “her daughter might be able to come back to Eastham after college and get an apartment, a job, a family.”

    “You can talk about this in terms of zoning and plans and bureaucracy,” Nee told workshop participants, “but when that woman told me she had hope, it was more powerful than any of that.”

     

    HOUSING

    Provincetown Ups Year-Round Rental Incentives

    Property tax discounts and ‘Lease to Locals’ checks aim to shore up rental market

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — This town has for years led the Outer Cape in the production of state-subsidized rental housing, with 174 affordable units already built here and 65 more to be ready next year. Now, the town’s leaders are focusing attention on the private rental market, aiming to coax property owners to either become year-round landlords or continue renting to year-round tenants.

    That shift is important, because with real estate prices soaring ever upward, secure housing is still out of reach for most people who work here, according to an analysis of Cape Cod Commission data.

    The main avenue for the effort so far has been Lease to Locals, a program the select board discussed extending and expanding at its Jan. 13 meeting.

    Lease to Locals offers one-time payments of $6,000 to $20,000 to landlords who sign new year-round leases for properties that had previously been used as vacation homes or short-term or seasonal rentals. To qualify, their new tenants must live or work on the Outer Cape, be disabled or retired, or contribute to the community by serving on town boards or actively participating in the arts.

    That program, begun last April, has resulted in 49 tenants being housed at 28 properties. There are more leases set to begin in the next few months, according to Town Manager Alex Morse, and by the time the program’s first year ends in April, $528,600 will have helped secure leases for 68 tenants at 39 properties.

    The California-based company called Placemate that administers Lease to Locals pitched the subsidies as lasting only one year, telling town officials that about 80 percent of landlords wind up continuing their year-round rentals even when the subsidies end. Nonetheless, select board members and people who spoke at the meeting worried that ending the subsidies after one year would result in evictions.

    Chase Hiffernan, a Lease to Locals tenant who opened a yoga studio on Commercial Street in 2023, told the select board that if the subsidies were to end this year, current landlords would have to either “evict first-year tenants or massively increase our rent.”

    Hiffernan added, “A lot of these leases started in May and June, so if we don’t get renewed we’re going to be displaced at the beginning of summer.”

    Hiffernan’s landlord, Jill Rothenberg-Simmons, who owns a property that includes the On Center Gallery, also spoke.

    “We had wanted to rent year-round,” Rothenberg-Simmons said, “but it costs a lot of money to own a building in Provincetown. The Lease to Locals program was a win-win for all of us.

    “Until we provide more affordable housing — and I know that’s in the works, and that’s great — we need to continue programs like this so that people like myself can afford to rent to the year-round workforce,” Rothenberg-Simmons said.

    Select board members agreed, with Leslie Sandberg, Erik Borg, and John Golden all saying that one more year of subsidies was worth it to keep people housed until the Province Post affordable housing complex opens at 3 Jerome Smith Road in 2026.

    The select board also discussed whether to keep the program open for new leases after April 1. Placemate had forecast that it could book 53 more tenants into 30 properties.

    To support new leases and continue subsidies for older ones would cost $857,550 in the program’s second year, Morse told the select board. The money would come from the town’s 6-percent tax on short-term rental and hotel bookings, which brought in $5.2 million in 2024.

    “It’s a big chunk of money,” said Golden, “but to try to find another place in May is ridiculous. Let’s extend this.”

    Long-Term Landlords

    The board also discussed how to help landlords who aren’t eligible for the program because they have been renting year-round for years. Some long-term landlords have asked the select board why former short-term rental owners should get public funds while they cannot.

    Placemate proposed a $100 to $200 per month subsidy for 20 landlords, which it said would cost $95,000, but select board members had other ideas for how to help keep long-term landlords in the rental market.

    Board member Austin Miller said that offering forgivable grants for major investments, such as new appliances or roofs, in exchange for a commitment to rent year-round for another 10 years would be better than a monthly subsidy.

    “People who have been doing year-round rentals do have costs, and things are getting more expensive,” said Sandberg. “Let’s find out what their needs are. Maybe it’s a grant program.”

    An RTE for Landlords

    Golden pointed out that both longtime landlords and the newer Lease to Locals landlords are eligible for the town’s “expanded residential tax exemption” for year-round rental properties.

    Residential tax exemptions are an option under state law that allows towns to discount the assessed value of the homes of residents when calculating property taxes. In Provincetown, the discount was worth about $2,000 last year, although the actual amount of net tax savings is lower for higher-value properties.

    At town meeting in 2017, Provincetown’s voters extended the tax break to properties that house year-round renters; Truro followed suit in 2019. Provincetown’s voters expanded the tax break again at town meeting in 2023, voting to allow the owners of multi-unit properties to take up to four exemptions on one parcel. That expansion just went into effect when Gov. Maura Healey signed the town’s home rule petition on Jan. 6.

    The new rules mean that owners who live at their rental properties can now claim one exemption for their owner-occupied unit and up to three more for rental units on the same parcel, said Town Assessor Scott Fahle.

    Only 22 properties received the exemption for year-round rentals last fiscal year, according to a list Fahle provided to the Independent. The town has more than 200 privately owned long-term rentals, according to rental certificate records, and now nearly all of them could be eligible for the tax break.

