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housing

    HEADS & BEDS

    With Rates Up, There Are No Rooms for Workers

    Tourists will need to pack their patience

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The new executive director of the Provincetown Business Guild does not have a place to live for the summer.

    Stephan Hengst, who was hired in January to fill the position vacated by Bob Sanborn, is from Ulster Park, N.Y., where he ran Big Gay Hudson Valley, a LGBTQ promotional organization. He said he has temporary housing in Provincetown until May and a “strong lead” but nothing definite for the summer. So, along with the challenges of a new job, there is “the stress of having no place to stay,” he said.

    “Working remotely is not even possible for this job,” Hengst told the Independent on April 8. The job involves planning, promoting, and executing LGBTQ events and themed weeks, from Family Week to Carnival. These events range in intensity and the amount of hands-on preparation needed. Some will call for “crafternoons” of float-building and costuming, Hengst said.

    PBG President Fred Latasa-Nicks, who owns Strangers & Saints, said the nonprofit has been exploring the idea of turning the small condominium used as the organization’s office for the last 20 years or so into a place for the executive director to live. But so far, the majority of members in the nine-unit condominium association at 3 Freeman St. are opposed to the plan, Latasa-Nicks said, even though some people do already live in the building.

    Hannah McCormick, the owner of Hannah’s Headlines, a hair salon at 3 Freeman St., said the trustees are meeting about the issue soon, so she did not want to comment.

    Strong Season Ahead

    For the tourists who have been cooped up by Covid-19 for two years, this summer looks like a return to normalcy, and they seem ready to spend money on a vacation. That is reflected by room occupancy rates and hotel and short-term rental prices, which are all up.

    Data from AirDNA, which tracks short-term rental prices and occupancy, show that the average daily rate for a Provincetown rental is currently $480. That’s not much of a change from last summer, when the average rate was $493 a night. But it is a big jump from 2019, when it was $375.

    Stephan Hengst, the new executive director of the Provincetown Business Guild, stands outside the PBG office on Freeman Street. The organization would like to turn the office into a place for him to live. So far, the condominium association will not allow it. (Photo by K.C. Myers)

    Hotel and motel high season rates don’t look much different from short-term rentals. A room at the Provincetown Inn in July and August starts at $350 a night and most will top $400, depending on supply and demand, said Derek Evans, general manager of the waterfront lodging in the far West End.

    Other rates advertised for a July weekend include $489 a night at the Harbor Hotel at 698 Commercial St.; $589 a night at AWOL, formerly the Inn at the Moors, at 59 Province Lands Rd.; and $330 a night at the Brasswood Inn at 174 Commercial St. The Land’s End Inn is running $465 to $735 a night, and the Brass Key Guesthouse at 67 Bradford St. has summer rates ranging from $399 to $825 a night.

    “All signs indicate it will be a good summer,” said Radu Luca, executive director of the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce. Short-term rental reservations for spring and summer are 20 percent up compared to last year and around 130 percent over 2020, Luca said, and hotels and motels are doing well, too.

    But, he added, “I am trying to stay cautious. There is always the bogeyman in the closet — workforce housing.”

    Business owners are feeling queasy about a related problem: a shortage of employees. Luca said temporary J-1 and H-2B foreign worker visas are available to bring over students and nonagricultural workers. But there are not enough places to put them, Luca said.

    “The staff shortage is not going to get any better,” said Athena McGrath, a AAA travel agent. “Everyone has to pack a little of their patience when they come to the Cape.”

    Latasa-Nicks said he has room at his property for about eight Strangers & Saints staff members to live, starting this month. And like many business owners, he leases additional rooms offsite. “Last year, I rented a unit for $2,000 a month and I charged the employee about $750,” he said.

    The real endangered species are those trying to live here year-round, Latasa-Nicks said. “There is a big difference between those who come here for the summer to earn money and the people who are trying to build a life here,” he said.

    Dan McKeon, who administers the Facebook page “Ptown Residents: Seeking Year-Round Housing,” said this year “is really bad, and it is the worst I have seen.”

    He has at least 75 people he is working to connect with a room or a unit. Recently, he said, someone was offering a 600-square-foot first-floor apartment for $25,000 upfront for the season on Creek Hill Road.

    McKeon had some advice for those who think they have found a bargain: renter beware. He has had to screen out scammers offering fake rentals designed to extract advance payments from those desperate to find a place to stay, he said.

    CONTRACTS

    Wellfleet Couple Says Builder Swindled Them

    Laws addressing contractor fraud do not offer much protection

    By

    WELLFLEET — John and Ella Grannis retired from their small bookselling business in Montclair, N.J. in 2019 and moved to the Outer Cape to renovate a family summer cottage. Now, at 73, John works 65 hours a week for Cape Cab, and the couple live in a winter rental in Eastham.

    From a distance, the Grannises’ house at 3075 Baker Ave. looks like a newly finished Cape with fresh cedar shingles. But the interior is nowhere near complete; its frame shows signs of the builder’s errors. Wall studs have warped throughout the structure. Doors hang crooked in their frames, and many windows show signs of moisture penetration.

    At least one load-bearing post is missing, Wellfleet Building Commissioner James Badera said in January when he inspected the house. Badera refused to comment for this article, but Ella Grannis recorded a video of his inspection.

    “There are so many deficiencies, I would need an engineer to provide a document showing what needs to be done to bring this up to code and have it be structurally acceptable,” Badera said during the inspection.

    The Grannises claim their builder, Dan Morse of Raynham, swindled them out of $230,000, leaving them with the unfinished and structurally unsound shell of a house. They say they have moved five times in the past 18 months and are preparing to do so again when their current lease expires in May.

    Builders left materials at the couple’s unfinished house. A camping trailer belonging to contractor Donald Harris also remains. (Photo by Nancy Bloom)

    “We’re seeing our retirement dream dissolve before our eyes,” John said.

    According to the state’s consumer affairs office, Morse has an active contractor’s license and there are no complaints against him on record.

    Morse did not respond to the Independent’s request for comment.

    A Major Renovation

    John Grannis and his siblings inherited the Wellfleet cottage from their parents, who had owned it since 1960. John and Ella bought out the siblings’ shares, then sold their house in New Jersey to fund the rebuilding project. According to plans filed with the town building department, the Grannises intended to replace the 900-square-foot seasonal cottage with a 1,700-square-foot year-round house.

    The Grannises say their architect, Keith Betty of Barnstable, recommended Morse’s company, Elite Property Services of New England, among several others. But Betty denied recommending the company, and he hung up on a reporter when asked how he knew Dan Morse.

    According to the contract, which was signed on May 22, 2020, the entire renovation project was to be finished in five months. But by October, when no crew had arrived to carry out demolition work, Ella became suspicious. “I got a feeling that these people had taken our money and just vanished,” she said.

    The couple began to do some research on how to proceed. “But then they showed up and started working,” John said, and their fears were allayed.

    When Morse’s crew demolished the house in October 2020, the town clerk informed the owners that Morse had not obtained a permit. A stop-work order was issued.

    According to the state’s Home Improvement Contractor Law, a contractor may not collect more than one-third of the total project cost in advance. The Grannises say they paid Morse $90,000 of the $268,175 contract (33.6 percent) in July, before the work started.

    The Grannises paid Morse another $85,000 in February 2021 after he began framing the new house. In total, they gave Morse $232,000.

    “Unfortunately, it happens a lot,” said Nelson Miller, president of the Mass. Building Commissioners & Inspectors Association, of the situation the Grannises are facing.

    “Most of the time, it never makes the news because the amounts are not that high,” said Miller. “The victims can be older, but there are a lot of younger people who get scammed, too, because they don’t understand what to expect from their builder.”

    Miller said payments should never be made based on a percentage of the job to be completed but should rather be based on the completion of small, specific tasks, such as payment for demolition, for framing materials, then windows, and so on. When the materials arrive and the work is completed, the home owner can feel confident in making the next small payment.

    A Dream Deferred

    As spring turned to summer, John said, “the project suffered a sort of slow-motion abandonment.”

    Donald Harris of New England Facilities Management Group Inc. in Raynham, whose   construction supervisor license Morse used to obtain a building permit, offered last summer to bring a camping trailer to the site for the Grannises to live in. The trailer is still on the property. But neither Morse nor his crew have been there since the fall, the owners said.

    The Grannises plan to file a lawsuit and they have hired a new builder. “My hope is to stay here,” said Ella. “My husband worked a lifetime to be able to retire here and to die here.”

    John and Ella Grannis on the second floor of their unfinished house. The couple’s builder installed bedroom windows that were too small to escape through in case of a fire, so they put a window in the closet. (Photo by Nancy Bloom)

    In addition to project-related costs, the couple say they are currently spending $3,000 in monthly rent and storage fees.

    “I rue the day we agreed to have that beautiful little cottage demolished,” John said. “If I could go back in time, I would just leave it that way.”

    The state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation website offers advice on how to avoid contractor scams. Consumers should read it carefully, because laws addressing contractor fraud do not offer much protection.

    A builder who accepted money but completed no work could be charged criminally, said Wellfleet Police Chief Mike Hurley. But, Hurley added, “If service has begun, if a nail has been driven, if a piece of wood has been purchased, the issue leaves the criminal domain and enters the civil.” He recommended that anyone in that situation hire an attorney.

