Can 107 Main Be A Model For Future Housing?

ORLEANS – With the snip of the scissors last week, the blue ribbon fell, symbolizing the culmination of a critical housing initiative more than six years in the making.

State and local officials joined staff from the Housing Assistance Corporation and other housing advocates to celebrate the unveiling of the new 14-unit affordable housing development at 107 Main St. The project includes nine one-bedroom units, four two-bedroom apartments and one three-bedroom units. Twelve of the units will be rented to tenants who make up to 80 percent of the area median income in Barnstable County. The remaining two will be rented to those who earn up to 30 percent of the area median income.

“This project is an example of what can be done when we all work together,” Select board Chair Kevin Galligan said during the Oct. 23 ceremony to celebrate the project’s completion.

The property at 107 Main, which housed a Masonic Lodge for many years, is the second of two long-planned housing developments to come online this year, following the completion of the 62-unit Phare/Pennrose project this past spring.

HAC CEO Alisa Magnotta said for the nonprofit, the creation of housing goes far beyond “the bricks and mortar, the dollars and cents.”

“It’s about what happens on the inside,” she said. “It’s about the people. It’s about the community, and it’s about having a place where kids can do their homework, parents can launch a business and grandparents can age in place. So it is much more than a beautiful building like this.”

The 14-units came together with the help of many partners including State Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Provincetown, whom Magnotta credited with helping secure the last bit of funding needed to see the project through.

 “Without him, we would not be here and this project would not be funded,” she said.

Cyr was on hand last week to celebrate the occasion, but he also offered a word of caution. The necessary funding that was unlocked for the project, part of money made available for one-time projects through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, can’t be counted on to help finance future projects. As it is, he said, the state is looking at a potential loss of $600 million in federal funds in its current budget.

Cyr said the collaboration between state and local officials, volunteers and other community partners that helped make 107 Main a reality will likely be what it takes for similar projects to come to fruition in the future.

“What I want this project to be is a road map for what we need to be doing,” he said of 107 Main. “The honest reality is we probably aren’t going to have a spare million dollars lying around like this in the commonwealth.”

Cyr advocated for communities to adopt a transfer fee that can be tacked onto luxury real estate sales, the money from which could go to support future housing initiatives. He said such fees have helped bring in “tens of millions of dollars” to support future projects in the last five years.

The select board earlier this month expressed support for a regional transfer fee on luxury properties that is being considered by the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates. The assembly is proposing an opt-in model that would allow participating towns to assess a fee between 0.5 and 4 percent on the sale of properties valued at or above $1 million. The assembly said that towns could commit 90 percent of the revenue generated through the transfer fee to local housing trusts, while the remaining 10 percent could “support regional housing initiatives and administrative costs, with no funds allowed for general county operations.”

HAC, meanwhile, recently completed its first capital campaign, which Magnotta said has raised $5 million to help the nonprofit build projects like 107 Main faster. 

“We can’t just rely on our government. We can’t just rely on our taxpayers. We really have to turn to locals and turn to philanthropic efforts to make projects like this come to scale.”

The project design carried out by SV Design in Chatham is a nod to housing that existed on the property before it became the site of the Masonic Lodge.

“Big house, smaller houses, big barn,” said Alan McClennen, who cut the ribbon at the Oct. 23 ceremony. “Because that’s what was here.” 

McClennen was instrumental in first bringing the project to the table in 2019. The property at the time was owned by Cape Abilities, but when the nonprofit’s plans for the property fell through, the town stepped up with a plan to repurpose the property for housing. 

“Cape Abilities came to me because I was the chairman of the board of selectmen at the time, and the CPC,” McClennen said. “They wanted to know if we could give them some money to help renovate the building. I said ‘No, it’s not an eligible CPC project. But we could think about us buying a little bit of land from you to build some housing.’”

“He is our town’s ultimate idealist, the most idealistic person in our town,” Magnotta said of McClennen. “And sometimes you have to have those values and that strength to make something like this happen.”

A furnished two-bedroom model unit was set up for attendees of last week’s ceremony to tour. David Quinn, HAC’s vice president of real estate development, said that approximately 500 applications were received for the 14 units. Of those applicants, 411 were deemed eligible, he said.

A lottery was held this summer to select qualified applicants for consideration for each of the units. Those who were not selected in the lottery will be put on a waiting list for consideration as units become available in the future. Quinn said that HAC hopes that tenants will be able to move in starting in mid-November. 

The job of reviewing the applications that came in for the project units falls to HAC’s director of property management, Meg Chaffee. Last week, she said she had the opportunity to inform an applicant that they had been approved for one of the units.

 “Our new tenants were just as excited and emotional as I was,” she said. “They were hugging family members [with] big smiles saying ‘We’re going to be neighbors!’”

For eight of the units, priority is given to prospective tenants who live, work or have children that attend school in Orleans. Steve Smith said he and his wife moved to town because they thought Orleans was a place where their daughter, Emily, who has Down syndrome, “could thrive.” Emily was the first person to have their name drawn in the project lottery.

“It’s really almost unbelievable that she’s had this opportunity, and it wouldn’t have happened without all the amazing work that HAC does and the commitment to Orleans has to housing,” he said.