    “We need to get this out to homeowners,” Sandberg said.

    State Sen. Julian Cyr told the Independent that the residential tax exemption for year-round rentals was not in the state’s initial group of new tools for “seasonal communities” — a designation that includes all the towns on the Outer and Lower Cape — but that it could be added later. “A year-round rental RTE seems like something that would fit well within that umbrella,” Cyr said.

    “Provincetown has pioneered a number of crucial policies,” Cyr added. Towns on the Cape and Islands “need to figure out how to subsidize housing for almost all working people who don’t own a home or stand to inherit one.”

    HOUSING

    Inventory of Subsidized Units Falls Across Outer Cape

    Changes in overall unit count caused the share of affordable units to drop

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — All four Outer Cape towns have recently seen a decrease in the state’s subsidized housing inventory, or SHI, which measures how much of a community’s year-round residential housing is affordable.

    The official target is for each town to have 10 percent of its housing be affordable for people making less than 80 percent of the median household income there. Some towns, including Amherst, Cambridge, and Chelsea, have exceeded that target; about three dozen very small towns have no affordable units at all.

    On the Outer Cape, Provincetown was close to the target, with 9.7 percent in 2020. Truro was at 2.3 percent in 2020, Wellfleet at 2.5 percent, and Eastham at 4.5 percent.

    Those percentages all fell when the 2023 numbers were released. Provincetown’s affordable inventory now stands at 8 percent of the total; Truro is at 1.9 percent; Wellfleet at 2.0 percent, and Eastham at 3.7 percent.

    According to Laura Shufelt, director of community assistance at the Mass. Housing Partnership, this is because new market-rate housing has been coming online at a faster clip than new affordable housing, causing the percentage of affordable units to decline even when their absolute number hasn’t changed much.

    “Any increase in the bottom line without an equal increase in affordable housing will not keep the SHI number stable,” Shufelt said. “You have to be willing to do big projects that are all affordable in order to make any real progress. You have to outpace the market development.”

    When Restrictions Expire

    The decline is not only about the faster pace of market-rate development. A few affordable units have actually been lost.

    According to Eastham Housing Coordinator Rachel Butler, the inventory of affordable units there went from 119 in 2020 to 116 in 2023, largely because deed restrictions on five units at Gull Cottages expired.

    Provincetown has also seen a handful of affordability restrictions expire over the years, according to Deputy Housing Director Mackenzie Perry. Before the early 2010s, many affordability restrictions lasted only 40 years, Perry said, whereas most new restrictions are in force “in perpetuity.”

    Provincetown’s current SHI inventory includes 66 units with deed restrictions that will expire, with the soonest coming due in 2031 and the restrictions at 40A Nelson Ave. lasting until 2103.

    Many of those properties are owned by the Provincetown Housing Authority or nonprofits such as the Community Development Partnership and are unlikely to become market-rate units when their restrictions expire.

    Five units at 27A Conwell St. are owned by Community Housing Resource, a for-profit company, and have restrictions that will expire in 2037, however.

    One affordable ownership unit in Truro had a deed restriction that expired in 2019, according to that town’s 2020 SHI list. The rest of Truro’s units are deed-restricted in perpetuity. Ninety-five of Eastham’s 116 units have perpetual deed restrictions.

    Wellfleet did not provide the Independent with a list of its affordable units, but according to housing authority chair Elaine McIlroy, the falling percentage of affordable units there was not caused by expiring deed restrictions.

    Data Issues

    According to Shufelt, the state’s SHI formula helps explain recent changes.

    The 2023 SHI is the first to use measurements from the 2020 U.S. Census as the baseline count for “occupied housing units,” Shufelt said. A lot of people moved into vacation homes during the pandemic. Provincetown’s “occupied housing” number increased by 380 units in the 2020 census; Truro’s went up by 243, Wellfleet’s by 419, and Eastham’s by 524.

    These occupancy changes affected the SHI numbers because the state does not count seasonally occupied homes — the majority of residential properties in all four Outer Cape towns — when calculating what percentage of a town’s homes should be affordable.

    The U.S. Census considers homes reserved “for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use” to be “vacant,” and the state excludes vacant homes from its SHI formula.

    In fact, according to the formula, every time a year-round home becomes a seasonal or vacation home, the number of affordable units that town needs to reach the state’s affordability target goes down.

    The SHI formula was defined in 1968 and does not represent the housing needs of resort communities well, Shufelt told the Independent last year.

    In some communities, the SHI tally also counts many units that are not actually affordable but were built through the state’s Chapter 40B, which allows developments that are at least 25 percent affordable to access a special path through permitting.

    Every rental unit in a 40B development counts toward a town’s SHI percentage, even the market-rate rentals, according to Jennifer Gilbert, executive director of the nonprofit Mass. Housing Navigator.

    “We have to get more clear on what it means when we say ‘affordable,’ ” Gilbert told the Independent. “When people look to see if we have our 10 percent, they aren’t really looking at what is being counted.”

