Vineyard towns got a small taste of what a legislative tool called the “seasonal communities designation” can bring to the table. The tool was intended to address the Island’s housing crunch, but the lack of a stable funding stream has humbled the extent of its reach so far.
That is, until late February, when Gov. Maura Healey’s administration awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars to Vineyard municipalities to jump-start the potential of the program to work for Island residents. It’s one part of a comprehensive package called the Affordable Homes Act, signed into law in 2024, and one of the most ambitious state housing bills in the country.
The seasonal communities designation was designed to provide new ways for municipalities and housing officials in areas uniquely affected by seasonality, like the Vineyard, to directly help year-round residents. There are 44 municipalities in the state, including the Island’s six towns, that are now considered seasonal communities, and have been afforded new zoning and regulation allowances as a result. But Healey’s recent grants are the first substantial funding initiative since Island towns began adopting the designation.
Ranging from just over $60,000 for Carl Widdis Way, an affordable housing project by members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah (Gay Head) and Island Housing Trust, to almost $175,000 to Oak Bluffs for veterans’ housing in called Bellevue Veterans Community, these new grants — totaling three-quarters of a million dollars — are a push forward for the existing and planned housing projects at play.
“We’re making significant headway responding to a housing crisis that we’ve had for over 20 years, and that was significantly exacerbated in the COVID pandemic and its aftermath,” state Sen. Julian Cyr, who represents the Cape and Islands, said. “Already, through this new program, we’re bringing home the bacon.”
Year-round Islanders are faced with a housing landscape that’s rife with challenges, including higher costs than many other places in the state. With more than 60 percent of Vineyard homes considered seasonally vacant and a booming influx of Airbnbs and short-term rentals, a hurdle for housing officials has been finding ways to increase the number of units and lower rental rates on an Island that has limited land.
The designation has some creative workarounds to pursue that goal. One feature is an extension of the residential tax exemption, which redistributes the tax burden from year-round residents to seasonal ones, to a limit of 50 percent exemptions for year-rounders, which some towns have already looked into. West Tisbury added a bump to its residential tax exemption last year. Now West Tisbury property owners are seeing a 30 percent decrease in their tax bills, and that amount is spread out among the seasonal residents of the town instead. The towns of Tisbury and Oak Bluffs have also increased their exemptions for year-rounders.
Other facets of the seasonal communities designation include the ability to acquire year-round occupancy restrictions on new and existing housing projects. There’s also specific language that opens up workplace housing for municipal workers. But initiatives like those need financial backing.
Cyr described the seasonal communities designation as a “consequential” toolkit for Islanders, in an interview with The Times. But, until now, it has operated below its intended capacity due to a lack of a consistent funding source.
Besides the state’s recent grants, Laura Silber, housing planner at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, said a housing bank could fund facets of the designation in the future. A housing bank would be created by a legislative act that would introduce a fee on real estate purchases, and function much like the Land Bank.
Silber said the designation gives legislators “a platform to advocate for more robust funding streams,” like the proposed 2 percent transfer fee on luxury properties that a housing bank could introduce.
And many of these new policies, such as the public sector employee housing tools, “were not previously available to Massachusetts municipalities,” said Silber.
“We expect to see this particular component incorporated into town projects currently in the pipeline, and are at work with EOHLC [the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities] vetting implementation scenarios,” Silber told The Times.
Cyr said there is another bill he introduced at the State House in Boston that could further streamline the seasonal communities designation. The bill, “S.967: An Act relative to housing in seasonal communities,” seeks to expand the outreach to more than municipal employees. It also clarifies year-round occupancy restrictions, such as an allowance for year-round deed restrictions held by seasonal communities to last in perpetuity.
In the meantime, the grants have provided a peek into the potential of the seasonal communities designation.
“On the Island, this is making possible some very real, tangible projects,” Cyr said.
Individual grants for housing projects in each Island town:
Edgartown: $169,456 for utilities, including water, septic, and power, in the development of two homes
Oak Bluffs: $173,455 for the Bellevue Veterans Community, a town-led project with Island Housing Trust, a nonprofit that builds affordable housing projects Island-wide
Aquinnah: $60,147 for Carl Widdis Way, and infrastructure updates at the existing Wampanoag Tribe–owned property designated for affordable housing
Chilmark: $78,015 for infrastructure and site-planning on town-owned land that’s intended for 14 units of affordable and community housing
Tisbury: $161,296 toward the construction of an affordable, year-round-restricted duplex
West Tisbury: $132,172 to help construct four year-round, affordable duplexes
Total amount awarded to the Vineyard: $774,541
Wonderful! Onward!