To the Editor:
I’m writing in response to your editorial published on Dec. 4.
I certainly understand the urgency of the Vineyard’s economic crisis and the desperate need for affordable housing but believe the solution you propose will backfire. A 30-50% increase in property taxes just for seasonal homeowners could lead to an exodus. Treating people differently never works out well. Raising rates on seasonal homeowners — who are actually the ones that use the least town services such as schools and police — will only make people feel taken advantage of. Remember the Boston Tea Party?
Summer people are already wondering whether the tickborne illnesses make the joy of coming to the Vineyard a risk worth taking. My wife got alpha-gal in the fall and our adult children and friends are deeply worried about visiting. We already rent our place out for the bulk of the summer to pay our property taxes. If the rates are raised as you suggest, our time on the Island will shrink to the point where we’ll throw in the towel after my family’s 63 years of homeownership. And if enough summer people choose to do the same and sell out, the property market will get flooded, followed by a spiraling down of housing values and property taxes. This would cause a dramatic impact on jobs and small businesses.
It also seems dangerous to take such a radical step when towns haven’t tried regionalizing services like police. I get that there is a deep history of towns managing all their own affairs, but does that history make it impossible to consider taking new approaches? There’s a genuine crisis and before taking a step that may well create bigger problems than it solves, everything needs to be on the table.
David Lewis
West Tisbury
I understand the concern that adjusting tax policy could have unintended consequences, but framing this as “seasonal owners versus towns” misses the underlying reality Vineyard communities are confronting.
Municipal costs are driven largely by fixed, year-round obligations — public safety staffing, schools, roads, wastewater, debt service, and winter operations — not by how often a particular house is occupied. Those costs do not shrink when homes sit empty for much of the year, yet the burden of sustaining them increasingly falls on a shrinking year-round population.
The argument that seasonal homeowners “use the least services” oversimplifies how local budgets actually work. Readiness and infrastructure must exist twelve months a year, regardless of occupancy. Meanwhile, housing prices — and therefore property assessments — have risen far faster than local wages, pricing essential workers out of the communities they serve.
Predictions of a sudden exodus or collapsing property values are speculative. Vineyard real estate demand is driven by scarcity and long-term desirability, not modest policy shifts aimed at preserving a viable year-round community.
Regionalizing services may merit discussion, but it offers no relief from a housing and workforce crisis already underway. Inaction has consequences. The residential exemption is not punishment; it is a tool to stabilize the tax base and preserve the Vineyard as a community, not a destination.