On a windy day this August, architect Geoffrey White strolled to a 100-square-foot accessory dwelling unit (ADU) he had built near his home in West Tisbury. He’d designed the small building as a livable “garden shed” back in 1995. It’s a small structure, with a white wooden desk, a bike, and a lofted area for a bed; he calls it the “Writer’s Cottage.”
The bright yellow shingled exterior can be seen from the main house on the property, where White lives seasonally with his wife, artist Eleanor Hubbard. White and Hubbard’s home — which was originally a 600-square-foot building when they bought it — is adorned with color and character in the same artistic flair he brings to the ADUs he designs.
The Writer’s Cottage is one of four White has built, each with different square footage and intended use, such as an ADU apartment for a family member, or workplace housing for the caretaker of an elderly resident looking to age in place. Some of White’s sketches have been brought to life, by other homeowners or himself, while others remain on paper, nestled neatly in a laminated book.
“I love doing these small houses. They’re sort of like a haiku,” White said of his ADU designs. “It’s a way of trying to boil things down to their essence, and also it means that to be successful in any of these houses, you have to boil your life down to your essence.”
White is one example among many architects, builders, housing advocates, and business owners of the excitement around ADUs, which were allowed “by-right” through a new state law, meaning they cannot be overly restricted by municipalities in Massachusetts. The law went into effect in 2025. These small structures are referred to as “protected-use ADUs.”
For many, ADUs are seen as a hopeful solution on the Vineyard, where there’s limited land to build on and a growing crisis in housing affordability.
But homeowners here have had to grapple with regulatory hurdles like nonconforming homes, historic parcels, wetland bylaws, and generally a steeper price to build, which contractors and builders refer to as the “Island factor.”
As a result, fewer ADUs have been built on the Island than expected since the state law went into effect, and many are constructed for seasonal or family use, not for year-round rentals as many Islanders had hoped. And while all Island towns passed restrictions on ADUs so that they can’t be rented out for 30 days or less, to prevent them from being used as short-term rentals, those bylaws are difficult to enforce.
“It’s really hard to regulate if someone’s using it as a short-term rental or not,” Reade Milne, Chilmark (and formerly Edgartown) building inspector, told The Times.
“We already have a significant ADU inventory here,” Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC) housing planner Laura Silber told The Times. “The question is, How are they being utilized?”
Other than the regulatory hoops, the driving issue that keeps coming up regarding ADUs is a familiar one for locals: their cost. While modularly built ADUs can be cheaper, building a 900-square-foot ADU from the ground up on the Vineyard can cost as much as $700,000 or more, according to real estate brokers and town building inspectors.
All the while, year-round residents are increasingly priced out of the Island by seasonal visitors, second-homeowners, and investment buyers, with a median home price of $1.7 million this year and over 60 percent of housing stock lived in for two months or less. In 2025, the MVC calculated that a person earning $168,615 a year, far more than the average Vineyarder, could not afford to buy a home here.
The smaller space option of accessory units is upheld by housing officials as a potential solution, among many, for addressing those hurdles on the Island. Founding director of Island Housing Trust Philippe Jordi called ADUs a “great way to potentially create housing in a gentle way,” in an interview with The Times, but noted necessary “incentives” and pointed to affordability concerns, ease of permitting, and accessibility of tools and subsidies to assist homeowners.
But as the state launches programs that address the cost of ADUs, such as mortgage assistance, a loan program for construction through MassHousing, and free designs, many Islanders are running into restrictions that financial help can’t solve.
The Times has followed the progress of ADUs on the Island since the by-right law was passed on the state level in 2024 as part of the Affordable Homes Act, a comprehensive housing bill signed by Gov. Maura Healey to increase housing supply. There was initial community engagement when the law was passed, but when people started to build ADUs, the local regulatory and zoning walls rose to meet them, too.
