The Coalition to Create the Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank is holding two community listening sessions via Zoom next week.
The coalition will give a presentation on its work, research, and ideas and give the public the opportunity to ask questions.
The sessions will be on Monday, May 3, and Wednesday, May 5, at 7 pm both evenings. The Zoom link for the sessions can be found at bit.ly/ccmvhbzoom on the days of the events.
The Coalition got a recent boost of support from the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank when the Land Bank agreed to provide administrative duties for fee collection should a housing bank be approved by Island towns and the state legislature.
Our local government(s) should not be in the business of taxing (or imposing fees upon) the existing population in order to make it easier for more people to live here. While I support a housing bank, I do not support the implementation of new taxes or fees to provide for the acquisition and development of affordable housing on Martha’s Vineyard. I encourage likeminded Islanders to join our organization, Keep Our Island Green.
Affordable housing is a real problem everywhere. But the new year round population of owners who have moved here partially because of Covid-19. This has put a real strain on our services. From getting an appointment with a vet, a medical appointment, a hair appointment and a car repair has become very challenging. Not to mention getting ferry reservations. There is no question that we will need more service personnel on the Vineyard to sustain this growth. But where do we house them? One solution may be if a person purchases a home on MV over $2 million they have 12 months to create an affordable housing unit. Either an apartment over the garage or a stand alone 2 BR unit placed on the property to not impact the owners.
The purpose of this would be to create year round housing for existing and new service personnel who otherwise couldn’t find housing to stay on MV.
That’s a perplexing point of view. A Housing Bank would hardly be encouraging more people to move here, but rather ensuring that people are able to stay here. In fact, the types of projects the HB would be supporting will have residency requirements.
It is housing for Islanders.
And specifically the types of Islanders that make this place a functional community but are starting to look across the Sound as rentals disappear and the market drives all property sales over a million dollars.
2020 saw $1 billion in property sales. A modest transfer fee could do so much for people. We’ve already tried everything else.
This will not encourage more people to move here. It will help Island families who might otherwise be forced to leave due to exorbitant housing costs to stay in our community.
Another fix for the housing crisis is that current MV owners receive a real estate tax break if they rent their guest house or an existing unit above the garage or a floor of their home to a service professional. How many single/widowed/widower home owners are living in their homes and could use the additional income?
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