    The SHI was invented to decide a relatively narrow question, according to Shufelt: who will decide on appeals to 40B development permits. Those permits are contested in Land Court if a town has an SHI above 10 percent and in a state Housing Appeals Committee if it is below 10 percent, according to the 1968 law.

    One consequence of focusing too heavily on SHI, Gilbert said, is that a town may lose its path for streamlined 40B appeals before it has actually addressed its housing challenges.

    “There is a difference between achieving your 10 percent goal and creating enough affordable housing for your community,” Gilbert said.

    MASTER PLAN

    In Eastham, Housing Plan Must Wait Until 2035

    As the number of affordable units shrinks, the town has no near-term strategy

    By

    EASTHAM — It has been five years since the town bought the 11-acre T-Time property for housing and commercial development. During that time, a nine-person committee spent four years gathering community input and developing recommendations for the site with help from outside consultants. But it may be another decade before any of those plans are realized.

    Meanwhile, the town’s affordable housing inventory has been shrinking. According to recent data from the state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, 3.7 percent of the housing units in Eastham are affordable, far short of the state’s goal of 10 percent. That number is down from the 4.5 percent reported in 2020.

    It’s the question of wastewater that’s slowing progress on the housing front, according to Town Manager Jacqui Beebe.

    In a presentation to the select board on July 22, Beebe described the need to get the town’s wastewater management plans underway for the entire North Eastham Village Center Master Plan — a project that would turn a chunk of North Eastham into a walkable village center — before developers can propose appropriate housing at the T-Time site.

    The timeline Beebe presented at the meeting foresees the completion of a municipal sewer by 2029 and includes plans for three sets of apartments to be completed between 2032 and 2035.

    “I know there is a desire to see the housing part move along faster, but we can’t do that until we get wastewater going,” Beebe told the Independent.

    The North Eastham Master Plan encompasses several large infrastructure projects that include redeveloping three sites for housing, creating a commercial and community town center, and building a centralized wastewater treatment system for all of it plus a new “Main Street” roadway from Brackett Road to the T-Time property — a project being developed by Environmental Partners Group.

    The plan’s beginnings came when the town purchased the former T-Time driving range for $1.6 million in 2019. Two years later, the town purchased the 3.5-acre Town Center Plaza and soon after that began evaluating the former Council on Aging property at 1405 Nauset Road for additional housing.

    Housing is part of the vision at each location, with 40 units suggested for T-Time, 30 units at the Town Center Plaza, and 12 at the former COA. A 25,000-square-foot community center as well as retail space, community gardens, bike and pedestrian trails, a playground, and — if survey dreams are included, possibly even a municipal swimming pool — are on the list for the T-Time site.

    Eastham’s 2021 housing production plan identified an affordable housing shortage of 575 units, including 380 ownership units and 195 rental units — a total that’s seven times the number the North Eastham Master Plan would provide.

    “These are units that were needed a year or two ago when the housing production plan was done,” said Jay Coburn, CEO of the Community Development Partnership. “What is the town’s plan for providing the housing that is needed now? Will there be anybody left living year-round in Eastham or on the Outer Cape by 2035?”

    There’s a long way to go on the wastewater plan. The town voted in 2023 to allocate $6 million for design and engineering to bring sewerage along the Route 6 corridor in North Eastham as well as to Salt Pond to the south. A joint plan with Orleans for centralized treatment for properties in South Eastham is also underway.

    Design and engineering have been progressing for a year, Beebe said, and funding for wastewater treatment construction will likely come before voters next spring. But Beebe would not name a price for that work, citing the wide range of costs the project could incur. According to the executive summary of the Targeted Watershed Management Plan, estimates of the cost of the system’s construction, including a contingency, range from $107 million to $132 million.

    Beebe noted that there are many external funding sources for municipal wastewater treatment projects, including zero-percent-interest loans from the state’s revolving fund as well as a 25-percent subsidy from the Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund. Still, she said, an estimated 50 percent of the funding could come from the tax levy.

    Construction on wastewater would then begin in 2026 and go through 2029, the timeline showed.

    Once funding for wastewater is secured, “only then could we even think about releasing a housing RFP,” Beebe told the board. Beebe cited Wellfleet’s affordable housing project at 95 Lawrence Road, which won state funding only after it secured funding for a wastewater treatment facility there.

    The Lawrence Road project is being overseen by the Community Development Partnership and Cambridge-based Preservation of Affordable Housing. The CDP’s Coburn agreed that housing hinges on wastewater. “In order to build housing at the scale we need it and in a manner that is financially sustainable, there has got to be density,” he said. “Density requires there to be wastewater treatment.”

    But, he added, “You kind of need to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

    According to Beebe’s master plan timeline, a request for proposals at T-Time and Town Center Plaza will be issued in 2026.

    The town could build housing at T-Time without investing in wastewater management, Beebe said, but that would drastically reduce the number of units that could be built.

    Another reason why Beebe has spread out the timeline of the project is to spread out the funding requests to be brought before voters each year. The town is still paying off the debt from installing its municipal water system, a 10-year project that asked for a total of $130 million from voters in 2014 and 2015.

    “We are still paying for water, so we have to pace the beginning of our funding plans with the reduction of our water debt,” Beebe said.

