Amid Housing Crisis, Select Board Charts A Course To Create Up To 50 New Units For Town Employees

The Select Board unanimously adopted a strategic plan for municipal employee housing that calls for creating 25-50 municipally controlled town employee housing units over the next 10 years during a special workshop session on Tuesday.

The vote comes ahead of a Town Meeting in which the town is seeking $7 million for nine bedrooms of town employee housing on Waitt Drive, though the final cost may be lower once bids for the project come in. During the workshop, Select Board member Matt Fee suggested that the town employee housing initiative might be the most important of the town’s many projects.

“If people start pulling money away or want to vote it down, then we have to stand on this regardless,” Fee said. “We need to say that this is number one, because otherwise we don’t have an operational town, and if the voters force us to make a decision, this is what we’re going to pick. I just think if we want it to pass, we have to say something along those lines.”

While the Select Board voted in favor of both the employee housing plan and the Waitt Drive article on the 2026 Annual Town Meeting warrant, there is some opposition in the island’s local government. The Capital Program Committee, which advise the town on municipal spending, recommended against the Town Meeting article, citing the project's high cost and suggesting that a private company could do a better job.

“It is the opinion of [the Capital Program Committee] that the private sector is better suited to develop housing given the materially negative cost implications of publicly developed real estate development,” the Capital Program Committee wrote in a report that opposed the project. “As such, CapCom strongly urges the Town to explore alternate methods of developing, constructing, and operating the housing that it so desperately needs for employees across all departments.”

Select Board members, the majority of the Finance Committee, and many town employees disagree.

“In a market that is just on this crazy trajectory of cost…if we’re not controlling things, it’s really unpredictable for the budget in the future. The challenge is persuading the taxpayers that this is the most cost-effective way,” Select Board member Brooke Mohr said. “It’s easier to slide a half a million dollars in rent into the budget, but over time it amounts to a lot more.”

The plan adopted by the Select Board prioritizes housing employees in public safety, education, health, public works, and other essential roles. It targets lots on town-owned land, including Waitt Drive, Ticcoma Way, Okorowaw Avenue, and Hill Side Avenue. The bulk of the units—up to 38—would be on Waitt Drive and Ticcoma Way.

“The Town of Nantucket faces a structural systemic housing shortage that threatens its ability to deliver reliable, high-quality municipal services,” the plan reads in part. “The private housing market—shaped by extremely high real estate prices, limited year-round rentals, and intense seasonal demand for properties—cannot provide stable housing for the Town’s critical employees.”

The vision statement for the town’s employee housing plan is to “ensure that essential Town employees have access to stable, income-aligned, year-round housing options that enable them to live within the community they serve.”

In addition to developing more housing for town employees, the plan also calls for public-private partnerships and policy reform.

The Select Board also reviewed existing data that underscores the scale of Nantucket’s housing crisis. The median monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $4,200; 65 percent of dwellings are occupied seasonally; and more than half of town employees say housing affects their ability to continue working for the town.

“The number of what we all sort of talk about the housing world is 30 percent year-round deed-restricted dwellings, and that may not be possible, but otherwise, we’re not going to be able to run the town. We’re not going to be able to run the town, and we’re not going to be able to run this community,” Select Board member Tom Dixon said. “Circumstances have forced Nantucket into this position, and we need to take action.”

Dixon said that a lack of stable housing was one of the reasons he opted not to run for re-election this year and that he will instead be leaving the island.

“I’ve been doing the shuffle off and on for 25 years now, and it’s one of the reasons I’m moving,” Dixon said. “It’s because housing has gotten so difficult.”

Around a third of town employees are living with additional people they wouldn’t otherwise live with due to housing pressures. Town leaders believe this underscores the importance of creating more housing for town employees.

Select Board members also suggested additional changes to promote affordable housing, including restrictions on parking spaces and zoning changes targeted at second dwellings.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Affordable Housing Trust reviewed a survey showing that the vast majority of islanders who responded are concerned about housing. While the survey is likely not representative of Nantucket, the top concerns respondents listed include a lack of affordable rental options and a shrinking year-round housing stock.

The latest initiative for town employee housing will run in conjunction with other recent town efforts to help fund the creation of affordable housing units available to any income- eligible resident or family in the community. Completed housing projects include Sachem's Path off Surfside Road, and the Wiggles Way apartments off Fairgrounds Road. Other projects under construction or in the planning process include the Ticcoma Green affordable rental project, and workforce housing at three vacant properties around the mid-island area. The town's Affordable Housing Trust has also authorized $3.7 million in taxpayer funding for the so-called “New Downtown” development on Sparks Avenue to help ensure that eight of the project’s 32 dwelling units will be rented at affordable rates.