    Even if a home owner wins a civil case against a contractor, however, there is no guarantee the builder will pay. In that case, the state offers grants of up to $10,000 from the Home Improvement Contractor Guaranty Fund.

    HOUSING

    Truro’s ‘Little Jamaica’ to Become Worker Housing

    Some of the Prince of Whales’s 26 units may be used for vacation rentals

    By

    TRURO — Before Covid-19, summer evenings at 104 Shore Road hummed with restaurant-goers at Terra Luna, and, later in the night, seasonal workers would return to the clapboard cottages on that same property. Officially, this row of housing units goes by the name Prince of Whales. But the workers who lived there summer after summer nicknamed it “Little Jamaica,” recalled Janet “Big Mama” Hewitt.

    Hewitt left Jamaica in 2001 and lived at the Prince of Whales for 16 or so years. She’d spend her days sweeping floors and scrubbing dishes at Provincetown’s Post Office Cafe and Tin Pan Alley. After clocking out, she’d head back to North Truro, pull out a chair, and sit under the stars, shooting the breeze with her neighbors. They’d often cook together and chat while doing loads of laundry outside. They’d play music on people’s birthdays.

    “It reminded me of Jamaica,” Hewitt said. “God, I miss it so much.”

    The cottages at the Prince of Whales in Truro are being renovated for occupancy this summer. The new owner, Lexvest Group, plans to house summer employees in them. (Photo by Jasmine Lu)

    For the past two years, the Prince of Whales has been vacant — a ghost town compared to those lively Little Jamaica days. Mattresses are now scattered about the lot, lying flat on the ground and slumped against cottage walls.

    The cottage colony is scheduled for a makeover soon. On Dec. 20, 2021, the Lexvest Group, a real estate development and investment company based in Maynard, purchased 104 Shore Road from Fred Sateriale for $1,375,000. Lexvest has renovated other cottage colonies up and down Shore Road, converting them into condominiums, including those at East Harbour, the Shoreline, and Sutton Place. The company also runs the Cape Colony Inn and Breakwater Hotel in Provincetown.

    The 26 units in the Prince of Whales’s 17 cottages and two larger buildings will have one of three uses: housing for Lexvest’s own employees, housing for others’ employees, and rentals for vacationers. How these units will be divvied up among these categories has not yet been determined, said Eric Shapiro, Lexvest’s chief executive officer.

    “Our foremost goal is to provide housing for the workforce that we need to operate our business, and if we can provide housing for others, we’ll do that,” Shapiro said. “But it’s a balancing act because Fred, as any owner does, had a financial number that he needed to receive in order to sell this property. And in order to make that work, it’s a balance of providing workforce housing and some vacation rentals.”

    Shapiro said he had not figured out the maximum potential occupancy yet, but “the general rule of thumb,” he said, “is two people per bedroom.”

    Workforce Housing

    Shapiro’s Provincetown and Truro roots date back to his grandfather, who fished here in the 1930s and 1940s and eventually moved his family to the Cape. Shapiro summered here with his children.

    For years, he resisted going into real estate on the Outer Cape. “I was trying to avoid it because it was a place where I came to relax and not work,” he said. “But often I felt like a doctor driving by a bleeding patient. I felt like I had the tools and the ability to improve the neighborhood and community.”

    The Prince of Whales, he said, has an up-to-code septic system. The property’s electrical system is “in pretty good shape,” Shapiro said. Next up for Lexvest is working through a pile of “deferred maintenance” to-dos: cleaning up a fair amount of rot, replacing broken windows, fixing roofs, and “beefing up” some structural components.

    His goal is to have units available for the 2022 season, when Lexvest employs up to 50 people to operate the company’s more than 100 hotel rooms and 30 rental properties. “These people need a place to live that’s affordable,” Shapiro said. “And unfortunately, the area doesn’t have many options, so we’re trying to manage and deal with that ourselves.”

    Lexvest, in the past, has set aside some of its housing stock — “at quite a cost,” Shapiro added — for its own workers. These include spaces in the company’s hotels and rentals.

    “That’s why we decided to purchase the Prince of Whales,” he said. “There are 26 units that will allow us to control our destiny with respect to workforce housing. We’re not planning on tearing down units to build luxury units.”

    Terra Luna, meanwhile, will “continue to operate,” Shapiro said. “No changes expected.”

    An Ode to ‘Little Jamaica’

    Sateriale took over the 104 Shore Road property in 1986, just as the H-2B visa program began. The same year, state Sen. Julian Cyr’s parents moved their restaurant Adrian’s to where Terra Luna is today. They operated it until 1992.

    “The first H-2B visa employees who worked in my parents’ restaurant actually lived at the Prince of Whales during the summers,” Cyr told the Independent.

    Rent at the Prince of Whales, Hewitt recalled, was originally $60 per week, but Sateriale gave tenants leeway if money was tight, particularly in the springtime when businesses were revving back up. “No rush,” Hewitt remembered him telling her neighbors. “When you have the money, you can pay me first month’s rent.”

    Sateriale, who sold the Breakwater Hotel to Shapiro, declined to comment for this article.

    Eventually, as the repairs and maintenance on the property began to mount, Sateriale needed to bump up the rent to $100 per week. “But we had no problem with that,” Hewitt said. “He took good care of us.”

    Shapiro declined to provide an estimate of monthly rates at the Prince of Whales when it is available for occupancy.

    Last season, with the cottages closed down, Hewitt went from paying $400 monthly in Little Jamaica to $500 monthly to sleep on a couch. Currently, she’s working in New York City, but she hopes to circle back to Commercial Street this summer — if she can find a place to live.

    TRURO: THIS WEEK'S CURRENTS

    Rental Assistance

    By

    Most meetings in Truro are remote. Go to truro-ma.gov and click on the meeting you want to watch. The agenda includes instructions on how to join.

    Thursday, Feb. 24

    • Economic Development Construction and Tradesman Focus Group, 4:40 p.m.

    Monday, Feb. 28

    • Local Comprehensive Plan Committee, 10 a.m.
    • Zoning Board of Appeals, 5:30 p.m.

    Tuesday, March 1

    • Select Board and Board of Health, 3:30 p.m.
    • Charter Review Committee, 4:15 p.m.
    • Board of Health, 4:30 p.m.

    Wednesday, March 2

    • Planning Board, 5 p.m.
    • Walsh Property Community Planning Committee, 6:30 p.m.

    Conversation Starters

    Rental Assistance

    The select board voted unanimously on Feb. 8 to expand the emergency rental assistance program to allow town employees who aren’t Truro residents to be eligible for the aid.

    The expansion is intended to promote both hiring and retention of employees, though Betty Gallo, the vice chair of the Truro Housing Authority, said that she and the board “don’t expect there’s going to be many people” taking part in the program.

    Still, she hopes the decision will help “maybe one or two” employees to continue working for the town instead of leaving their jobs because of unaffordable rents. For those scouting out positions in Truro, this rental assistance may “convince them to come take a job,” Gallo added.

    As for the rental assistance program at large, “we are off to a good start,” said Gallo. Three Truro households have signed on, she told the board. Two of these are single people, and one is a senior. The third household is made up of a parent and a teenage child.

    Of the $30,000 in the program from the Housing Trust Fund, as of Feb. 8 only $1,000 had been granted.

    The program has struggled in the past to recruit participants. One reason: the dearth of available year-round rentals. Some properties in Truro that were historically rented out year-round have turned into second homes or summer rentals, leaving few options for those who might qualify. —Jasmine Lu

    DELINQUENTS

    Delgizzis Must Shape Up, Says Housing Court

    Landlords ordered to relocate tenants at illegal inn ‘ASAP’

    By

    TRURO — David and Carolyn Delgizzi of Weston, owners of the Truro Motor Inn, were rebuked by a judge at a Feb. 9 contempt hearing and ordered to find and pay for new homes for 20 tenants now living at their rundown property on Route 6.

    “This is an illegal apartment building masquerading as a motel,” Southeast Housing Court Judge Donna Salvidio said in rejecting the Delgizzis’ request for a further stay in the proceedings. “The occupants need to be relocated ASAP to safe and habitable housing on the defendants’ dime because they created the situation.”

    The town filed suit against the Delgizzis in 2019 after they ignored orders to correct numerous health and safety violations at the illegal apartments. Salvidio originally ordered the landlords to close the inn and rehouse its residents by Sept. 30, 2020, but the Delgizzis took no action. They have been illegally renting out the rooms to year-round tenants since 2015, according to filings in the case.

    The Truro Motor Inn, a 36-unit motel at 296 Route 6, was formerly owned by Daniel Delgizzi, David’s father, who died in 2020. Daniel built the Truro Motor Inn in the 1960s by consolidating buildings from three small inns, including the Highlands House and Orleans Inn. Thirty of the 36 units have stoves, sinks, and refrigerators, according to court documents.

    The Delgizzis’ Millions

    According to town and state records, David and Carolyn Delgizzi own at least 31 properties statewide, with a combined assessed value of $14.47 million. Twenty-three of those properties are on Cape Cod, including the derelict Lobster Pound restaurant in Orleans and the Lobster Shanty in Eastham.