    The town is also contracting help from Brovitz Community Planning and Dodson & Flinker Landscape Architecture & Planning for a zoning overhaul that would allow for higher density housing and commercial property in the new village center. Zoning amendments could come before voters in the spring.

    Depending on the votes on wastewater and zoning, a lot is subject to change, Beebe said. So, although the T-Time Development Committee worked for four years to put together the draft plan it presented in March 2023, which included housing type and density, none of that is set in stone.

    Instead, a decade after the T-Time purchase, that committee’s effort would be revisited: “Once we have our ducks in a row in terms of wastewater,” Beebe said, “then we can go back and look. How many units do we want? What kinds of units do we want? Do want them to be workforce? Do we want them to be affordable?”

    HOUSING

    Harbor Hill Apartments Will Not Be Sold — for Now

    A year-long effort to find a buyer is thwarted by a taxability detail

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The 28 apartments in the former timeshare complex at Harbor Hill will not be sold by the town — at least for now.

    Eugene Zhukau, an arborist and landscaper, in front of the Harbor Hill complex where he lives. (Photo by Paul Benson)

    That’s the decision reached earlier this summer by the trustees of the Year-Round Market-Rate Rental Housing Trust after a year-long exploration of how to structure the sale.

    Trust chair Austin Miller, who is also a select board member, told the board on June 10 that the trust’s decision came after the town’s bond counsel pointed out an issue with the bonds that financed the purchase in 2017.

    “Because they are nontaxable municipal bonds related to community housing, if the housing were sold, the bonds would become taxable,” he said. The bonds can’t be repaid until June 2027. If the sale didn’t fully cover the outstanding debt, the town would have to allocate more money to pay them off — or reissue them as taxable bonds.

    “This could all come up again in 2027, but it makes very little sense to sell the property prior to that,” Miller told the Independent.

    Not the Usual Affordable Housing

    The trust and the apartments it manages at Harbor Hill represent one of Provincetown’s most unusual efforts to respond to the housing crisis.

    The complex is fully occupied — as of December, there were 46 adults, 8 children, 12 dogs, and 3 cats living there — but because there is almost no state or federal money available for median-income rental housing, the town has borne the costs of the purchase and of maintenance and management on its own.

    Voters endorsed $10.7 million in borrowing to buy the apartments in 2017. Town meeting authorized $310,000 for roof replacement in April 2023, and more maintenance spending is ahead, according to Miller — about a million dollars for exterior walls is next on the list.

    To avoid saddling townspeople with further costs, the trust began researching the possibility of selling the property last August and chose John Ciluzzi of Premier Commercial as its broker in April.

    The idea, Miller said, was to deed-restrict the property to preserve its current mission: year-round rentals for people who earn too much to qualify for state-subsidized affordable housing but who still struggle to find a secure home in Provincetown. Year-round rentals have all but disappeared here, and the median single-family house price in 2023 was over $2 million, according to the Cape Cod and Islands Association of Realtors.

    The trust’s charter is to address the housing needs of people who earn between 80 and 200 percent of the county’s median income; 80 percent of the median is $70,950 for a one-person household or $81,050 for two people, while the 200-percent threshold is $177,400 for one person and $202,700 for two people.

    In preparing to advertise the complex, the trust wanted to leave the specifics of price and deed restriction as negotiables, Miller said — including whether the apartments should be limited to people in certain income brackets or how quickly a new owner would be allowed to raise rents on current tenants.

    How to do that was what they hoped to discuss with Ciluzzi, Miller said: “What are the potential trade-offs between the public purpose of the project and avoiding displacement of current tenants versus how the town can recover its investment and redeploy those funds.”

    Those trade-offs could have been measured in millions of dollars, as strong deed restrictions would likely depress the price buyers might have offered.

    Bringing Management in-House

    The decision to explore a sale had partly come about because the town has had trouble arranging for property management services at Harbor Hill.

    The nonprofit Community Development Partnership was the only bidder on the town’s first request for services in 2018, and nobody bid when the town put out a new request in 2021, said CDP CEO Jay Coburn.

    The CDP’s contract was extended under its original terms several times, but in August that agreement will end, and the town’s newly expanded housing office will handle Harbor Hill’s waitlist and income certifications. The town will seek bidders for a maintenance-only contract soon, Miller said.

    Kristin Hatch, who has been the part-time executive director of the Provincetown Housing Authority since 2018, was hired for a part-time position supporting the trust and the housing office in March. Like Rachel Butler, who was hired by Eastham to help manage that town’s affordable housing, Hatch has years of experience with the arcana of income certification and procurement law.

    “I called Rachel shortly after I was hired, and she said that Eastham had taken property management in-house and was also using rental income from the town-owned units to help pay the salary of a new person in their DPW who does maintenance at their properties,” Hatch said.

    “I think it would take time to do something like that, and we need to go out for proposals for maintenance right now,” she said. “But I do think in-house work is like paying a wholesale price while going out to bid is like paying the retail price.”

    Coburn said that there are risks to towns that go into the property management business, particularly when key people retire. The nonprofit Preservation of Affordable Housing has 30 staffers doing property management on Cape Cod, he said. “There’s redundancy there, a deep bench of people,” which Provincetown and Eastham won’t have, Coburn said.

