Municipal Housing Director Briefs Select Board On Island Housing Initiatives

Housing Director Kristie Ferrentella updated the Select Board on a number of affordable and attainable housing projects Wednesday, including a seasonal dorm for municipal employees on Waitt Drive, the Town’s year-round deed restriction pilot program, and a series of affordable housing developments aimed at keeping Nantucket in safe-harbor from so-called 40b Developments.

One of the Town’s larger projects is a pilot project looking to provide Nantucket homeowners and homebuyers with cash incentives for placing voluntary deed restrictions on their properties that would require all occupants to be year-round residents in perpetuity. The Select Board has already approved $2 million for the project. Initially passed as a home-rule petition at Town Meeting, the pilot program was authorized by the affordable housing bond bill passed last month by the Massachusetts legislature.

“This program would allow homeowners or buyers looking to be homeowners to apply to put a year-round deed restriction on their property. In return, we would provide a cash incentive,” Ferrentella said. “We are in the final steps of being able to launch this program.”

The bond bill and the seasonal communities designation it established also opened up numerous other possibilities for the Town.

“We were really excited this bond bill was introduced by Governor Healey,” Ferrentella said. “We're still digesting a lot of the information right now.”

The seasonal communities designation also allows towns to acquire and develop housing units specifically for public employees using federal funding and lets them increase the residential property tax exemption up to 50 percent for primary homes. If Nantucket wants, it can even adopt bylaws allowing tiny houses on undersized lots

“I think 50 percent on the residential tax exemption could be huge,” Select Board vice-chair Matt Fee said.

Aside from the initiatives enabled by the bill, the Town also secured six units of municipal employee housing on Wiggles Way, hired a rental properties manager, provided numerous families with closing cost assistance for purchasing homes, and awarded Habitat for Humanity Board member Richard Hussey with the Dr. Howard Dickler housing advocacy award.

Additionally, the town is working on a Good Landlord Tax Exemption that would allow homeowners to optionally secure a tax exemption for renting to their properties below market rates.

“It is beyond stunning. It is making my head spin, really, the variety of activities, the breadth of need that is going to be addressed by these activities…it brings tears to my eyes what this community has done for housing in the last decade,” Select Board chair and Nantucket Resource Partnership chair Brooke Mohr said. “It's amazing, just amazing.”