    Besides the couple’s residence in Weston, which is assessed at $1.68 million, the Truro Motor Inn is their most valuable property, assessed at $1.04 million. According to court documents dated October 2021, the tenants of the 20 occupied units there were charged a combined $18,400 in monthly rent.

    Carolyn and David Delgizzi live at this house in Weston valued at $1.7 million, which is slightly less than the average assessment in that town.

    A motel license renewal inspection by the town in 2018 revealed that nearly every room at the inn failed to meet minimum square-foot requirements for both kitchen-equipped hotel rooms and year-round dwelling units. In 2019, 27 tenants occupied 21 units ranging from 164 to 503 square feet, according to court documents.

    That year, town employees reported observing four year-round tenants sharing a 185-square-foot room. The state sanitary code requires dwelling units for single occupancy to have at least 150 square feet, plus another 100 square feet for each additional person. Only two units at the inn have more than 400 square feet, the minimum required by the Truro Board of Health for a kitchen-equipped hotel room.

    Town health officials reported in 2018 that the inn’s exterior was littered with junk and that the building required repairs and did not have enough smoke detectors, according to court documents.

    An Inn With 2 Pools

    In May 2019, town employees observed David Delgizzi and a contractor attempting to repair the inn’s sewage disposal system without a permit. The inn has two cesspools. The board of health ordered the Delgizzis to upgrade their septic system to accommodate the changed use of the property, but no upgrade took place.

    The town’s December 2019 complaint in Southeast Housing Court asked that the court appoint a receiver to take control of the property and address the overcrowding, septic, and other health issues. “The defendants have sufficient resources to correct their violations, but they choose to reap profit at the expense of the health and safety of their tenants,” the complaint stated.

    The Delgizzis have maintained that they need the town to approve their septic system plan before they can address the issue of habitable space. They have repeatedly missed submission deadlines in seeking approval for a 44-bedroom septic system with multiple variances in an environmentally sensitive area.

    According to the state Dept. of Environmental Protection, any septic plan serving more than 36 bedrooms at the site would constitute an increase in flow and would therefore be unacceptable. Because rooms will need to be reconfigured and renovated to fix the square-footage problems, ultimately decreasing the number of bedrooms, the septic plan cannot be approved until those problems of living space are resolved, the town has argued.

    In July 2020, Judge Salvidio ordered the Delgizzis to submit a comprehensive plan explaining how they intended to bring the inn into compliance with Title 5 and other health codes and also showing how residents would be relocated within the building during construction. If the Delgizzis were unable to produce such a plan, they were to relocate all residents within 15 miles of the inn by Sept. 30, 2020. The Delgizzis were to pay for moving and travel costs, as well as any increase in rent until the residents found permanent housing of their choosing.

    The Delgizzis did none of those things.

    They did not appeal Salvidio’s order, but on Sept. 1, 2020 they asked the court to extend the deadline. The judge declined. In October 2021, the Delgizzis resubmitted a 44-bedroom septic plan for the inn and asked for three variances, which the Truro Board of Health denied.

    “It’s a sham plan,” Truro Town Counsel Gregg Corbo said at the Feb. 9 hearing. “They’ve sat back and done absolutely nothing for a year and a half. They have decided to be laser focused on the issue of 44 bedrooms and nothing else.”

    The Delgizzis’ attorney, Dina Browne of Walpole, did not explain why her clients never submitted plans to comply with the judge’s order. Rather, she reiterated the septic system argument and asked for a stay. “Until we know the number of bedrooms, our hands are tied as to reconfiguring them,” Browne said. “We’re not going to sacrifice these bedrooms that we’ve had for a very long time.”

    Salvidio denied the request. “It is very clear that the matters involving the septic system are only a part of the court’s orders,” the judge said. “Other parts needed to be addressed immediately.”

    Browne argued that finding new housing for every tenant within 15 miles of Truro would be impossible, given the Outer Cape’s housing crisis. She also claimed that several residents at the Truro Motor Inn are behind on paying rent and that the Delgizzis are owed $180,000. Even if housing could be found for them, she contended, landlords would probably not accept them as tenants.

    Relocating the Tenants

    In a settlement agreement hammered out on Feb. 9, both parties agreed to meet in the coming weeks with Boston-based RND Consultants, which does property management, to discuss a relocation plan. In October, RND submitted a plan to the town estimating that relocation for 20 tenants would take between six and nine months.

    The next hearing in the Truro Motor Inn case will be held via Zoom on March 7 at 9 a.m. If the court has not received a mutually-agreed-upon relocation plan by that time, Clerk Joe McIntyre said, the case will return to in-person session.

    The Delgizzis have a long history of tax delinquency both on and off Cape Cod. In the past 11 years, towns have filed a total of 15 tax-taking actions against them. Truro is currently pursuing tax-taking cases against three of their properties. The towns of Eastham and Rockland recently acquired by tax taking four Delgizzi properties with a combined assessed value of $1.27 million.

    In 2018, the Mass. Department of Revenue placed a lien on Carolyn and David Delgizzis’ home in Weston because David Delgizzi failed to pay his personal income taxes and a wage violation fine. That debt is now settled, according to Mass. Land Court records.

    According to documents filed in a Norfolk County Superior Court case in 2020, David Delgizzi failed to file personal state income taxes since 2005 and owed the state $373,605 for the years 2008 to 2014. In July, the IRS filed a federal tax lien against David Delgizzi in Suffolk County for $1.88 million in unpaid personal income taxes.

    HOUSING

    Half-Acre Lot Will Allow More Units at VFW

    Developer will buy adjacent Mendes property for $1.4 million

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — A long-running effort to build affordable and community housing at the former VFW site on Jerome Smith Road received a big boost last week when the developer of the project struck a deal to purchase an adjacent half-acre parcel for $1.4 million.

    According to project manager Lindsey Gael of the Community Builders (TCB), an offer letter has been signed by both the sellers, Paul and Victoria Mendes, and the developer, and the purchase and sale agreement is being drafted. Town Manager Alex Morse told the select board about the deal at their Jan. 10 meeting, and Paul Mendes confirmed the agreement to the Independent.

    Acquiring the half-acre parcel at 55R Captain Bertie’s Way has long been seen as a way to expand the potential of the 1.3-acre VFW site at 3 Jerome Smith Road, which the town purchased in 2013. The town’s request for proposals to housing developers, issued last May, highlighted the potential of the smaller parcel to increase the project’s buildable area and also improve traffic flow with an extra egress.

    Two of the three bidders for the VFW project included the parcel in their proposals. The Community Builders bid was for 47 units on just the VFW property, but with the extra half-acre, the number of units went up to 57. The bid from Pennrose was for 64 apartments spread across the two properties.

    Shortly after the bids were submitted last July, however, 55R Captain Bertie’s Way went under contract to somebody else. TCB had been in “active negotiations” for an option to purchase the property for $1.3 million, according to the bid documents, but those negotiations had been abruptly superseded, presumably by a higher offer.

    An architectural rendering of the affordable rental apartments being developed by the Community Builders at Provincetown’s former VFW site. (Image courtesy TCB)

    “We lost an opportunity to purchase the land adjacent to the VFW,” select board member Leslie Sandberg told her colleagues on Aug. 23. “When an opportunity like that arises, we need to move faster than we were able to,” she added.

    The Community Builders amended its bid the following month, eliminating an entire building and 10 apartments. Its new, smaller bid was picked by the town manager’s review committee and approved by the select board in October.

    A Second Chance

    The Independent has not been able to establish the identity of the private developer who put 55R under contract last August, or the purchase price associated with that contract. Within a few months, however, something was wrong.

    “A couple months in, we heard inklings that perhaps that deal might be falling apart,” said Gael. “So, we were sort of waiting in the wings. By the time we heard that this prior deal had fallen apart, we had gotten official notice from the town that we were the designated developer. Since we felt strongly this project would be moving forward, we felt comfortable purchasing it outright,” rather than attempting to negotiate another option, Gael said.

    The option to purchase is a common arrangement for developers of affordable housing, according to Gael, because of the many twists and turns such projects often face. An option to purchase agreement allows the developer to lock out other buyers for a period of time, paying monthly for the privilege of doing so, but still back out in the event outside forces scuttle the project.

    “What’s hard with these kinds of real estate transactions — it’s just a very unpredictable, reactive environment,” said Gael. “These sorts of situations are challenging for towns to move on quickly. Especially in this fast-moving, competitive environment, a private developer like us can just move more nimbly than a town might be able to.”

    Morse told the select board that the land purchase could add a dozen or more apartments to the overall project. “I want to thank the select board for their encouragement on this property,” he said, adding that he was excited about the opportunity “to continue putting a bigger dent in the affordable housing crisis here in Provincetown.”

    What Comes Next?

    Gael said that TCB is already planning its first community engagement session, probably in February or March.

    “We have heard there is a lot of interest in maximizing the number of affordable units,” Gael said. “You only get so many opportunities to build in Provincetown — there’s a lot of reasons to get as many affordable apartments as you can.”

    But nothing is a done deal, Gael added. “I want folks to know that, for us, it all starts with what we hear from the community. We take the outreach process very seriously.”

    55R Captain Bertie’s Way has been on the market for four years. Paul Mendes said he’s pleased to see that the property will support year-round workers.

