Housing 5.1: Affordable/Community Housing

In order to meet the long term community housing needs of the Island’s year-round population, we should aim to meet and surpass the Commonwealth’s target of 10% of the Vineyard’s year-round housing stock to be permanently affordable to Island residents earning up to 80% AMI, and to create an additional 10% permanently affordable to Island residents earning between 81% and 150% AMI. Currently, this would be about 650 units in each category.

It is important to place the greatest effort on those that have the greatest need, namely the under 100% AMI level, while also seeking to address the needs of the full range of income levels that has difficulty finding housing on the open market.  Also, at least half of these units should be rental housing, since this is the greatest need because it is available to people who don’t have the equity for home ownership, and because it means that the housing will be available to future generations; however, it takes additional financial resources to implement and operate rental housing.

Since significant public support is needed to subsidize affordable housing – either directly with financial support or indirectly by allowing greater density – it is appropriate that there be restrictions to ensure that this resource is used by people with significant need, such as income-monitoring of tenants. It should be possible to create an additional stable stock of year-round housing with little or no subsidy, in which case it could be advantageous to minimize the associated restrictions such as income verification, though this doesn’t seem to be possible under current laws.

Objective H1: Allow additional density for new community housing in appropriate locations.

Allowing additional density – provided all extra units are used for affordable housing or community housing – can be an effective way to address the Island’s housing needs.  Examples include additional accessory units such as West Tisbury’s Accessory Unit By-law, and multi-family housing in specific areas Island Elderly Housing’s Aidelberg in Oak Bluffs. In all cases of additional density outlined below, the additional units should meet Board of Health regulations and any additional construction should be designed to meet zoning dimensional limits, the building code, and wetlands restrictions, and to fit the neighborhood.

·  Strategy H1-1: Allow an additional accessory affordable housing unit on appropriate properties. The idea is to allow one accessory unit on a residential property provided it is deed-restricted to be affordable housing or to be used by members of the owner’s immediate family. This unit could either be within an existing home, as an addition to an existing home, or where permitted in zoning, in a guest house or garage apartment. Only one unit on a property should be allowed to be rented. (A similar provision in West Tisbury resulted in the creation of about 30 units since 2003.) To address concerns that this could lead to an excessive increase in development, this provision could be implemented in a gradual way, starting out by allowing it only with a special permit in growth areas. If it is effective, but doesn’t lead to an unsustainable number of additional housing units, it could later be extended to the whole Island or made an as-of-right zoning provision. Consideration could also be given to also use a provision similar to one recently adopted in Nantucket to allow guest houses to be sold provided they are permanently deed restricted to be affordable.

·  Strategy H1-2: Allow multi-unit community housing in certain areas. Currently, only 9% of the Island’s housing stock is multi-family, and zoning only allows it on a small part of the Island. This makes it difficult to supply housing for certain sectors: singles, young couples, and empty nesters wanting to downsize. The zoning should be changed in growth areas to allow multi-unit housing – such as duplexes, triplexes, quadraplexes, or small apartment buildings – provided all additional units beyond the base zoning are used for community housing. Growth areas are in or close to towns, close to services, and where town water and sewers are available, as defined in section 2: Land Use Suitability Plan. (For example, if current zoning would only allow, one unit on property A and four units on property B, this provision could allow a second unit on property A and 2 extra units on property B, provided they were restricted as year-round housing under 150% AMI). The general provision of more areas allowing multi-unit housing, even if not income restricted, would provide additional housing options for the Vineyard including buyers or renters at the low end of market rate housing. For community housing units within market rate developments, consideration should be given to reducing, perhaps eliminating, certain association, road, septic, or recreational club fees that could make the monthly housing payments unaffordable.

Objective H2: Prioritize use of existing housing stock for affordable housing and community housing. 

Efforts to address housing needs should look for opportunities to use existing buildings instead of new construction, to avoid the possible negative impacts (wastewater, traffic, neighborhood disruption, etc.) related to new development.

·  Strategy H2-1: Adopt demolition delay bylaws to encourage house preservation or reuse. Demolition delay bylaws, similar to Edgartown’s, should be implemented Island-wide to promote keeping existing houses in place, or when they must be removed, to encourage relocation of structures for use as community housing, or, at least, deconstruction to recycle building materials. The demolition delay should be until the owner arranges to have the house moved to an alternative location, or deconstructed if moving is not feasible. To make moving houses donated for community housing financially feasible, owners should be encouraged to donate their cost savings, namely the cost of demolition that is avoided, and the tax refund from donating the building. One or more locations should be established for temporary staging of homes and the storage of reusable house materials such as doors, windows, and floors (see Section 5).

·  Strategy H2-2: Establish amnesty programs to address the issue of illegal apartments.  Work with town boards and building officials to establish amnesty programs to allow property owners with illegal apartments to be brought up to code for the health and safety of tenants. Create a subsidy program that will provide financial assistance to property owners to upgrade illegal apartments.

Objective H3: Increase funding for affordable housing and community housing and related infrastructure and services.

It costs a great deal to create and operate community housing projects. Although private fundraising efforts have been quite successful in recent years, it would be best to create a steady stream of funding for various housing programs and projects. The first stage in achieving this was the decision of all six Island towns to adopt the Community Preservation Act. It is a continuing challenge to identify and pursue all state, federal, municipal, and private funding sources.

·  Strategy H3-2: Create the Martha's Vineyard Housing Bank: The proposal to create the Martha's Vineyard Housing Bank, financed by a 1% fee on the portion of property sales over $750,000, was endorsed by all Island towns in 2005, but the legislation stalled in the Legislature. Passing this legislation could be a very effective way to generate a steady stream of funding for affordable housing.