Marilyn Moses, real estate broker at Ocean Park Realty, summed up the resulting tension in a statement to The Times: “ADUs could be an important part of addressing Martha’s Vineyard’s housing needs. They give homeowners more flexibility to create year-round housing for family members, caregivers, or residents while making better use of existing properties. On the Vineyard, however, septic capacity, wastewater regulations, and local permitting remain important considerations. It’s a positive step, but every property needs to be evaluated individually.”
The basics
ADUs, also known as “granny flats,” can be interior, attached, or detached units on land previously zoned for single-family homes. They include a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, and are essentially smaller living spaces that can be utilized as rentals, workplace housing, living quarters for caretakers or family members, or simply an additional bedroom space. They can be up to half of the existing square footage of a home or 900 square feet, whichever is smaller.
On the Island, many structures similar to ADUs have been constructed over the years through local zoning bylaw allowances as garden sheds, like White’s Writer’s Cottage, or as guesthouses. The smaller structures have long been used for intergenerational living; adult children of Islanders have lived in ADUs, or older locals have downsized on their own property.
In May of 2025, The Times interviewed Islanders who had already built ADUs and guesthouses for the purpose of intergenerational living. At the time, those locals explained that ADUs provided their family with a less expensive option for housing their loved ones.
Are homeowners building ADUs?
Over the past year, ADU production has gone up and down, but ultimately, many have been built. According to data from the state collected from local building inspectors in July of 2025, January of 2026, and July of 2026, 53 ADUs have been approved on the Island since the law was passed. Seventy-two applications were submitted and were either denied or haven’t yet been approved.
According to building inspectors, one common challenge is the many Vineyarders who have nonconforming homes, meaning homes that do not comply with current zoning bylaws or building codes but are allowed because they were built before those bylaws existed. These homes cannot be made less conforming — any additions or renovations must make them more so.
This could mean an ADU is denied for a home built in the early 1900s where the garage is over the setback limit — an ADU cannot be built above the garage, since it would also be over the setback. Some homeowners don’t know this to be the case about their home until they apply for a permit.
On the Island, the ADU by-right law is far more complex than many homeowners expected, because so much of the Island is restricted by regulations that protect water, land, and resources.
In Edgartown, for example, homeowners Ted and Roberta Scallet pushed back on restrictions regarding allowed setbacks and filed a lawsuit against the town in 2024. The couple was denied an ADU because their home was set back less than 25 feet, which is now a requirement in the town.
The Scallets argued that the denial went against the by-right ruling by the Affordable Homes Act. This July, they wrote a letter to the editor to The Times that said they had won the suit and were issued a permit to build. This ruling, they wrote, had “big implications” for all homeowners in Edgartown looking to build an ADU.
“ADUs can be an important part of the Vineyard’s efforts to create affordable housing, and we hope that other towns will follow Edgartown’s lead and reexamine their zoning requirements and procedures under the new law to make that happen,” the Scallets wrote.
Contractors hired to build ADUs also spoke up about the difficulties. In an interview with The Times in the summer of 2025, Bruno Oliveira, the president of B and B Home Improvements in Vineyard Haven, said he had received an influx of inquiries about ADUs, but when he set out to help the homeowners, he was met with regulatory roadblocks like wastewater capacity, cost, and a lack of education for homeowners hoping to embark on projects. Oliveira also acknowledged that the building departments across the Island are understaffed; in each town, it’s a one- to two-person department.
Oliveira was concerned that without accessible information dispensed to year-round property owners, ADUs would be built primarily by seasonal second-homeowners who have no intention of renting the accessory unit to locals.
“I feel like the state gave us all the tools and now we need to put them to work here, but it’s been hard,” he said last year.
When reached this spring, Oliveira said the inquiries about building ADUs have since died down. “I think a big part of that may be the lack of clear information and guidance coming from building officials, which makes homeowners hesitant to even start the process,” Oliveira wrote in an email.
In quiet office spaces and zoning board meetings, ADUs are still frequently discussed. According to multiple homeowners, building inspectors have taken the time to inform those who have approached them about ADUs, the new law, and the regulatory restraints facing each property.
