Year-round Housing Restriction Legislation On Warrant

CHATHAM – Seeking additional tools to help address the housing crisis, officials have endorsed home-rule legislation that would allow the town to purchase deed restrictions on homes that are occupied year round.

If the proposal is approved by the state legislature, the town could negotiate a payment to a property owner in exchange for restricting a home to year-round occupancy by the owner or a renter. The program would be voluntary and no income limits would apply.

Voters at the May 13 annual town meeting will be asked to authorize the select board to file the legislation. The board voted unanimously to support the measure Tuesday.

The warrant article was submitted by petition. The necessary 10 signatures of registered voters were certified by Town Clerk Julie Smith, which automatically places the measure on the warrant. Sponsor Karolyn McClelland, chair of the town’s community housing partnership, said the measure was submitted by petition “to move it forward.”

Currently, unless tied to an affordability program, there is no mechanism in local or state law to restrict a dwelling to year-round use, she said.

“This home rule petition would allow Chatham to start addressing the year-round sustainability of the community, stabilizing the year-round population without income limits,” she said.

Similar legislation was filed last year by State Senator Julian Cyr, D-Truro, who worked with officials in Provincetown and Truro on the initiative, which was based on a program in Vail, Colo. Last April, the select board voted to send a letter to the legislature in support of the bill. Cyr wants as many towns as possible to file similar bills in order to show legislators that there is support for the program, said Select Board member Shareen Davis.

“I think on all fronts this is a good thing for us to do,” said board member Michael Schell, who sits on the affordable housing trust board along with McClelland.

The program would be managed by the select board, who would negotiate deed restriction prices with property owners based on market rates. Owners or renters would be required to live in a deed-restricted dwelling for no less than 11 months a year, and the town would be empowered to enforce the restriction through the courts. No other restrictions would be placed on the property or on how the payment is used.

Properties could be restricted to year-round residency no matter what the income level of the owner or occupant.

“This would be a voluntary program where homeowners could sell a deed restriction to the town, for a yet to be determined amount,” McClelland said. The town could also negotiate deed restrictions for new housing with developers through the special permit or comprehensive permit process, with the select board having final approval, she said.

The year-round occupancy deed restriction would remain with the property in perpetuity, according to the article; if it is sold, the buyer must also make it their permanent home or rent it to a year-round resident.

The Vail program has invested more than $11 million in purchasing year-round deed restrictions since 2017. The average amount paid for a restriction is $69,000. The community has similar demographics to Chatham, and implemented the program after seeing much of its housing stock get bought up by second home owners and investors.

Chatham and other Cape towns have been struggling with ways to create housing for year-round residents that includes not only those who qualify for subsidized affordable housing, but for teachers, firefighters and other professionals. The escalation in house prices seen over the past four or five years has put most single-family homes out of reach of the average wage earner.

“This is not a solution to the problem,” Schell said of the proposal, “but it’s another aspect of the various things we want to have in our toolbox to begin to address the issues that we all know exist around developing more of a year-round economy here in Chatham as well as on the Cape.”

“How the program gets set up and how it gets funded is something we’ll be working on going forward, if it is approved,” Davis said.