A new collection of housing reports is highlighting significant wealth disparities seen across the Vineyard, that housing insecurity among residents is steadily increasing, and how substantially the short-term rental market is impacting year-round residents looking for rentals.
The reports — about 70 pages for each town — also provide goals to help address housing issues such as identifying existing town properties to build affordable housing, and incentive programs for homeowners.
The state-defined Housing Production Plans (HPPs) — with each town and its residents working on their own unique version — is the culmination of months of meetings and planning. The process started with a regional needs assessment and zoning analysis from the Hingham-based Barrett Planning Group and the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC) before each town’s planning board got involved, and recently, all of the above collaborated on community discussions that ended on June 18. While these published drafts are not the final plans, they’re a peek into the goals, strategies, and needs of housing in each town.
“The goal of a housing production plan is to provide a comprehensive roadmap for addressing housing challenges over the next five years,” MVC Island housing planner Laura Silber said.
The six separate HPPs highlight an intense and growing need for housing stock on an Island where rental and ownership options for year-rounders are more scarce by the year.
“Many of the recommendations that were included as part of previous plans are of even greater urgency today,” the Island’s HPP reads.
After similar housing production plans were abandoned by four out of six towns at the drawing table in 2018, the COVID pandemic brought an influx of new residents, and exposed housing needs for year-round residents more than ever before. The revisiting of the plan came soon after a statewide HPP was published, with many towns in the state of Massachusetts undergoing a similar process in order to become eligible for certain housing grants and initiatives, and to align with the state’s mission of improving the housing landscape.
Some of the more alarming statistics in the reports are the Island-wide, pronounced and growing wealth disparities, and a severe gap in affordability for home ownership, with most Islanders not making nearly enough to afford a home.
The gap for home ownership — meaning the difference between what a person can be projected to pay for a home, and what homes actually cost — for a person earning $168,615 a year (150 percent of area median income, or AMI) ranges from $391,000 in Tisbury to more than $1.1 million in Aquinnah.
With the current highest salary for a position at the public schools on the Island at $121,934 a year — even with the increase of about $20,000 laid out in the new contracts — teachers have an even higher affordability gap for home buying.
And many municipal salaries are comparable to public school positions. The top salary for a municipal employee in the town of Edgartown was $217,329 in 2024.
Home prices have been increasing much faster than salary increases, and with a gap in affordability that reaches as high as $1.1 million even for those earning the Island’s version of middle-income wages, most locals are statistically not earning enough to purchase a home. Part of these discrepancies, the HPPs state, can be attributed to the towns not working together for affordable housing solutions on a grander scale.
“At the most basic level, M.V. towns are not aligned on how affordable housing is defined in zoning, and thus understood by residents, local officials, and developers. While all towns reference affordability … in their zoning bylaws, not every town defines [it] the same way,” the report stated.
Paths forward
The reports suggest that towns could be doing more to address housing inequities, including spending tax revenue earned through short-term rentals for housing-related issues.
There are 4,059 documented short-term rentals Island-wide, with Edgartown having the highest recorded number of all towns. Part of the effects of the industry have been measured over the past six years through a 4 to 6 percent tax revenue on these types of rentals, introduced in 2019. In the first year of the tax, the Island netted about $2.1 million. That has jumped every year since, to an increased total in 2023 of $9 million.
These jumps, according to the reports, were due to the seasonal, work-from-home visitors during the pandemic who opted to stay on the Island and rent beyond the summer season, and raised the short-term rental tax rates as a result. But the report pointed out that the tax revenue has not been utilized by the towns for diversifying housing stock.
“To date, none of this funding has been earmarked in direct support of affordable or community housing,” the report stated. The exception, it said, is Chilmark, which recently voted to donate one-third of the revenue from those tax revenues to the Affordable Housing Trust.
“While [short-term rental] units provide a new revenue source for the towns, they place additional pressures on the existing housing stock, further increasing demand and housing prices,” the report stated.