    “My mother ran the Long Point View guest house for 55 years, from 1946 to 2001,” Mendes said. “I grew up there. For the whole second half of that time, she was renting seasonally to working people.

    “When we inherited that house, we kept it that way,” Mendes said. “That’s 74 years of continuous rentals. I think it kind of fits in with what the property is going to become.”

    YEAR IN REVIEW: HOUSING CRISIS

    2021 Saw a Growing Determination to Build

    A labor crisis and lots of new money mean action is coming

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The Covid pandemic has been called the “great accelerator,” because it took existing trends, like working from home, and societal problems, like the spread of misinformation on social media, and jammed them in high gear.

    Here on the Outer Cape, I have seen this acceleration in the subjects I cover. Our labor market was already breaking before Covid multiplied the pressure. Housing prices had already left local incomes far behind before a roaring stock market drove prices sky-higher. And a resolve to address both issues by building housing for people who work here already existed — but the pandemic has added a shot of political will and a lot of new money into that equation.

    Local leaders are focused on housing because it touches every institution on the Outer Cape. It’s not just restaurants and retail shops that can’t find workers — it’s nonprofits, town governments, and health-care providers, too. There are human-sized holes in every organization: jobs that pay well, that have attracted great candidates who are eager to live here, but who have to decline regretfully a month later because they can’t find anywhere to call home.

    The consequences are evident in daily life. When you can’t get an appointment with a doctor or dentist, it’s because many recruits never moved here. When the vet closes at noon, and you can’t find a plumber, and therapists and home health aides have an eight-month waiting list, it’s because we can’t house people with those jobs’ incomes anymore.

    The market price for real estate here is based on short-term rental potential. Every property is a hotel-in-waiting, and workers have to compete with that revenue stream to stay here. It’s a competition the work force has been steadily losing since long before the pandemic.

    The direct effect of the pandemic was to carve even more holes in the work force. Many parents had to stay home, and many immuno-compromised people did, too. Immigrant workers couldn’t get visas because U.S. embassies were closed. The J-1 visa shutdown alone cost the Outer Cape hundreds of summer employees.

    Meanwhile, the sale price of a single-family home in Provincetown went up 50 percent in just two years. Condos went up 31 percent. A booming stock market helped drive the increase, as did the new work-from-home policies of major corporations.

    Except that, this time, the crisis came with a change in consciousness. Expressions like “frontline workers” became common. The stress of employees was visible. Restaurants started closing midweek because they couldn’t keep up.

    The “Provincetown Cluster” landed like a sucker punch in July and August. It left the town reeling, as if the wind had been knocked out of it. A dozen businesses had to close for a few days, simply because so many of their staff were out sick.

    The town’s staffing crisis had gone from chronic to acute. But at the same time, money was starting to roll in to town hall.

    Property tax assessments were going up. The new short-term rental tax brought in $2 million in just one year. New marijuana taxes generated another $600,000. The American Rescue Plan Act, passed by Congress in March 2021, sent another $300,000 to Provincetown.

    The American Rescue Plan Act sent almost $5 billion to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which allocated $624 million of it to housing efforts. New federal legislation is stalled, but the most recent version of the Build Back Better bill contained $170 billion for housing.

    The combination of new money in town coffers, and a new consciousness of how fragile the work force has become, has already changed the discussion here. Provincetown’s leaders are workshopping 10 housing articles for town meeting in April. They include a dedicated funding stream and a significant use of town-owned land for housing initiatives.

    Provincetown’s disappearing work force is a problem 20 years in the making. It will be hard to build new units at a pace that can keep up with the loss of existing middle-class housing.

    But there is currently a conjunction of money, interest, and a resolve to act — which means 2022 is going to be an important year for housing.

    HOUSING CRISIS

    Town Meeting Will Decide Funding and Possible Development Sites

    Majority of select board favors stronger inclusionary bylaw revision

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The local housing crisis will be on the table repeatedly at the 2022 annual town meeting in a slate of warrant articles to allocate money for housing, to strengthen the town’s inclusionary bylaw, and to begin studying possible new housing sites.

    The shapes of those articles were clarified at the second joint meeting of the select board, community housing council, and Year-Round Market-Rate Rental Housing Trust held on Dec. 15.

    Two of the proposed articles would ask voters to start the process of turning large town-owned parcels into housing by hiring development consultants to assess the two sites: the Veterans Memorial Community Center (VMCC) and the two southern lanes of Route 6 between Conwell Street and Shank Painter Road.

    The community center used to be the town’s elementary school. The building contains 46,000 square feet all on one floor and currently hosts several town departments, including the dept. of public works and the council on aging. The select board has argued that it could be replaced by a two- or three-story structure that would have town offices on the ground floor and housing above.

    The two southern lanes of Route 6 to the west of the proposed housing site — that is, the section of highway between Shank Painter Road and Herring Cove — are already slated to be removed. The town owns the right-of-way underneath those lanes, but the state owns a long parallel strip of conservation land, which makes development of that area tricky.

    Between Shank Painter and Conwell, however, there is no state-owned land and Provincetown owns an adjoining four-acre parcel that includes the skate park, a large parking lot, a soccer field, and a municipal wastewater leaching field. All of those uses could conceivably be relocated, according to a staff presentation to the select board in September, and the lot could be combined with the town-owned land under Route 6. That would create a developable area even larger than the land around the VMCC.

    The town-owned soccer field at 16 Jerome Smith Road is adjacent to town-owned land under the southern lanes of Route 6. The entire area could become housing. (Photo Paul Benson)

    Two smaller town-owned parcels will also be up for votes at town meeting as possible housing sites: a half acre at 30 Creek Road and the old Firehouse 2 building on Commercial Street at Court Street.

    Allocating Money

    Proposals to reallocate rooms tax revenues have been discussed at length at many different meetings this year. The current proposed town meeting article is unchanged and would direct 26 percent of the total rooms tax revenue to housing.

    The rooms tax is a complex subject, partly because it combines a longstanding tax on hotels and guest houses and a recently enacted tax on short-term rentals.

    The hotels part of the tax has for years been split four ways, with money going to the tourism fund, the sewer fund, the capital improvements fund, and the general fund. The expansion of the tax to short-term rentals took effect in July 2019, and it has dramatically increased revenue from prior levels. Before the expansion, the rooms tax brought in about $2.2 million per year; in the most recent fiscal year, receipts were up to $3.5 million.

    That fiscal year, from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021, was scarred by the pandemic. Recent sales data from multiple sources show that both hotels and short-term rentals have done better in the current fiscal year than in the last one. The Independent recently examined these data and published a rooms tax forecast for Provincetown of $4.7 million for fiscal 2022.

    The total number is important, because reallocating the rooms tax and carving out a portion of the money for housing requires a clear idea of the total being divided.

    At the Dec. 15 joint meeting, Town Manager Alex Morse addressed the town’s current revenue forecast of $3.4 million and explained how the reallocation formula could change if revenues come in above that number.

    “I want to make it very clear at the outset of this workshop — there is no effort whatsoever to underestimate what the actual receipts will be,” said Morse. “We want it to be as high as everyone thinks it may be.

    “We aren’t firm at $3.4 million,” Morse added. There is a rooms tax payment from the state Dept. of Revenue due on Dec. 31, and Morse recommended that the three boards wait to see that payment before making a decision.

    Morse also walked the boards through ways they could change the allocation formula if the rooms tax number is higher than forecast. At the $4 million mark, for instance, Morse showed that lower percentages would still direct adequate amounts to the other four funds — freeing up a higher percentage for housing.

    The boards also discussed how to direct the incoming housing money. Members of all three boards agreed on a plan to let the select board decide each year how to divide the money between the town’s two existing housing funds: the affordable housing trust fund and the year-round market-rate rental housing trust fund.

    But Wait, There’s More

    Four more articles round out the housing measures being discussed.

    One would add a state-authorized “community impact fee” of 3 percent to bookings of short-term rentals that are investor-owned. Despite some confusion caused by the term “professionally managed” in the statute, definitions in state law make it clear that the fee would apply to bookings of any residence whose owner has two or more short-term rental properties in the same town. It would not apply, however, to the owner’s primary residence.

    Another proposal would allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs) to house seasonal workers, not just year-round residents. Very few people have built ADUs in the years since the bylaw was first passed, and the boards were divided on whether allowing seasonal workers to live in ADUs would entice more people, particularly business owners, to build them.

    A third measure would increase the permissible height of residential construction in the general commercial zone, which is primarily along Shank Painter Road but also includes the northern reaches of Conwell Street. Buildings could be four rather than three stories tall. That extra story would be available only under the town’s inclusionary bylaw, which permits various bonuses and regulatory relief when affordable units make up at least one-sixth of a proposed development.

    Finally, there is a proposal to revamp the “in lieu” fee structure in the inclusionary bylaw. For multi-unit residential developments that do not make one-sixth of the units affordable, the inclusionary bylaw mandates a fee in lieu of the units, to be deposited in the affordable housing trust fund.

    The boards discussed three alternatives that would raise the fees to varying degrees. Three members of the select board endorsed the option labeled “most aggressive.”

    “I think people get it now — they’re paying attention,” said select board chair Dave Abramson. “In other years I think it was the people selling or developing that had more control or power at town meeting. We do now have the support to be more aggressive.”