    THE TALK IN TRURO

    In Winter’s Civics Vortex, Reviewing a Meeting That Might Have Been

    Voters talk about their reactions to a special town meeting that was postponed

    By

    TRURO — The buzz about the special town meeting was not put off until May 4 — even if the meeting itself was. Debate over its two most controversial subjects, a new dept. of public works facility and the development of affordable housing at the Walsh property, has continued, eddying on Facebook and in real life.

    In this town where the post office serves as a kind of town center, a reporter stationed herself there for several hours on Friday, Jan. 19 and Monday, Jan. 29, hoping to tap into this winter’s civic vortex by asking those who came in for their letters and packages what they thought might have happened at the special town meeting if it had taken place in the fall.

    Of the 13 people interviewed, most said they had gone to the Nov. 28 meeting. They wanted to weigh in on plans for the Walsh property and the DPW facility.

    (Initially scheduled for Oct. 21, the meeting was postponed several times, with a fourth and final continuance on Nov. 28 after more than 700 voters turned out — a number beyond the capacity of the spaces at the Truro Central School.)

    Though they offered varied reasons for their guesses, and would have voted differently from one another, most said they thought the Walsh proposal would likely have been approved, while the $35-million proposal for the DPW was destined to be defeated.

    Parameters for development on a portion of the 70-acre Walsh property, which has been in the works since the town bought the land in 2019, comprise three of the meeting warrant’s 15 articles.

    Those 15 special town meeting articles will, come May 4, be considered back-to-back with the new items on the town’s annual town meeting warrant.

    The first of the Walsh articles proposes adoption of 18 recommendations put forward by the Walsh Property Community Planning Committee and consultants. If that resolution passes, the town will use it as a guide for soliciting proposals from developers on construction of affordable housing, asking them to meet the goal of building up to 160 housing units on 28 acres — a number significantly reduced from the committee’s earlier plans.

    A second article calls for the establishment of a six-member ad hoc advisory committee to act as liaison between town officials and the community as development plans get underway. A similar petitioned article is also on the warrant.

    The DPW is the subject of four articles up for consideration: one that would authorize the use of 340 Route 6 — next to the police and fire station — as the site of the new facility, and two mutually exclusive articles for the appropriation of either $35 million or $3.5 million for the project. The larger sum would fund the entire project from engineering through construction; the smaller amount would cover engineering only. There is also a petitioned article aiming to have the existing Town Hall Road facility refurbished according to a plan put forward by a group of volunteers.

    Of the $35-million DPW proposal, “People don’t want to spend that money,” said artist Diane Messinger, who had arrived at the November meeting an hour early and was among the 523 voters who made it inside the school building.

    Apryl Shenk, who is coordinator of the town’s community preservation committee, agreed that the ambitious DPW plan wouldn’t pass muster with voters, though for her the reason was evident before a price tag was attached: “People in town don’t feel the relocation is a necessary change,” said Shenk. “The DPW is a big one and I feel that a lot of people want to go with the existing location.” She cited worry about “detriment to the environment of creating a new space.”

    Truro’s DPW director, Jarrod Cabral, has said the current facility at 17 Town Hall Road is no longer meeting the DPW’s needs.

    “My feeling based on what I heard is the DPW project is a bit too rich,” said Martha Magane, a Truro Public Library trustee who will count votes this spring, as she has for the past six years.

    Of the Walsh property, Magane said it seemed to her that affordable housing “is up there in terms of importance” for people. She wondered, though, if that view held beyond her circle of friends.

    The post office crowd concurred. “The local population showed up and seemed to be very in favor of affordable housing,” said Tim Dickey, a builder and musician. He was among the 200 people waiting outside in the cold when the meeting got postponed. Dickey, who said he showed up specifically to vote in favor of housing development, went to grade school in Truro in the early 1960s.

    “I think there’s a lot of grassroots support for keeping the town viable,” Dickey said. Otherwise, he said, “no one’s going to be able to get anything done.”

    Robert Ross, a retired medical writer who said he made it inside the gymnasium just as the postponement vote was taking place, was hoping to raise his card in support of the Walsh property housing plan — and was expecting to be among the majority.

    “I think that Truro should be a functioning town,” he said. “To live in the town, you need to have housing for people who work in the town. We need teachers to be able to live here.”

    Ross identified himself as “on the side of young people, working people, and we need more of them.”

    Ross had also been planning to vote yes on the more expensive DPW article, though with less certainty. “I’m agnostic on the issue of the DPW,” he said, “but we have to support the government, because otherwise what are we?”

    Messinger thought the Walsh article “might have passed by a slim majority,” though she herself was planning to vote against it. She said she thought that the development at the Cloverleaf in North Truro, now projected to include 43 units, should be enough new housing for the town. She said she could envision a “much smaller” development on the Walsh property.

    Messinger said she doesn’t like it that her being opposed to the Walsh project makes people think she’s against affordable housing. “It’s important to listen to the housing people,” she said. “They have some reasonable thoughts.” She named Betty Gallo, a Walsh committee member who favors the development plan, as someone whose views she holds in high regard.