With some solutions for residents recently passed, such as by-right accessory dwelling units with year-round-specific zoning, planners are working to close the gap in regulation for short-term rentals. And with technological advances in the industry — such as Airbnb and VRBO booking software — the market for this type of housing is not slowing down, and locals are paying the price, literally.
But the goals set forth by the HPPs address some parts of the long list of town-specific and regional concerns over the next five years. While the housing meetings to draft these plans were fraught with community discussion about the flaws in the local system and the fragility of some relief programs, there are also concrete steps that towns may be taking to help their own housing-insecure residents — from those who are unhoused to the “missing middle” locals.
In Edgartown, community members and town officials are focused on initiating incentive programs, building affordable units, and diversifying housing types. A town with nearly 50 percent of its housing stock used as short-term rentals, Edgartown is planning to shine a light on year-rounders in the next couple of years. They identified eight town-owned lot sites for future builds in order to reach their 60-unit goal for 2030. And their plans include creative solutions for multi-family complexes, multiple units, and various other housing types.
Residents of the town of Tisbury are more concerned with nitrogen loads, wastewater, and urine diversion, as well as increasing affordable housing units. Their income demographics veer lower, and some residents are still coming up for air after years of development (especially through restaurant upgrades after the liquor law was changed, and an influx of visiting residents) and higher tax rates due to the Tisbury School building project. Their interests lie in preserving naturally occurring year-round housing — reducing unpredictability and protecting systems that work well.
Some common ground regionally was found in the possible introduction of a transfer fee — a Housing Bank legislative initiative that has yet to be passed by the state. And conservation efforts and environmental concerns were at the forefront as well, with many residents looking for ways to keep a cool head when building affordable units, so as not to disrupt the land unnecessarily.
Many of the up-Island towns are concerned with mixed-use housing stock — with a variety of affordability markers and creative solutions on building types. The incomes for residents of West Tisbury, Chilmark, and Aquinnah are reportedly higher, and they’re interested in finding ways to keep year-round workers and families on the Island. They also discussed unhoused populations, and initiatives to address the growing amount of people who deal with seasonal and chronic instability.
The town of Oak Bluffs focused on unhoused individuals as well, with many of its goals centered around maintaining population diversity — whether that be income, age, or otherwise. Its fifth goal states: “Support a diverse population that includes employees, young and old residents, people with disabilities, and unhoused families and individuals to live in Oak Bluffs year-round.”
Each Island town will be diving into these draft reports over the coming months in an effort to finalize them — and approve them at the select and planning board level. Then, implementation of the suggested strategies to reach housing goals begins.
When a community finds that it’s easier and faster to get a kitchen and landscape renovation than it is to get a primary care physician for yourself or a vet for your pooch, you know who and what is largely to blame for the housing crisis. Stop catering to tourism, seasonal wealth, and now, year round wealth, and start concentrating on self-sufficiency without providing all these services geared toward raking in the big bucks from those who flock to the island. If you don’t build it, they won’t come. Enough should be enough. The island, sorry to say, did this to itself. It’s still going on, too, by pretending that there’s some moral value in educating rich people by serving them a plate of 45 dollar tomatoes grown at a local farm/restaurant. When you can do that, or rent out your house while you go live in Canada for the summer, why act all OMG because Johnny’s teacher can’t afford to live on the island? Islanders’ heads are simply unscrewed by an inability to get off the reliable money train. I mean, (and I hope this doesn’t get me disappeared ?), when even a sweet, local newspaper starts offering “tiered memberships” (on top of subscriptions) for a once-free newspaper that catered to locals, time to wake up, peeps.
Well said !
Newspapers should be free?
Why isn’t there any discussion on the dangers of over population? Let the workers commute. Keep the Island safe, clean, and free of congestion. These affordable housing units will only raise taxes on all of us for the increased infrastructure cost, especially schools. And then when work slow downs, we will become a welfare Island.