    HOUSING

    In Two Rulings, Opponents of Rental Developments Lose Out

    Judges stand by bond orders for those who file appeals

    By

    Judges in two separate courts rendered rulings in the last week that buoyed developers of rental housing in Provincetown and Truro.

    In both cases, the state’s new Housing Choice Act has come into play. The law allows courts to require those opposing affordable housing projects to post bonds of up to $50,000. The intent is to discourage frivolous lawsuits that can delay such projects for years.

    These two cases, involving the two Outer Cape towns, appear to be among the first where the new provision is being invoked.

    In the Provincetown case, a Barnstable County Superior Court judge ordered residents trying to halt the Barracks workforce housing project to post a $15,000 bond.

    And on Monday, a state Land Court judge denied a last-minute request from those appealing the Cloverleaf affordable housing development in Truro to reconsider the $25,000 bond she had ordered in November.

    The Barracks Case

    Lawyers for developer Patrick Patrick and the town asked Barnstable Superior Court Judge Thomas Perrino to require a $50,000 bond during a Nov. 30 hearing on an appeal of the permit the Provincetown Planning Board had granted for the Barracks. The judge said he would take the request under advisement.

    On Dec. 8, Perrino ordered the four appellants — Julie and Alison Gray, Jay Gurewitsch, and John Crowley — to post a $15,000 bond.

    Under the state statute, the court must balance the merits of the appeal with the harm resulting from delays to the project.

    In his decision, Perrino noted that neither side had provided details to bolster their respective positions. Patrick “submitted little if any material to substantiate claimed harm” in the request to require a bond, the judge wrote. The appellants alleged that the planning board had exceeded its authority in granting the permit, but, the judge wrote, “the complaint does not articulate what authority the board has or how it was exceeded.”

    Perrino said that the endorsement of the Barracks project by the Provincetown Select Board indicated there was public interest in addressing the need for workforce housing. “The public interest and community needs or interest appear urgent and would be harmed due to delay caused by this appeal,” Perrino concluded.

    At issue is Patrick’s plan to construct a three-story building at 207 Route 6, to include 28 four-person dormitory units with private bathrooms and a common kitchen, intended to help house those working seasonally; five studio units and 10 one-bedroom apartments, which would be year-round rentals; and one two-bedroom manager’s unit.

    The judge set the bond at $15,000, which assumes “ordinary litigation costs.” Once the case is settled, the winning side could calculate true litigation costs and seek them from the losing side, Perrino said.

    The Cloverleaf Case

    In what may have been the first use of the amendment in the Housing Choice Act, a state Land Court judge in November ordered residents seeking to overturn a comprehensive permit for the Cloverleaf affordable housing development on Highland Road in Truro to post a $25,000 bond.

    Instead of posting the bond by the Dec. 9 deadline, attorney David Reid, who represents the 10 residents appealing the zoning board’s permit approval, filed a motion asking Judge Diane Rubin to reconsider the bond order.

    In the motion, Reid stated the court should consider the relative merits of the appeal and argued the court had failed to consider the financial burden placed on each of the 10 plaintiffs, who together would post the bond, or the “difficulty and impracticality of how a bond would be apportioned among 10 plaintiffs.”

    The plaintiffs are Lauren P. Anderson, Abby Lynn Corea, George Dineen, Barbara Golding, Samantha Hayman, Joanne Hollander, Donald Horton, Alice Longley, Eve M. Turchinetz, and Christine Maxwell.

    In her decision to deny the motion to reconsider the bond, Judge Rubin said that, to prevail on such a motion, Reid would have had to specify changed circumstances such as newly discovered evidence or development of a relevant law, or show there was an error in the original ruling.

    Reid had submitted affidavits from Robert Vanasse on traffic impacts related to the Cloverleaf project and from Thomas Cambareri and Peter L. Herridge regarding possible harm to downgradient wells with his motion for reconsideration. Rubin said that evidence wasn’t new and could have been submitted when Reid made his initial case in opposition to the bond.

    The Cloverleaf project, which will be developed by Community Housing Resource of Provincetown, is a 39-unit mostly affordable rental project approved at town meeting in 2016 to be built on land donated by the state for that purpose in 2017. It was permitted by the Truro Zoning Board of Appeals under the state’s Chapter 40B housing statute in January 2021.

    Rubin has also denied a request from Christine Maxwell, one of the Cloverleaf plaintiffs, to dismiss a counterclaim brought against her by the town of Truro for allegedly trespassing on the town-owned site at 22 Highland Road.

    Maxwell, or the owners before her, installed a driveway on the land that provides access from the highway to the 24 Highland Road home Maxwell now owns. The town claims that this driveway could interfere with development of the Cloverleaf project. Maxwell has ignored the town’s demand that she stop using it.

    Judge Rubin wrote in her decision that, “because the trespass claim is inextricably linked with the proposed project,” it is appropriate for her to consider it as part of the appeal of the comprehensive permit for Cloverleaf.

    HOUSING FUNDS

    Provincetown Boards Will Revisit Tax Revenue Split

    Conservative rental tax estimate could mean housing loses out

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The select board, community housing council, and year-round market-rate rental housing trust will reconvene on Dec. 15 to tackle, for the second time, a slate of housing proposals for town meeting.

    The most difficult question is sure to be how much of the new money coming from short-term rentals — a subset of the town’s rooms tax revenues — should go to housing. The answer will affect the scale of housing efforts the town can pursue.

    Provincetown’s “Fiscal ’22 Town-Wide Goals” sets as a policy goal to “capture new short-term rental revenue collected in fiscal ’21 and fiscal ’22 for housing.”

    The question has been discussed all year. In May, town staff proposed allocating 13 percent of the rooms tax revenues to housing — around $440,000. Select board members asked for more, and on Oct. 18, at the first meeting of the three committees, Town Manager Alex Morse suggested 26 percent for housing — around $880,000.

    To some, that still did not sound right. Year-round rental housing trust chair Nathan Butera asked if all the short-term rental funds could be spent on housing. That would be about $2 million for the last fiscal year, according to state tax data.

    A Debate Foreshadowed

    Before the new rental tax revenue started to roll in, leaders across Cape Cod were signaling its importance.

    “Setting aside the new revenue before it gets absorbed into general operating budgets and before the ability to invest strategically in long-term municipal needs is lost is critical,” said Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod.

    “I can’t think of a town that won’t more than double their existing revenue” said Ryan Castle, CEO of the Cape Cod and Islands Association of Realtors. “This is about town leadership,” he said.

    By 2021, the housing crisis had become more acute. In June, state Sen. Julian Cyr said, “I am pushing the 20 communities I represent in the Cape and Islands to commit to a fundamental reimagining of what we are willing to do on housing. It’s incumbent on local officials to recognize our own agency in solving this crisis.”

    The fact that Provincetown already has a rooms tax revenue allocation formula that supports four important funds presents another puzzle.

    The first proposal on the agenda for the Dec. 15 meeting is to add a fifth category, for housing, and rewrite the allocation formula. Many town leaders have said they would like to roughly level-fund the other four beneficiaries, perhaps with a little extra on top, and then direct the rest of the “new” revenue to housing.

    How much ends up going to housing will depend not only on how the five-way split is written but also on the total amount coming in. And that’s hard to guess, because the pandemic had a dramatic but temporary effect on both hotel and short-term rental revenue.

    Building a Forecast

    Before the rooms tax was expanded to cover short-term rentals, it was bringing in about $2.2 million per year to Provincetown. Rooms tax revenue rose slowly and consistently every year since 2011 — even though the total number of hotel rooms in town went down. But prices of hotel rooms increased, and tax revenue continued to rise.

    The expansion of the tax in July 2019 came eight months before the pandemic struck in March 2020. Hotels were closed for almost three months. For the rest of 2020, Cape Cod experienced a survival-level season, with businesses operating at about 70 percent of normal levels, according to Wendy Northcross, then-CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce.

    Rooms tax revenue exploded anyway, because of adding short-term rentals to the base. Provincetown’s rooms tax revenues went to $3.1 million, and then $3.5 million.

    The state Dept. of Revenue (DOR) still maintains it cannot split the revenue from the first four quarters during which the expanded tax was collected, corresponding to fiscal 2020. But for fiscal 2021 — July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 — DOR figures show that the hotel portion of the rooms tax brought in only $1.4 million, while the new short-term rental tax brought in $2.05 million.

    Forecasting remains difficult, however, because hotels have typically brought in $2.2 million per year. All indications are that hotels have recovered in 2021 and, indeed, their revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2022, which ended on Sept. 30, is higher than ever, according to new rooms tax data provided to the Independent by the DOR.

    Short-term rentals brought in $2.05 million in a year when every other indicator was below normal. Meanwhile, independent data from the market-research website AirDNA.co confirms that short-term rentals also had a bigger year in 2021 than they did in 2020.

    AirDNA aggregates detailed listing data from Airbnb, VRBO, and Homeaway. Among the data points it offers are total revenue numbers for all the bookings in a given town, month by month, for three years.

    The Independent matched these revenue data with the quarterly reports from the DOR and found them closely correlated for the four quarters of short-term rental tax revenue in fiscal 2021.

