Incentives Increased For Struggling "Lease To Locals" Program

Nantucket’s Affordable Housing Trust voted unanimously on Tuesday to increase incentives for its struggling year-round rental program, Lease to Locals, in an effort to drum up interest in the program, which pays homeowners to convert seasonal residences and vacant homes into rentals that benefit the island’s year-round community.

The changes increase potential payments to new participants by 10 percent and raise the third-year renewal incentive from 25 percent of the initial payment to 50 percent. They also allow rentals with three or more bedrooms to receive payments for up to four qualified tenants, an increase over the previous rules that will move the maximum incentive for a single property from $49,250 to just under $80,000.

“It does address both the need to incentivize new participation and to keep the participants who are already in the program engaged,” town of Nantucket deputy housing director Dylan Metsch Ampel said.

The decision to increase payments comes as Lease to Locals, which enjoyed what housing leaders characterized as significant success in its first two years, has begun to struggle. Only nine new properties are expected to enter the program this year, and only 25 properties currently in the program are expected to renew, despite significant advertising efforts. Both of those numbers are up from last August, when only two new properties had entered the program, and only 11 had renewed, but the Affordable Housing Trust had initially expected to add 22 new homes this year, meaning that the final 2026 numbers will be less than half of what was expected.

Over $300,000 of the $550,000 the Affordable Housing Trust set aside last year will go unspent. This year, the Affordable Housing Trust will set aside $733,000 for Lease to Locals, with the higher costs driven by the increased incentive payments.

The program has housed over 100 Nantucket residents, a significant victory for year-round housing on-island. For comparison, Ticcoma Green, one of the largest affordable housing developments in Nantucket’s history, will have 114 beds at a $59 million price tag. The cost per head of Lease to Locals is dramatically lower than any housing development.

But another difference between Lease to Locals and a traditional housing development is permanence. The housing units in Ticcoma Green and other affordable housing developments will remain available to year-round residents at affordable prices indefinitely. Lease to Locals doesn’t guarantee the same longevity. Homeowners can choose not to renew at any time, and although the Affordable Housing Trust has discussed the possibility of adding further incentive payments after the third year of the program, as it stands, the program expires for each participant after three years.