    Four people interviewed by the Independent who would not give their names said they were against the Walsh development article.

    Donna Turley, an attorney who works on Land Court cases, said she thought the Walsh article was unlikely to pass, given the amount of opposition she’d heard, though she said she’s in favor of it. Like most others, Turley was confident that the $35 million allocation for a new DPW facility wouldn’t pass, though she was going to vote yes.

    Jo Citron, a retired attorney and Wellesley College professor, said inadequate information on both of the big questions in the leadup to the special town meeting was an issue. “I think that the town did a terrible job explaining, publicizing, and rationalizing the reasons for what they wanted,” she said of the siting and plan for the new DPW.

    Citron said she was going to vote against the Walsh article because, without enough information, she was left with “too many questions.”

    Take Back Truro, which describes itself as a “citizens’ movement” whose goals include “keeping Truro rural” did not fill the information gap, Citron said, because she thought the group was “deliberately vague about its origins and agenda. I think their efforts created a lot of dissension.”

    Nor did she feel she could look to the Truro Part-Time Resident Taxpayers Association for clarity.

    “As a long-time member of TPRTA before I moved here full-time, I think it was outrageous for them to urge people to vote knowing, as they must have done, that it was unlawful,” Citron said. “I think that, more than anything else, created confusion, dissension, and bad feeling.”

    Ross and Shenk also raised concerns about the spread of misinformation. When it comes to opinions about the Walsh plans, “conjecture and hearsay are a big part of the problem,” Shenk said.

    Shenk, who declined to say how she would have voted, grew up in Provincetown. “I’ve always said if I were to write a book about growing up in Provincetown, I was going to call it ‘The Grapevine’ because of how word travels,” she said — adding that “word” is not always news. Sometimes, she said, it’s just “assumption.”

    For Eben Tsapis, Tuesday, Nov. 28 was a work night, so he couldn’t make it out to brave the line outside the school. He hopes May will be a different story.

    “I think the youthful generations need to step up,” he said. “We’re either going to be pushed out or make room for ourselves.”

    AFFORDABLE HOUSING

    Truro’s Cloverleaf Faces up to $7M Funding Shortfall

    Developer asks to increase the number of units from 39 to 43

    By

    TRURO — Construction at the Cloverleaf project at 22 Highland Road has yet to begin, seven years after the state transferred the 3.9-acre property to the town specifically for affordable housing. The development’s total cost is now projected to be $27 million to $28 million, leaving the project with a funding shortfall of between $4 million and $7 million, according to developer Ted Malone.

    A schematic drawing of the Cloverleaf project showing 13 buildings with 39 units. Developer Ted Malone proposes increasing the number of units to 43. (Image courtesy Town of Truro)

    In December 2022, when the project received more than $16 million from the state Dept. of Housing and Community Development, construction was expected to begin in summer 2023.

    Several factors contributing to the delay, Malone said, include increased construction costs and the effect of higher interest rates on the developer’s borrowing ability.

    “The impact of interest rates getting up to 6, 7, 8 percent reduces the amount that we can borrow with the same amount of cash flow that the development has,” Malone said. He is the founder and president of Community Housing Resource of Provincetown, the developer of numerous affordable housing projects on the Outer Cape, including Sally’s Way in Truro.

    Construction costs first shot up because of supply-chain hitches during Covid, but there was hope that they would drop again, he said. That didn’t happen. “What we had hoped would return to normal has just been increased construction costs even though the supply is fine,” Malone said.

    Costs have also risen because Truro is so remote, he added. “Funding sources don’t consider our costs to construct to be as high as in metro Boston,” though that’s not accurate, he said. Malone pointed specifically to the qualified allocation plan for the low-income housing tax credit program released by the Mass. Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. Finding workers and large contractors is an obstacle on the Outer Cape, he said.

    According to the comprehensive permit issued by the zoning board of appeals, the Cloverleaf development’s 39 units will serve a mixed-income community, with tiered median income restrictions of 30, 60, and 100 percent. The project as approved would include 12 duplexes with a total of 24 units and a 15-unit apartment building. There would be a combination of one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments.

    But on Tuesday Malone said he had submitted a request to the ZBA for a small increase in the number of units, from 39 to 43. The development’s footprint and the total number of bedrooms wouldn’t change, said Malone. Rather, four of the planned three-bedroom units would be split into one- and two-bedroom units.

    That modification would not only better meet the need on the Cape, where there is less demand for three-bedroom units, he said, but may also help with securing additional funding. “All of these units would have to be in the lower income tier to get the subsidy resources that we want,” said Malone.

    The developer is asking the ZBA to consider the alteration “an insubstantial change,” which the board can decide “within the context of their original approval,” Malone said. If that request is denied, the ZBA will have to hold a public hearing on the change.

    Plans for wastewater treatment and stormwater drainage will not change, according to Malone. “All of that has got to stay the way it is because that had rigorous review,” he said.

    About a year ago, the project received $1.3 million in ARPA funds, Malone said. “That helped, but costs have continued to go up since then.”