But as Milne told The Times, financial incentives and year-round restrictions are needed if local residents are to effectively build ADUs and add to the affordable rental and ownership inventory. Otherwise, the road forward is paved for higher-income residents and seasonal property owners.
“If we want to create year-round housing opportunities, you have to limit it to year-round housing,” Milne said.
Unraveling the complexities: Are ADUs an accessible housing tool on the Island?
According to Sara Bronin, the founder of the National Zoning Atlas, which was created to demystify zoning across the country, the roadblocks to building ADUs on the Island are more restrictive than necessary — especially considering the local crisis in housing affordability.
“ADUs, especially where you have the kind of large lots that you have on Martha’s Vineyard, are a very reasonable type of new housing that can be easily integrated into existing neighborhoods to the benefit of the homeowner who has an ADU,” she said in an interview with The Times.
Bronin said she’s seen property owners countrywide who have built ADUs and rented them out be able to afford to age in place or finish necessary repairs; it’s a “win-win,” she said.
Reducing minimum lot sizes on the Vineyard, Bronin said, could be an appropriate way to address some of the zoning complexities. “Large lot sizes actually lead to sprawl, lead to more driving, lead to less compact communities,” she said. “Providing the option for people to develop land in a more traditional [way], in the form of what we would call a traditional neighborhood and planning, would be a smart thing for the towns on Martha’s Vineyard to do, to enable more walkable development and more environmentally friendly development.”
That idea is a popular one across the country for many experts on housing; prices tend to go down when supply meets demand, so adding more housing is the primary way state and local officials have sought to lower prices.
In Massachusetts, 222,000 more housing units are needed to meet current demand and lower costs, according to the Affordable Homes Act. More housing means more densely developed communities, so envisioning smaller structures that work with the land, rather than against it, while increasing walkability with innovative planning, is to many a necessary part of the conversation.
“In this day and age, given all the evidence about the benefits of ADUs, it’s hard to understand why communities continue to resist them,” Bronin said.
But housing on the Island can be complicated, and there is a wide array of locals who lack the time and resources to build an ADU. Stark wealth gaps on Martha’s Vineyard have created an ever-churning system where some who are lower- to middle-income must work multiple jobs to afford costly living expenses. These individuals have less time to learn about the bylaws, mechanisms, and town regulatory structures that affect their everyday lives.
“Not everybody has the money to hire a lawyer and get something done,” Oliveira said. “I feel like it’s really discouraging a lot of people against it.”
This is part of the reason White feels there should be more education on the topic. It’s also part of the fire behind new companies and tools that have cropped up over the past year. Locally, a company was founded by Rob Ianelli called Cedar Neck that seeks to design and build modular ADUs at lower costs, a topic The Times will unpack later in this series.
In the state, incentive programs, and online tools that let homeowners see the zoning in their area and find out whether an ADU can be built on their property, were launched. Islanders, like White, have advocated for a future where housing can be reimagined in an accessible way.
White sees ADUs as a design challenge because of their size; creative solutions are necessary when constructing a building that is meant to be a home, but are reined in by size limitations.
“The smaller it gets, the more important the quality of the space becomes, because you don’t have all that space to rummage around in. You really need to have a space that you feel comfortable in, and it’s also varied enough,” White explained.
While ADUs may be a small solution for a large and looming crisis in housing affordability on the Vineyard, the design of them, for White, is a practice in presence — working within a confined system and making the best of it.
He pointed to a design for an 800-square-foot ADU in Tisbury with built-in daybeds and shelves, and adjusted his round-rimmed glasses: “In this room, we have windows on the west side and windows on the south side, so you get direct light in the middle of the day. It makes the room so much more human.”
This is the second in an ongoing series by housing and health reporter Sarah Shaw Dawson on proposed solutions for the Island community in the face of a housing crisis related to affordability, supply, policy, and the environment.
