'Understand the challenges.' Some Cape towns have housing production plans, and some don't

Since the pandemic, pressures on Chatham's housing stock have gone up, according to Housing and Sustainability Director Gloria McPherson.

Prices have gone up, and when prices at the market-rate go up, that means the gap between what's affordable and what's market-rate gets even bigger, McPherson said. "So it's harder to achieve your goals."

The town is looking for help from residents at a March 20 meeting to develop a new housing production plan and a housing needs assessment.

Chatham’s last housing production plan was completed in 2018 and expired in November. McPherson said now is especially a good time to rethink these types of plans because so much has changed in housing since COVID-19.

McPherson said she expects a new housing production plan to be ready by the end of July.

What is a housing production plan?

A housing production plan is a municipality's approach to understanding its housing needs and putting strategies in place to address them. Plans are valid for five years after approval from the state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.

Communities are not required to have the plans, said Rachel Heller, CEO of Citizens' Housing and Planning Association, known as CHAPA. She called them "incredibly helpful documents ... to understand the challenges people are facing."

Housing production plans typically examine "how many people are housing cost-burdened, meaning that they pay more than 30% of their income for housing costs," Heller said. It can be powerful for residents and officials to understand the gap between how many people need affordable housing and how many affordable homes actually exist in the community.

"It can often be surprising to see that so many people in the community already are eligible for affordable housing but may not actually have the opportunity to live in affordable housing," she said.

Cape Cod and housing production plans

Seven of the 15 Cape Cod towns' housing production plans have expired.

A list provided to the Times by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities shows that housing production plans prepared by Barnstable, Yarmouth, Truro, Mashpee, Falmouth, Chatham, and Harwich have all lapsed.

Orleans, Provincetown, and Edgartown do not have a current or expired plan. Dennis, Wellfleet, Sandwich, Brewster, Bourne, Eastham, Nantucket, and Oak Bluffs all have active housing production plans in place.

Brewster, Nantucket, and Oak Bluffs also have plans that are certified by the state, meaning the plan was approved by the state and also the community has made progress on the plan.

If certified, a community can achieve "safe harbor," which means they now have the ability to remain more in control over the kind of housing developed in their community.

Chapter 40B allows developers to override local zoning codes if at least 20% of the units built have long-term affordability restrictions. Once a community has reached the threshold of having 10% of its housing units classified as affordable, it has reached "safe harbor" and is no longer subject to Chapter 40B.

So if there is a proposal for a Chapter 40B development and it does not align with the community's goals for housing, then the town can reject the project. The amount of time for the safe harbor varies depending on how much progress the community makes on its housing production plan.

None of the 15 towns on Cape Cod has reached the 10% threshold of housing units classified as affordable. Orleans (9.15%) is the closest to clearing the threshold, followed by Provincetown (8.03%), according to data in November.

Approved housing production plans mean the community has approved it at the town Planning Board and Select Board level followed by the state's approval.

Choosing to not create a housing production plan

Orleans Affordable Housing Coordinator Marsha Allgeier said the town is not required by the state to have a housing production plan and that the last official state housing inventory showed Orleans to be at 9.15%, just short of the 105 threshold under 40B.

"As a matter of fact, we are in the process of adding affordable housing units so that we expect to exceed the 10% threshold with the next SHI (subsidized housing inventory) update," said Allgeier in an email to the Times.

One key low-income housing tax credit project in Orleans by developer Pennrose will renovate the building on West Road, which formerly housed a Cape Cod Five operations center, into 62 apartments. Demolition and construction started in December, with the development expected to be done in 2025.

A second project with 14 units is expected to start construction in the spring, said Allgeier.

Allgeier noted that the state ultimately determines whether a town has exceeded the 10% threshold. While the town estimates its latest projects will get it over that hurdle, the denominator — total number of year-round housing units — could change, so they cannot be certain what the number is.

10% affordable housing benchmark

Provincetown has also decided to forgo a housing production plan. Town Manager Alex Morse said the town has already identified a number of both publicly and privately-owned properties to unlock new housing units. Developing a housing production plan can often be "all-encompassing and oftentimes repeat similar processes that communities have been through," Morse said.

"Put frankly, housing production plans unfortunately are often weaponized by communities in regards to the state's low-income housing inventory," said Morse. "In many cases, communities use housing production plans as a way to limit housing development once they hit 10%."

Provincetown may hit benchmark, won't be 'mission accomplished'

A little over 8% of Provincetown's housing inventory is classified as affordable as of June 29, according to the state's subsidized housing inventory. Morse said the town is expected to bump past the 10% benchmark in the next two years, but "that certainly isn't mission accomplished."

Instead the town, along with the town Community Housing Council, has entered into a contract with University of Massachusetts Amherst Donahue Institute to examine housing needs, he said, a core component of a traditional housing production plan that assesses the specific needs of residents.

The goal will be to assess who in the community needs housing, whether housing is secure among that population, income levels, what types of units are needed, and other key questions. Having such information is intended to help town officials make better decisions on the type of developments that are needed.

"When we looked at what a housing production plan consists of ... it's really the needs assessment component of a production plan that is most important to us and the most critical information we need to continue our planning processes," said Morse.

Provincetown will begin outreach on a community survey to determine what the town needs for housing. All Provincetown residents are invited to participate.

'Data tells us the numbers'

McPherson said Chatham's last housing production plan focused on affordable housing, as the plans are linked to Chapter 40B, which centers on affordable housing production. As the town crafts its new housing production plan, she said town officials want to understand the need for housing for those earning up to 200% area median income.

"That's an important change for all our Cape communities because the affordability gap on the Cape is so high because of all the pressures of second homes and short-term rentals. It just makes it so much harder for our workforce to be able to afford housing here," said McPherson.

Heller said community engagement is a key part of creating the production plan.

"Data tells us the numbers. It's important to understand people's lived experiences and put life to those numbers," said Heller.

Zane Razzaq writes about housing and real estate. Reach her at zrazzaq@capecodonline.com. Follow her on X @zanerazz.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod towns are assessing, and reassessing housing needs. But how?