    Community Housing Resource is newly working with the Waltham-based contractor Delphi Construction. Malone said they are in the process of “value engineering, trying to make the construction more efficient, less expensive, finding areas where maybe we can save.” The proposed shift in the number of units is part of that process.

    “Cloverleaf is a case study in why small-scale mixed-income housing development is so challenging to realize,” said state Sen. Julian Cyr. “It is incredibly disheartening that the state transferred this parcel to Truro seven years ago and not a shovel has gone into the ground.”

    Malone hopes he won’t have to wait until town meeting in May to secure more funds because that would further delay construction. But it’s unclear whether there is more money available from the town’s Affordable Housing Trust, he said, and funds are scarce at the county level. There are also possible state avenues, like the Rural and Small Town Development Fund, whose grants might help with “the hard costs of infrastructure,” Malone said.

    Town Manager Darrin Tangeman said he has been working since December to schedule a meeting with Cyr, state Rep. Sarah Peake, and Malone to discuss funding possibilities. The meeting is likely to take place on Jan. 29, Tangeman said Tuesday.

    “To date, the town of Truro has not had to spend a significant amount of money to realize Cloverleaf, aside from legal fees related to frivolous lawsuits that were thrown out of court,” said Cyr. To realize future small or medium-size mixed-income developments, he said, “Truro may need to follow the example of Provincetown, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard towns that have made direct appropriations in the budget to subsidize housing.”

    The waiting list for the 16 units at Sally’s Way currently has about 200 people on it, according to Kevin Grunwald, chair of the Truro Housing Authority. That’s a “ballpark” number, he noted.

    Tangeman feels the urgent need for housing in his town hall office.

    “I’m seeing the challenges of recruiting town employees due to the lack of affordable or even workforce housing in Truro and in the region,” he said, mentioning the shortage of health-care workers as well. The struggle to recruit workers “is playing a role in my support” for the Cloverleaf project, he added.

    Malone is hoping to see sufficient funds committed by August, with shovels in the ground by September. Construction is currently projected to take 22 months, he said.

    “I’ve been such a big fan of having at-scale development at Walsh and other parcels across the region because we can maximize state and federal resources that are available,” Cyr said. “Even once we cut the ribbon on Cloverleaf, we’ll still have a major housing crisis here.”

    AFFORDABLE HOUSING

    Two Small Housing Projects Make Slow Progress

    Properties bought by the town 18 months ago need at least another year

    By

    EASTHAM — It will be at least another year before two properties the town voted to buy in May 2022 and convert into affordable housing will be ready for tenants, said Town Administrator Jacqui Beebe. The drawn-out and costly process of renovation to create what will likely be six units in this case illustrates how small-scale affordable housing efforts can soak up scarce time and resources— at least according to some housing advocates.

    AFFORDABLE HOUSING

    Paine Hollow Project Delayed for Another Year

    Wellfleet withdraws RFP for 90 Freeman Ave. house

    By

    WELLFLEET — The nearly two-decade-long delay, caused by abutters’ lawsuits, of an affordable housing development at 120 Paine Hollow Road just got longer.

    Developer Ted Malone received word from Assistant Town Administrator Rebecca Roughley on May 31 that the project would be delayed another year, this time because the town had to withdraw an application for predevelopment funding from the state. Roughley cited competing applications with the 95 Lawrence Road project and a lack of staff to administer the grant, according to Malone.

    Malone’s plans to build eight units on the five-acre site were opposed by neighbors after the town selected his company, Community Housing Resource, to develop the site for affordable housing in 2006. Abutters first appealed an order of conditions from the conservation commission that year, arguing that wastewater from the units would contaminate their wells.

    The Dept. of Environmental Protection sided with the conservation commission, and the abutters lost the case in 2008 after further appeals. By that time, economic conditions created by the Great Recession made development impossible.

    Malone began again in 2017 with a new proposal for the project under the state’s Chapter 40B, which allows zoning boards to streamline review in communities where affordable housing inventory is less than 10 percent of total housing stock. Wellfleet is at 2.5 percent.

    After slight changes to the plan that included reducing the slope of the development’s driveway from 15 to 12 percent at the behest of abutters and Fire Chief Richard Pauley, the board granted Malone a comprehensive permit. Abutters then sued the zoning board.

    A four-year court battle ended in 2021 with a settlement that required Malone to undertake extensive infrastructure work on the property. That included further reducing the slope of the driveway to 10 percent, which required Malone to lengthen the driveway. The agreement also included the relocation of a septic system and one of the two buildings and the installation of fencing between the development and neighboring properties.

    “The redesign from the settlement with abutters requires a significant amount of site work, adding to the costs,” Malone said. He said that he had received $175,000 in Community Preservation Act funds for predevelopment site work, but the costs will be much higher than that. “The only way to make it financially feasible is to have the town access further funding sources,” Malone said.

    The town’s application for the project through the MassWorks Infrastructure Program would have requested an additional $822,000, Malone said. But because Wellfleet is also pursuing funds for wastewater treatment at the 95 Lawrence Road project, Roughley told Malone it would not be possible to apply for both projects.

