The headline around the Healey administration’s release of its housing plan is that Massachusetts needs to create almost a quarter million homes to address a chronic housing shortage. That’s a lot of housing. On its face, this is a call to build our way out of a housing problem that is currently a drag on our economy, and which will have a greater impact the longer it remains unaddressed. But, as with all complex public policy matters, one-size-fits-all solutions are rarely the answer. There are a lot of layers to this issue, and the root causes of housing scarcity—and therefore, the solutions—vary by region.
Simply put, the assessment and proposed plan do not lead one to the conclusion that Cape Cod should try to build its way out of the affordable housing problem we face. In fact, a strategy that focuses exclusively on creating additional housing will increase many of the existing problems the Cape confronts: poor water quality, excessive traffic, fragmented critical habitats and a loss of open space. A build-our-way-out-of-it strategy will exacerbate, not solve, the affordability problem.
For Cape Cod, the takeaway is not that there aren’t enough housing units, but that the conversion of what had been year-round units into luxury seasonal housing for non-year-round residents and short-term rentals has distorted the market. Housing policies should be focused on targeting these trends instead of promoting the volume of new housing construction that is more appropriate in other the areas of the state.
The primary task to address the needs of the Cape is to preserve the affordability of our existing starter home stock and take steps to ensure that is available to the year-round resident. The problem here is that it is no one’s job on Cape Cod to develop and implement a strategy that preserves and makes more readily available the year-round housing stock the region requires. That needs to change, as it has in other places like Aspen that face similar distorted housing markets like ours.
The time has come to solve our housing problem by committing to preserving the affordability of the housing already built instead of pretending that more building will solve our problems. It never has on Cape Cod, and repeating the errors of our ways does not offer much hope of a better outcome for either those in need of affordable housing or the environment.