    Based on that tight correlation, and the last six months of activity reported by AirDNA, Provincetown’s short-term rentals had a big summer, bringing in $31.8 million in just six months. That means the short-term rental tax will yield $1.9 million just in the first two quarters of fiscal 2022. A four-quarter figure would likely be around $2.5 million.

    A Conservative Estimate

    Town staff are forecasting much lower total rooms tax numbers. Based on the pandemic year of fiscal 2021, which brought in $3.48 million in rooms tax revenues, town staff have presented forecasts of $3.4 million.

    Historical and current information on the performance of hotels and short-term rentals suggests a number closer to $4.7 million.

    Select board chair Dave Abramson has complained about the town’s “very conservative” forecast. And board member Louise Venden said, “We need to put all the cards on the table here.”

    If leadership’s goal is level funding of every area other than housing, and the total revenue forecast is too low, the percentages required for that level funding will mean that the percentage for housing will be low. Then, if an extra million dollars comes in, most of it will go to the other four funds and not to housing.

    “Getting the maximum amount of money to that fund without cutting off the others” is how Abramson has described the goal.

    WANTS AND NEEDS

    T-Time Plans: Housing and a Community Center

    A town meeting vote on the final plan is still 18 months away

    By

    EASTHAM — The T-Time Development Committee is attempting to do it all. Its final recommendations for use of the 11-acre former driving range on Route 6 include housing for those making up to 150 percent of area median income, a community center, walkable green space, affordable commercial venues, and, if the budget permits, a 50-meter swimming pool.

    On Monday, the select board voted unanimously to approve the recommendations.

    The next stage is a master plan, where details like building size and design and Route 6 infrastructure get worked out.

    The committee’s proposal included a plan for Town Center Plaza, the 3.5-acre parcel on Route 6 that the town purchased earlier this year. That site would see additional retail and restaurant spaces while retaining its six existing commercial tenants. Top-of-shop housing would be added. Planners want the developments together to serve as Eastham’s village center, where pedestrians and cyclists can move freely, but T-Time Committee Chair Karen Strauss told the select board, “Town Center Plaza will be its own space with a different vibe from the T-Time site.”

    Strauss told the Independent that the committee spent a long time trying to balance the community’s needs with its desires.

    The 11-acre T-Time site on Route 6 in Eastham, in a photo taken on Tuesday. (Photo Nancy Bloom)

    The group collected 2,200 survey responses during its initial outreach last spring. It then conducted another survey after publishing its initial recommendations in August. It hosted additional forums to collect more information from those who were underrepresented — younger residents in particular. Town Administrator Jacqui Beebe called the work “the most extensive public outreach that the town of Eastham has ever done.”

    The committee decided to recommend housing at both sites, even though they understood not everyone sees it as essential. The survey did not rank order potential uses of the site but offered respondents a chance to comment in three areas — community center, housing, and business and economic development. Among those who commented on housing, 43 percent said they did not see it as important, while 39 percent said it was.

    Meanwhile, the town’s 2021 Housing Production Plan had identified a massive unmet need for housing. “Sometimes you have to give people what they need,” Strauss said.

    It has not been decided how much housing will end up at T-Time. Strauss noted that the committee took into account the fact that the town had rejected a proposal by Stratford Capital Group to build 130 units at the site in 2017. Looking ahead to an eventual town meeting vote, she said, “We have to get two-thirds of the town to support this project.”

    The committee recommended that housing at T-Time and Town Center Plaza be designed for those earning up to 150 percent of the area median income (equaling $106,296 for an individual, based on 2019 AMI). With the Village at Nauset Green’s income limit being 90 percent of AMI, Strauss said, many people who were interested in apartments there earned too much to qualify.

    That’s why, she said, the committee wanted to bump up the income limit at the town-owned sites. “If your firefighters and town employees and so on can’t afford to live in town, you really have to address that,” she said, “as well as addressing housing for people who make under 80 percent AMI.”

    Carolyn McPherson, president of the Eastham Affordable Housing Trust, commended the committee’s work at Monday’s select board meeting. Cheryl Gayle, chair of the climate action committee, endorsed the T-Time Committee’s recommendation that the developments use only renewable energy.

    As for the recommendations on a new community center, an indoor public recreation building is already a target of the town’s 2020-2024 strategic plan, and public support for it was high throughout the T-Time input-gathering process. What is envisioned at this stage is a building that would house the town’s recreation dept., which does not currently have a permanent headquarters.

    The council on aging might also choose to move to the new space; if it does, the recommendation is that its property on Nauset Road would be used for housing. The public also asked for affordable commercial space. A 2021 market study commissioned by the town found that Eastham has unmet demand for start-up entrepreneurial spaces as a result of its very low commercial vacancy rate.

    All new businesses at T-Time will have to comply with a deed restriction placed on the property by Stop & Shop. Because of that restriction, no vendors at the future village center will be permitted to sell food or food products for offsite consumption. Stop & Shop added the restriction after it bought the property from the Tedeschi family in 2013. The supermarket chain has a lengthy history of purchasing land that would be attractive to competitors and using deed restrictions to prevent other food businesses from being developed. When Eastham voters approved the $1.6 million purchase of the property in 2019, the 99-year restriction came with it.

    Stop & Shop is owned by Ahold Delhaize, a Dutch multinational corporation with 232,000 employees and 2020 revenue of 74.7 billion euros.

    The town is currently searching for a firm to complete the master plan by January 2023. The consultant will take the committee’s recommendations and attempt to create plans “consistent with the ‘look and feel’ of Eastham.” Residents will likely be able to vote on a comprehensive development plan for both sites at town meeting in 2023.

    No Markets Need Apply

    Following is the text of the Stop & Shop deed restriction in effect for the T-Time site through the rest of this century:

    “Section 1. No portion of or premises on the Property shall be used, leased, occupied or licensed for a food supermarket, a food superstore, a food warehouse store, a specialty food store (e.g. a butcher shop, fish market, fruit and/or vegetable market or stand), a wholesale club store operation or a convenience store, or for the sale of food or food products for off-premises consumption (whether by humans or animals).

    “Section 2. In addition, no portion of the Property shall be used for parking (including satisfaction of any of the parking requirements under local zoning codes or by-laws), utilities, infrastructure or other services for or supporting any buildings now or hereafter situated on any land abutting the Property which are used for any purpose which is prohibited under the foregoing Section 1, or for the display of any purpose which is prohibited under the foregoing Section 1.”

    Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article published in print on Dec. 9 erroneously stated that the 2017 Stratford Capital proposal for the T-Time property was for 50 rental units. It was in fact for 130 units.

    BEACON HILL

    Cyr and Peake Direct Federal and State Relief at Housing Efforts

    Legislative earmarks could bring $4.5 million to Cape Cod

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Spending bills being finalized in Boston this week will allocate $2.4 billion in federal relief money from the American Rescue Plan Act, which Congress passed in March, and another $1.4 billion in state tax revenues that came in over projections in an unexpectedly good fiscal year, to meet a wide range of needs.

    A look at the earmarks — amendments that individual legislators have attached to the bills — shows that state Sen. Julian Cyr and Rep. Sarah Peake are looking to focus the region’s windfall on the housing crisis.

    “We know there’s going to be a lot of money coming through all these other affordable housing programs” in the larger bill, said Cyr. “We are trying to focus on some newer ideas, test them out, and jump-start some other ways to get housing production.”

    The Mass. House and Senate were expected to reconcile their separate spending bills into one package by Wednesday. The two versions mostly fund the same priorities, but at different amounts, so the reconciliation seeks to settle on final numbers for each section.

    The legislation will include a wide range of provisions, including hundreds of millions of dollars for frontline workers, the unemployment trust fund, health care systems, and affordable housing.

    Legislators’ earmarks are not likely to change much during these negotiations. They represent a very small percentage of the total funding — in the House bill, they were around 4 percent — but they are a big way legislators can bring dollars home for specific local priorities.

    The seven housing earmarks Cyr and Peake are supporting could bring a total of $4.5 million to Cape Cod.

    Peake, who lives in Provincetown and is a former select board member, included a $1 million earmark for the Homeless Prevention Council (HPC) and the Community Development Partnership (CDP) to set up a Lower and Outer Cape ADU and housing resource center. ADUs are accessory dwelling units, sometimes called mother-in-law apartments or backyard cottages. Housing advocates have pushed for them as a way to create small, reasonably priced apartments for renters and also help home owners generate extra income.

    “It’s great that all the towns have made major reforms to their ADU bylaws,” said Jay Coburn, CEO of the CDP. “They don’t have to be purely affordable — they can charge market-rate rents. They just have to be rented year-round.

    “The problem remains, a typical home owner is not a real estate developer,” Coburn continued. “Our plan is to offer support and technical assistance throughout the process of creating those units.”

    Very few people have built ADUs, even though bylaws allowing them have existed for a while. Coburn thinks the problem is not a lack of interest, but rather that the process is technical and time-consuming. Home owners could use help with every step, he said, including site plans, architecture, regulatory boards, financing, and tenant selection.

    Peake’s amendment also allows some of the money to be used for forgivable loans and grants to home owners who want to build ADUs.

    “We’re still trying to figure out how we would structure that,” said Coburn. “If you’re going to use public money, would you potentially make that available only to low- or moderate-income home owners? What mechanism would you put in place to ensure the long-term availability of that unit?”

