PROVINCETOWN — The Community Builders have been preparing to build 65 apartments on Jerome Smith Road since they won the bid to do the work in late 2021. But their cost projection rose from $22.3 million then to $37.8 million a year later and now to $39.4 million. On Dec. 7, the Boston-based nonprofit developer turned to Wellfleet for help, asking the town’s community preservation committee to kick in $500,000 to support Provincetown’s project.
With limited funds to distribute, Wellfleet decided to keep the money in town.
Meanwhile, Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) and the Community Development Partnership (CDP) have seen the estimated cost of 46 units of affordable housing on Lawrence Road in Wellfleet go from $20.2 million to $34.4 million, Vitalia Shklovsky, POAH’s senior project manager, told the Independent this week.
POAH and the CDP have submitted requests for $100,000 each to Provincetown, Orleans, and Brewster for their Wellfleet project.
No decisions have been made on these three requests, but CDP CEO Jay Coburn said, “While they share our enthusiasm about the project, they are juggling requests for funding for other projects both within and outside their communities.” Every town on the Outer Cape currently has an affordable housing project in the works, he said.
POAH and the CDP had also requested $1.5 million in community preservation money from Wellfleet at the Dec. 7 meeting. At that time, committee Chair Gary Sorkin told the panel that a total of $1.3 million was available for this year’s distribution.
Member Rhonda Fowler said the town has been given no assurance that Wellfleet residents would get placed in the units being built in other towns. “We’re like the tiny cousin, sandwiched in between Provincetown and Orleans and Eastham, which are so much further ahead of us in so many ways,” Fowler said, lobbying for keeping the money in town for Wellfleet’s own project.
David Mead-Fox agreed. “In principle, I like the idea of supporting housing regionally, but only as a tier two priority,” he said. “Tier one is Wellfleet.”
Member Elaine McIlroy noted that both Provincetown and Orleans are nearing the state’s goal of having 10 percent of their housing stock qualify as affordable. “Our need is huge right now,” McIlroy said.
According to the state’s subsidized housing inventory, Provincetown was at 9.7 percent, Orleans at 9 percent, and Wellfleet at 2.5 percent as of December 2020.
Besides the request from The Community Builders for its Provincetown project, two other requests related to affordable housing in Orleans were submitted to the Wellfleet Community Preservation Committee: the Housing Assistance Corp. requested $100,000 for 14 units planned for Main Street, and Pennrose developers asked $100,000 for 62 units of affordable rent-restricted and workforce housing in the former Cape Cod 5 building.
The committee voted unanimously to recommend $1 million for the Lawrence Road project and $20,000 for Pennrose’s project in Orleans because it has completed its state funding round and is deemed “shovel ready.”
The committee voted to defer the requests from HAC and The Community Builders. Those projects have not yet gone through the state and federal funding rounds.
The bulk of the funding for these affordable housing projects comes through programs overseen by the state’s Dept. of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). They combine state and federal low-income housing tax credits, American Rescue Plan Act funds, project-based state and federal vouchers, the National Housing Trust Fund, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and other resources.
Besides being needed to cope with inflation-related gaps, the local money helps serve as proof to DHCD that residents of the Outer Cape strongly support increased affordable housing, developers and planners say.
The DHCD offers two funding rounds: the main round in the winter and a mini-funding round in June. Developers of both the Wellfleet and Provincetown proposals were invited to participate in the winter round of applications for state and federal funding.
POAH and the CDP got the required comprehensive permit in September for the Lawrence Road project. But the state’s invitation came later, only after the December commitment of $1 million in local community preservation funds and preliminary approval of $500,000 from the town’s affordable housing trust. Wellfleet voters will still have to approve the CPA allocation at this spring’s annual town meeting. The developers got their application in on Jan. 19 — deadline day at DHCD.
With local permits in hand, The Community Builders also submitted their application to DHCD for the winter funding round on deadline day, according to Provincetown Town Manager Alex Morse.
Now it’s a matter of waiting. “The state usually makes announcements in the summer,” said Morse. “With the new administration the timeline may shift a bit, but I wouldn’t expect notice until after May.” Morse said the town has committed $3 million in local funds to the project “that will be brought to the annual town meeting in April.”
While they await the DHCD funding decisions, there’s more funding work for the developers and towns to do.
For Provincetown’s development, The Community Builders have made requests for $500,000 each to the community preservation committees of both Truro and Provincetown. If those funds are recommended by the committees, they’ll need to be approved at town meetings.
