The lack of affordable housing is the defining issue for Martha’s Vineyard. Our future is riding on how we solve this challenge. It will determine whether young people and longtime Island families will be able to stay on the Vineyard. The issue also frames a wider debate on questions that affect us all, most pointedly the environmental and physical limits of the Island. It presents an urgent question for the business community, which is struggling to find a workforce that can find a way to live here year-round, or to offer solutions for the busy summer season.
The acute nature of housing here brought Sen. Elizabeth Warren to the Vineyard as part of her campaign to push for the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which was passed by Congress and enacted into law. It received strong bipartisan support, and marks what is widely viewed as the most substantial piece of federal housing legislation in a generation. And we, here on the Island, believe strongly that national leadership on this issue of affordable housing is urgently needed, as we witness the corrosive impacts of what happens to a community when the issue is kicked down the road, or when proposed solutions on all levels — local, state, and national — are stymied by powerful vested interests.
Specifically, the law is designed to cut regulatory red tape and empower the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The overall goal is to spur construction of affordable units, reform existing programs, reduce costs of manufactured homes, and bring more oversight over federal housing regulators. The law also places strict limits, and in some places bans, on large institutional investors and private equity firms looking to buy up large quantities of single-family homes, outbidding ordinary families. We have seen this scourge firsthand here on the Island, and the law is welcome news if, in fact, it curtails the practice.
The ingredients that make up the new housing act are still taking shape, and how it will actually impact the Island is not yet certain. That uncertainty is driven in no small measure by the fact that we have our own unique circumstances to contend with. There’s the “Island factor,” a term coined by locals that refers to the steeper cost of building here than on the mainland; a seasonal economy that has led to a sharp decline in year-round rental availability; a median home price close to $1.7 million for 2025; and rising public health and safety issues that come with a lack of affordable housing, such as makeshift tent communities in wooded areas and overcrowded accommodations that put people at risk.
But buried in the new law is legislation that brings to the forefront why we need our own transfer fee, often interchangeably called the housing bank.
This is a piece of the puzzle that we believe is worth careful consideration. Some legislators and lobbyists on Beacon Hill may not like the idea of a housing bank, but on the Island, funding to clear the gap in affordability is sorely needed. A question for the whole Island is, How can we come together to find the right formula for the transfer-fee approach to building a housing bank?
There are other important innovative approaches in the law. One section of Warren’s act is dedicated to RESIDE, an acronym for Revitalizing Empty Structures into Desirable Environments, which is essentially a pilot grant program to support local governments in converting empty commercial and industrial properties into affordable housing.
The grants are for what are called “opportunity zones,” or federally designated economically distressed areas, and Vineyard towns are not a part of that list. It is worth noting that a western segment of Nantucket is listed. We need to find a way to be sure we are not overlooked, and find a way for our Island leadership to be sure that we establish parts of the Island as opportunity zones.
Island planning officials often say we can’t build out of the housing crisis, a reality that gets closer as questions of the Island’s physical limits are raised. Converting existing resources is a way to supplement the construction of affordable housing while putting less stress on the land.
To do this, the Island needs capital, but the pieces of legislation that would have established a transfer fee for the Island quietly failed to pass muster at the state legislature. The proposed legislation would have established a onetime fee of 2 percent on real estate transactions of $1 million or more, to be funneled into a housing bank for affordable housing initiatives. The proposal stalled in July, largely due to pushback by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors and doubt that was cast about the effect of a fee on the real estate market.
The transfer fee failure was a blow for housing advocates. It’s the second time a housing bank has failed on Beacon Hill. Cape and Islands State Sen. Julian Cyr, who proposed the transfer fee, told The Times that a next swing at the legislation will need to wait until next year, and Cyr said he’s impressed upon his fellow state legislators about the scale, and costs, of dealing with housing in the region.
“We just can’t come up with a better revenue solution that would generate the tens of millions of dollars that we need to preserve year-round housing options for Islanders,” Cyr said to The Times earlier this month.
As Cyr and housing advocates prepare to return to this battle for affordable housing, here’s something that can be highlighted for state legislators who are unfamiliar with housing on the Island: Sandwiched around the summertime glitz, the mansions that snag headlines, and the stereotype of the Vineyard being a rich enclave for liberal elites, are real people, working real jobs in real homes. Families raising their children, young entrepreneurs weighing the costs of doing business here, and people juggling multiple jobs to stay afloat.
The Vineyard community isn’t naive enough to think any piece of legislation will be the sole answer. There is no silver bullet. But the housing bank is a tool that could have been used to generate the revenue necessary to help cover rent costs, purchase year-round deed restrictions, and turn properties into the housing a family may have been looking for to stay on the Island. And each snag that delays it will push people off the Island to more affordable pastures.
We urge legislators who opposed the transfer fee to come see the Vineyard for themselves, like Warren did, and hear more firsthand accounts of what makes this Island so extraordinary. To experience Martha’s Vineyard on vacation or even for a day trip relies on the workforce that serves the community and that increasingly can’t afford to live here. It’s high time to come together to take bold steps to be sure we can all continue to call this Island home.