    When there’s equity in a house, a home equity loan is an easy way to finance an ADU, Coburn said. Market-rate rents mean an ADU can pay for itself.

    “Our preference is to leverage as much private-sector investment as possible,” said Coburn. “What we hear from property owners is they just don’t know where to begin the process.” That’s why he and Hadley Luddy of the HPC approached Peake about funding a resource center, said Coburn.

    Two Cape Senators

    Sen. Julian Cyr, who lives in Truro, and Sen. Susan Moran of Falmouth collaborated on $3.5 million worth of earmarks for housing initiatives on Cape Cod, according to their joint press release.

    Moran’s amendments direct $2 million to the Housing Assistance Corporation of Cape Cod, which is headquartered in Hyannis, to help finish two affordable housing projects, one in Bourne and one in Orleans.

    Cyr directed a $500,000 earmark to a forgivable loan program for the construction of ADUs. That program will be administered by the Housing Assistance Corporation. The goal is a program that specifically lends for ADU construction, said Cyr, with zero-interest loans, and technical assistance with designs and contractors also included.

    Cyr also wants to direct $500,000 to a rental subsidy program for early childhood educators and people who work with the developmentally disabled. Participants in the program could receive up to $400 a month in rent subsidies for one year.

    “We know these people are pretty darn underpaid,” said Cyr. “A lot of them are paid rates that are set by the state, that haven’t increased.”

    The State House News Service recently reported on this pay gap. The state pays nonprofit providers of care at much lower rates than it pays its own employees in similar positions. Legislation has been introduced to close that gap, but it is not included in either chamber’s spending bill.

    Another $250,000 earmark from Cyr will fund a project at the Cape Cod Commission to identify surplus land suitable for housing development in all 15 towns on Cape Cod. Many recent housing projects have involved a change of use of former commercial properties, including two converted motels in Yarmouth, the old Cape Cod Five Bank headquarters in Orleans, and the ongoing project at Provincetown’s former VFW hall. The commission would also help the towns develop requests for proposals for housing.

    “The language in the amendment is broad,” said Cyr, “to give the commission flexibility to assess all potential locations.”

    A fourth earmark from Cyr is for $250,000 to convene a region-wide housing advocacy coalition. It would help develop zoning changes and advocacy efforts in every town on the Cape and Islands.

    Peake and Cyr had a few other earmarks as well. An amendment from Peake directs $500,000 to the Structured Outpatient Addiction Program that was recently established at Outer Cape Health Services in Wellfleet. The money will help the program transition from an online-only pandemic-era program into a physical space, with four offices and a meeting room.

    An amendment from Cyr will direct $400,000 to the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod. It will support a three-year program of mini-grants to artists for professional development, skills training, and support services.

    Two more amendments from Cyr: $60,000 to Amplify POC Cape Cod, for the promotion of minority-owned small businesses, and $80,000 to Cape Cod Young Professionals, for workforce development initiatives.

    Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story, published in print on Nov. 18, incorrectly reported that “billions of dollars” would be allocated to relief for frontline workers. The actual amount is most likely around $500 million.

     

    95 LAWRENCE ROAD

    Task Force Backs POAH-CDP Affordable Housing Bid

    Eastham-based Community Development Partnership is national nonprofit’s local partner

    By

    WELLFLEET — The task force charged with recommending the best developer to build and manage 46 units of affordable rental housing on Lawrence Road has selected a national nonprofit organization with plenty of experience that partnered with a local agency for the project.

    Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) and the Community Development Partnership (CDP) submitted the $20.2-million proposal that earned the top rating from the task force in its vote on Monday. The members were impressed with the organization’s track record in building, financing, and managing large affordable housing developments. And they liked POAH’s decision to have a local partner that knows the needs of Outer Cape residents.

    The panel’s vote for POAH-CDP was 7-1. Kathleen Bacon, the lone dissenter, remained solidly behind a smaller for-profit bidder, Civico, giving that company the highest score that could be awarded in all six ranking categories. Civico had submitted a $14.6-million proposal that had few units reserved for the lowest-income households.

    The Community Builders, another large national nonprofit with a long and successful track record, had submitted a $19.3-million proposal for 46 units for tenants whose incomes ranged from 30 percent and below up to 80 percent of the area median (AMI).

    “Our entire team is incredibly grateful to be entrusted with this significant project for the town of Wellfleet,” said Jay Coburn, the CEO of Eastham-based CDP. Coburn said the POAH-CDP project offered the greatest range of affordability, from rentals to tenants making 30 percent or less of the AMI up to 11 unrestricted units that will go to households earning between 80 and 120 percent of the AMI.

    CDP has a “small ownership stake” in the project, Coburn said. His organization had worked on the plan and will help take the project through local permitting, financing, and the rent-out lottery. POAH will manage the site.

    “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a significant number of affordable homes in Wellfleet that address a broad range of local needs for both family and elderly residents,” wrote Julie Creamer, POAH’s senior vice president of acquisitions, in an email.

    The eight task force members had individually scored the three proposals in six categories that ranged from site layout and building design to energy efficiency, affordability plans, experience, and financing ability. Task force members worked with a rating system that allowed scores in each category ranging from “unacceptable” to “highly advantageous.”

    Each developer was also required to commit to shouldering 44 percent of the cost to build and operate a wastewater system that will serve not only the new housing but also surrounding municipal and residential properties, advancing the town’s watershed management plan and in turn helping it come into compliance with the Clean Water Act.

    POAH-CDP came out on top of the ratings with 41 “highly advantageous” marks. Their proposal got 11 “advantageous” and 4 “unacceptable” grades. Jan Plaue rated the building design unacceptable. The other three unacceptable grades were from Bacon in the categories of building design, site design, and financing. Bacon criticized the proposal for incorporating a real estate tax abatement from the town into its financial analysis.

    Earlier in the discussion, Laura Shufelt, an expert from the Mass Housing Partnership who has been working with the task force, told them an abatement of taxes “usually isn’t needed,” although a PILOT agreement (payment in lieu of taxes) is sometimes worked out.

    “I think there would be ways to fill the gap if the abatement isn’t given,” she said. “It wouldn’t be a make or break.”

    The POAH-CDP proposal calls for 24 townhouse units with two or three bedrooms housed in seven buildings in an area called “Upper Village” on the six-acre site. The remaining 22 units of one and two bedrooms are to be housed in a single building in the “Lower Village.”

    Some members initially balked at the single large building with 22 units. But task force member Jay Horowitz was one who thought the building size was not a problem. “The tallest building in town is right across the street,” he said, referring to the school.

    Chair Elaine McIlroy liked the proposed design for the large building and pointed out that all 22 units were on a single level. POAH left the largest buffer of treed areas between the project and the surrounding neighborhood, she said, and left the largest amount of undisturbed land.

    “The depth and breadth of POAH’s experience sold me, and their resources for the residents, which is critically important,” said member James Hood.

    Plaue said she had loved the little cottages the Civico plan featured, but the lack of a community building on the plan caused her to nix the proposal. There would be no place for residents to gather, she said.

    Bacon read a statement explaining her support for Civico. Since the company planned to finance with conventional mortgages rather than state and federal funding, “they won’t be waiting on funding rounds from HUD or low-income housing tax credits,” she said.

    “Civico could finish the project sooner rather than later,” said Bacon. “Their simple design made sense to me and there was no zoning relief needed. I call this the path of the least resistance.”

    Chair McIlroy will now write a report and a recommendation from the task force. Task force members will meet Nov. 16 to finalize the report and forward it to the select board for its Nov. 23 meeting.

    Editor’s note: Because of a fact-checking error, an earlier version of this article, published in print in the Nov. 11 edition, incorrectly identified Civico as a nonprofit organization. It is for-profit.

     

    COURT REPORT

    Judge Is Asked to Require $50K Bond in Barracks Suit

    Plaintiffs argue that dorm-style housing doesn’t count as ‘affordable’

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Lawyers for the developer of a proposed workforce housing project — known as the Barracks — and the town’s planning board, which approved the development, have asked a judge to require a $50,000 bond be posted by residents who are seeking to stop the project.

    At issue is a special permit granted for the Barracks by the planning board in June. Shortly after the approval, residents Julie and Alison Gray, Jay Gurewitsch, and John Crowley filed suit against the planning board and developer Patrick Patrick in Barnstable Superior Court to get the permit annulled.

    In addition to asking the court to require the plaintiffs to post the bond, attorneys Amy Kwesell and Gregory Boucher, representing the planning board and Patrick, have a pending request to move the case to state Land Court, where it would be handled more quickly, or to grant the case a December trial date if it remains in the county court.

    An Oct. 28 hearing on the request to move the case was postponed to Nov. 30 because of a storm-related court closure.

    The judge could act on the $50,000 bond request before Nov. 30 or wait and hear arguments from both sides on hearing day, Boucher said.

    The bond that the court can now require of plaintiffs who appeal permits for affordable housing is a new provision in the state’s housing choice law. Its purpose is to discourage frivolous suits that can keep housing projects from moving forward, often for years. If the plaintiffs should lose their case, they would forfeit the bond, which would then go to pay legal fees and other costs related to the case, including increased costs of construction caused by delays.