    “I received an email saying that Lawrence Road was a priority, and Paine Hollow would have to wait,” Malone said. “I can see the rationale, since there will be more units there,” he added.

    The deadline for the application was June 2. Malone will have to wait until next year for the town to apply again, and he can’t proceed with seeking development funds until he has secured funding for the infrastructure work.

    Competition between local projects poses a unique challenge for affordable housing development on Cape Cod, said housing authority Chair Elaine McIlroy. “Because we have all these projects going on, unfortunately there will be competition,” she said. “A smaller project like Paine Hollow is going to be more challenged to get funding than bigger projects.”

    There is also a lot of regional competition, said Jay Coburn, CEO of the Community Development Partnership, which is partnering with Preservation of Affordable Housing to develop the 46 units at 95 Lawrence Road. That project was recently passed over for state funding from the Dept. of Housing and Community Development.

    “The state is under great pressure to fund projects throughout the Commonwealth,” Coburn told the Wellfleet Select Board on June 6. The DHCD received over 100 requests in its most recent funding round, Coburn said; only 20 to 30 projects typically receive funding.

    Roughley also stated in her email to Malone that Wellfleet’s staffing shortage would make it difficult to administer the grant. Roughley, who is the town’s procurement officer, has resigned as of the end of June.

    “It’s unfortunate that we finally cleared a very long and drawn-out court process only for the project to be delayed due to our staffing issues,” said select board Chair Ryan Curley. “This project has been snake-bitten with delays.”

    Malone was more optimistic: “I’m not too worried about the delay,” he said. “The town is going through hard times, and it has to make hard decisions.”

    Roughley’s resignation precipitated the withdrawal of an RFP for a master plan for housing at Maurice’s Campground. And the housing authority decided not to issue an RFP for the construction of a single-family affordable home at 90 Freeman Ave. after Roughley announced her resignation.

    “We were really close to issuing that RFP, but now that we don’t have a contracting officer, it’s on hold,” said housing authority member Gary Sorkin.

    That RFP was a couple of years in the making, said McIlroy, but without a procurement officer, “we can’t really advance the project at this time.”

    There are still houses on the horizon, McIlroy said. Habitat for Humanity will begin construction in September on four single-family affordable houses on a 3-acre site on Old King’s Highway.

    “Affordable housing is a slow process,” McIlroy said. “The delays are just par for the course.”

    HOUSING

    Revised Plan at VFW Prioritizes Lower-Income Units

    To qualify for state funding, the number of middle-income units is reduced

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — In an emergency session on Jan. 17 the select board approved a revision of the planned mix of units at the affordable housing development to be built at 3 Jerome Smith Road.

    The former VFW building at 3 Jerome Smith Road was sold to the town in 2013 and demolished in 2021. (Photo by Paul Benson)

    The 65 apartments will still be laid out as before, with the same mix of studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units — but rules governing who can live in the apartments had to be changed, according to Lindsey Gael and Andrew Waxman of The Community Builders (TCB), the nonprofit developer that won the right to build the project in October 2021.

    At that time, Town Manager Alex Morse and other members of the bid review committee had cited TCB’s willingness to include middle-income units as a key factor in their winning application.

    Middle-income units are notoriously hard to build, however. Most state and federal programs that support affordable rental housing are for people with incomes below 80 percent of area median income (AMI), a number that is calculated every year by the federal government. For Barnstable County in 2022, the median income is $76,100 for a single person and $87,000 for two people.

    The site at 3 Jerome Smith Road will become the home of 65 apartments, 61 of which will be rented at affordable rates. (Photo by Paul Benson)

    Rental housing for people with incomes above 80 percent of the median is funded by just one state program with relatively small subsidies — and TCB told the select board that the “workforce housing” formula was going to cap its support to Provincetown’s renters at 80 percent of median income in any case.

    Renting to those earning more would disqualify the project both for the low-income housing tax credit and for workforce funding, Waxman said.

    Instead, TCB recommended a strategy of maximizing federal dollars and minimizing the amount required from the state to make the project more likely to win a competition that began on that same day, Jan. 17, Gael said.

    The revised plan allocates 13 units for people earning less than 30 percent of AMI ($22,830 for one person), up from nine. There will be 32 units, not 36, for people earning between 30 and 60 percent of AMI. And the 16 units that had been reserved for people earning between 80 and 120 percent of AMI — $60,900 to $91,320 for one person — will now be for tenants making 80 percent of AMI or less.

    The four market-rate rental units will remain unregulated as to income, Gael said.

    Select board members worried that the new income mix would exclude middle-income earners, including many town employees who are struggling to find secure housing here.

    In response to this concern, Gael said that “there are municipal employees, even teachers, teachers’ assistants, who are eligible for these units. Eighty percent is a workforce tier.”

    Gael also said that the four unrestricted units planned could also serve as higher AMI workforce housing.

    Despite its concerns, the select board approved the revised plan unanimously.

    “We need a lot more than 65 units,” said select board member Louise Venden. “We probably need more like 300 units.

    “Picking away at whether and how and which level” units the new project would now include is one course of action, Venden added, but “if we shifted those numbers, we would still be meeting a very important community need.”

    Paul Benson contributed reporting.

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