·  Strategy H3-3: Provide tax incentives to property owners who rent housing units on a year-round basis. In addition to continuing to support the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority’s Rental Assistance Program that provides subsidies to property owners who rent to qualified tenants on a year-round basis, towns should consider providing tax incentives to property owners who rent housing units on a year-round basis.

·   Strategy H3-4: Provide infrastructure for community housing. Encourage collaboration between Boards of Selectman, town Housing Committees, and Wastewater Commissions to allocate a percentage of sewer capacity for community housing projects. This was done successfully with projects such as Jenny Way, Morgan Woods, and Aidylberg, whereas other opportunities were missed.

·   Strategy H3-5: Seek Island-wide cost-sharing methods for infrastructure and services. The people of all Island towns benefit from having people with mixed income levels living here. In the past, most community housing has been built in down-Island towns, where density is higher and property tend to be less costly. It would be more equitable if there were an Island-wide funding mechanism to allow all Vineyard residents to contribute their fair share to the costs associated with providing community housing, notably the cost of education, infrastructure (water, wastewater, roads) and services (schools, police, fire, public works, etc.).

·  Strategy H3-6: Require inclusion of affordable/community housing units, or affordable/community housing financial mitigation, in market development projects. The construction of commercial projects and of market housing directly or indirectly adds to the need for people to build, operate, and take care of these properties, thereby adding to the need for affordable/community housing. This can be offset by three regulatory measures related to new development projects. First, towns should adopt inclusionary zoning to require that housing projects or subdivisions larger than a given size include one affordable housing unit for each of a given number of housing units or lots (such as one in ten or one in six). Second, towns could require inclusion of housing in commercial projects (e.g. housing above stores), when possible. Third, home rule petitions could allow towns to set up “linkage” programs, requiring financial mitigation for commercial projects and certain residential projects (such as subdivisions of a certain size or the construction of large homes) to be used for affordable/community housing projects (as is done in Cambridge and Brookline). The MVC should revise its Affordable Housing Policy, continuing to seek mitigation by having one in ten, or perhaps six, units or lots in a housing project or subdivision reserved for affordable housing, but also seeking an equivalent number of community housing units in the 81-150% AMI range.

·  Strategy H3-7: Consider taxing or imposing a registration fee for weekly housing rentals. It has been argued that short-term housing rentals result in costs to the community, but are not paying the additional income or municipal taxes related to these rentals. Possible taxes are the Room Tax, which would be shared between the Commonwealth and the town, and a town’s business tax. This would require a home rule petition, and is currently being considered on Cape Cod. An alternative would be to require property owners whose properties are rented on a weekly basis to register with the town and pay a fee. These proposals, which have been the object of debate for many years on the Vineyard, could generate revenue for the development of community housing projects, seasonal workforce housing, and other services that benefit visitors.

Objective H4-1: Streamline the planning and management of affordable/community housing efforts.

·  Strategy H4-1: Coordinate the affordable/community housing application process. Establish one Island-wide application process for all town affordable /community housing programs in addition to all other private and public housing programs that will be administered by the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority. Establish Island-wide local preference standards using a point system instead of town-by-town standards for affordable/community housing recipients.

·  Strategy H4-2: Regularly assess the impact of zoning and the permitting process on housing affordability. There are many regulations on the books to promote affordable/ community housing and the Island Plan proposes others. In order to understand which ones are effective and which aren’t, there should be a an evaluation of all regulations every two years, looking at the number of community housing units that were created by each by-law and identify the possible reasons why some measures were or were not effective. The successful ones can be adopted by other towns, and the problematic regulations revised or taken off the books. Best practices off-Island should be considered for possible adoption. This analysis should include working with local and regional permit-granting boards to identify impediments in the regulatory processes to affordable/community housing projects and possible ways to streamline them, without compromising other requirements.

·  Strategy H4-3: Adopt Housing Production Plans.  The Commonwealth has outlined a procedure that encourages towns to prepare Housing Production Plans setting out how each town proposes to achieve the Commonwealth’s target of 10% of the town’s year-round housing units being affordable housing. If a town adopts such a plan and makes steady progress towards achieving this goal, it can exercise greater control over hostile 40B Comprehensive Permit Projects.  Related to this, the Island Housing Needs Assessment Study should be updated every five years in support of the Plan, and also to serve as a base document required when pursuing state or federal grant programs.

·  Strategy H4-4: Consider measures to reduce legal challenges to community housing projects. In order to reduce the number of legal challenges that can considerably delay locally approved affordable/community housing projects, by-laws could include language similar to Chapter 40R that shifts the housing developer’s litigation expenses to the party appealing a local approval if the appeal is unsuccessful; this would require an Act of the state legislature under a home rule petition. An alternative approach would be to ask the Commonwealth to modify its recently adopted fact-track procedure in Land Court providing for settling appeals within six months in order to include all affordable/community housing projects (it is now limited to projects with more than 25 units)

Strategy H4-5: Ensure permanent income-protection with affordable and community housing. In the past, various types of affordable housing were created that end up becoming market housing because affordability provisions were allowed to lapse. Given the high public investment required to create affordable housing, it is important that they be permanently locked in as affordable/community housing, so they serve the needs of future generations. Permanent affordability can be ensured by using the Island Housing Trust’s Ground Lease or by adopting the Martha’s Vineyard Housing Covenant By-law in each town, which allow permanent deed restrictions on ground leases for households earning up to 150% AMI. 

Strategy H3-1: Encourage each town to adopt a Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund: This allows towns to place Community Preservation Act funds and other municipal funds in the trust fund earmarked for affordable housing, where it can be accessed more quickly to take advantage of opportunities such as property available for purchase.  Chilmark, West Tisbury, and Edgartown have already adopted a MAHTF. Another option is to have the Island Affordable Housing Fund create a separate account for town specific projects as done in Aquinnah.