    Gov. Charlie Baker signed the provision into law in January.

    “I haven’t heard of any judges ruling on these motions yet,” Boucher said.

    A similar request for a $50,000 bond was recently made in state Land Court in a suit filed to challenge the so-called Cloverleaf affordable housing development in Truro. It has not yet been acted on by the judge in that case.

    While towns frequently step back in such appeals and let the developers handle litigation, Provincetown is taking an active role in the Barracks case.

    “Workforce housing is very important to the town,” said Kwesell, an attorney at KP Law.

    In opposing the request for the bond, the attorney for the residents, William Hinchy, accused the vice chair of the planning board, Brandon Quesnell, of having a vested interest in getting the project built.

    “This particular project has nothing to do with affordable housing, as it creates zero such housing,” Hinchy wrote in his Nov. 1 court filing. “It does, however, have everything to do with the economic interests of at least one planning board member.”

    Hinchy included in his filing copies of an email exchange between Steve Katsurinis, Quesnell’s husband, and Julie Gray.

    A few weeks after the case was filed, Julie Gray made a dinner reservation at Mezzeterranean, a restaurant owned by Quesnell and Katsurinis. Gray then received an email from Katsurinis, pointing out that Quesnell was one of the planning board members she was suing over “much needed workforce housing.”

    “In fact, we cannot open more than three nights a week due to a lack of available workers this summer, and it will only get worse,” Katsurinis wrote. “As a result, we feel it would not be appropriate to host you at our restaurant during the pendency of this litigation.” He canceled Gray’s reservation.

    Pointing out Katsurinis’s use of “we” in the email, Hinchy said Quesnell had a “personal economic interest in the outcome of Mr. Patrick’s application for zoning relief.”

    In their response, the attorneys for the planning board and Patrick called it a “specious” argument that “workforce housing in dormitory-style shared rooms is somehow not affordable housing.”

    The lawyers described Katsurinis’s email as “a prime example of a member of the public, expressing the public harm to employers, employees and restaurant patrons, that is brought by delaying the project.”

    Neither Katsurinis nor Quesnell responded to email requests for comment.

    Patrick’s Barracks proposal calls for 112 bunk beds in 28 dormitory-style rooms, with private bathrooms and common kitchens and dining areas. The rooms would be for seasonal workers. The project would also include 15 studio and one-bedroom apartments and a two-bedroom manager’s unit, which would be year-round rentals. The four-acre target site is at 207 Route 6.

    In their motion, the attorneys for the planning board and Patrick argued that there is a workforce housing crisis in the region.

    The plaintiffs argue that the planning board did not adhere to the town’s zoning bylaws in granting the special permit. They also want the court to decide whether the developer has the right to use Province Road for the proposed development.

    ECONOMY

    As Guest Houses Sell, Many Become Private Homes

    But innkeeping retains its appeal for some new owners

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — For 10 years, Provincetown’s hotel and guest house industry has been characterized by two trends. The total number of hotel rooms has been gradually decreasing, as many properties, especially smaller ones, have been converted to private residences. Meanwhile, the industry’s total revenue has been steadily rising, up to $37 million per year just before the pandemic — according to the town’s rooms tax revenues.

    The pandemic is the great turbo-charger of trends, however, and relief measures, low interest rates, and the rising stock market have put a lot of money into people’s pockets. The question facing Provincetown’s hotel industry now is which trend is going to be stronger: more properties removed from the market by wealthy buyers of single-family homes? Or more people willing to spend more money per night on hotels?

    The answer could be both: fewer rooms, at higher prices, producing more total revenue.

    A look at recent sales and listings shows that both trends are going strong. Residential buyers are snapping up smaller properties, but larger ones are still finding people — and, sometimes, corporations — willing to invest.

    Residential Conversions

    Before short-term rental sites like Airbnb.com and Homeway.com existed, there were many more guest houses and hotels in Provincetown. The list of business licenses in 2011 includes the names of many long-gone lodgings: the Valentine Guest House, the Rose Acre, the Black Pearl, the Gallery Inn. Some of them became single-family homes; some became condo complexes; a few even became staff housing for seasonal workers.

    The town’s official room count hasn’t changed as much. It was 1,722 rooms (excluding campgrounds) in 2011, said Tourism Director Anthony Fuccillo, and dropped to 1,589 in 2012. It then stayed in the 1,500s for many years, before finally dropping to 1,495 in 2021.

    The official count may not capture the full decrease in inventory, however. Many properties that are not actively renting rooms to tourists are nonetheless maintaining and renewing their lodging licenses. The Atlantic House, for instance, still has a license for 15 rooms. There are four licensed rooms at 116 Bradford St., which many years ago was the Burch House. The Victoria House is staff housing now, but it is still licensed for 10 hotel rooms.

    “People may maintain the licenses, because they think there’s value down the line,” said Rob Tosner, former owner of the White Winds guest house and a broker who has been the listing agent for several guest house sales. “They’re thinking, we may not want to use it this way, but when we do go to sell it, we can say, ‘We’re licensed for X number of rooms.’ ”

    “It’s certainly become more difficult over the years to make a residential property into a commercial one,” Tosner added. The complex process to create a new hotel makes the existing licenses worth holding onto.

    Recent Sales

    Against this backdrop, it’s hard to say for sure if the pandemic has accelerated a loss of rooms. But residential conversions are definitely happening. Between October 2020 and March 2021, four smaller guest houses sold and were taken offline: the Bradford-Carver House, the Shire Max, the Secret Garden Inn, and the Bayberry Hotel. Christopher’s by the Bay just sold in September and is also permanently closed.

    There are also at least two properties that are listed for sale and are currently under contract: the Beaconlight Guest House and the Somerset Inn. Details on the prospective buyers and their plans were not available at press time.

    The Beaconlight, an inn on Winthrop Street, is under contract. Its future owners have not yet announced their plans. (Photo Nancy Bloom)

    Throughout this period, though, there have also been properties selling to buyers who want to run hotels. Snug Cottage, the White Winds, and the Crew’s Quarters all sold in 2020 and are operating as guest houses. (The White Winds was renamed the Brasswood by its new owners.)

    There’s also something of a new player afoot: the corporate buyer. “This is somewhat anecdotal,” said Tosner, “but there seem to be some bigger players in town who buy multiple properties and get some economies of scale.”

    Linchris Hotel Corp. is the current owner of the Harbor Hotel and the Surfside Hotel in Provincetown. Lark Hotel Group bought the Inn at the Moors in 2017 and renamed it AWOL. The Lexvest Group has owned the Cape Colony Motel since 2012 and bought the Breakwater Motel in 2018.

    The smallest of those corporate-owned properties has 26 rooms; the largest, Harbor Hotel, has 139. Corporate buyers haven’t yet stepped into the world of the 10-to-12-room guest house.

    The Brasswood and the Bayberry

    Brian Calhoon and his husband Tom Westmoreland bought their hotel, the Brasswood, from Tosner in early 2020 — coinciding with the March Covid shutdown. The next year, Calhoon’s parents, Stuart and Liz Calhoon, bought the Bayberry Hotel just up the street. The Brasswood is open and prospering; the Bayberry was taken offline, and the senior Calhoons, along with their son and son-in-law and their business partner Scott “Scooter” Differ, all live there.

    “The Brasswood is licensed for 12 rooms,” said Brian Calhoon. They use the smallest one as an office, he explained, leaving 11 for guests. Meanwhile, the Bayberry was a six-bedroom guest house, with one room reserved for the owners. “The revenue from 11 rooms maths out a lot better than the revenue from five,” Calhoon said. “I think there’s a kind of balancing point, where there’s enough rooms to keep the property open.”

    The physical layout of the buildings can also shape their viability as residences, Calhoon said. The Bayberry, for example, was built as three separate flats and, he said, was “awkward as a guest house. It had three kitchens!” It made sense to convert it back into a residence.

    On the other hand, the White Winds, which became the Brasswood, was both huge and stuffed with bedrooms. “It’s just so much an inn, it wouldn’t make sense to make it a house,” Calhoon said.

    Nearly all of Provincetown’s guest houses were originally built as residences. A determined renovator can do anything — but some properties are much easier to convert than others.

    Tosner agreed that layout matters and added some other factors. “You’ll notice there are very few waterfront accommodations,” said Tosner. Those that do exist are almost all larger hotels. “You don’t find the guest house model there.”

    Residential real estate prices are always a factor. To remain a business, a commercial property must out-earn what a potential home owner would pay for it.

    That is why current prices and current property sales are significant. Market pressure is most clearly felt when a new mortgage is written, and room rates need to cover a much higher cost structure. Calhoon said that the pandemic year was tough, but the Brasswood hit the revenue it needed in 2021.

    “We have come out in the black,” he said. “It’s not very deep black, but it’s black, and not red.” He does not think the era of inns is over in Provincetown.

    “It’s funny — two musicians from Boston who worked in education,” said Calhoon, referring to himself and his husband. “It’s a weird pivot that I never would have guessed, but it’s worked out. We love making music, we love hosting people and creating community.

    “It’s definitely a lifestyle, being always on — but I’ll clean toilets and carry laundry so that I can put on a concert that night or host a guest artist playing on the porch. Running an inn like this — it’s something I never would have predicted but absolutely love.”

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