Cape Cod has a shortage of affordable, year-round housing, and Truro is no exception.
According to Lauren Hakimi of the Provincetown Independent, the town's zoning task force is considering a new idea for how to create more housing.
CAI's Gilda Geist spoke with Lauren recently to learn more about inclusionary bylaws and how they could work in Truro.
Gilda Geist What is an inclusionary bylaw?
Lauren Hakimi An inclusionary bylaw is a rule that you can impose to say that if someone builds a housing development above a certain size, or if there's a condo conversion above a certain size, a certain portion of those units have to be affordable to people in a certain income range. So, the town of Truro is considering doing this and they're looking to Eastham's inclusionary bylaw as a model. There's a whole chart that says if you add 'X' number of units, 'Y' number of them have to be affordable. So, roughly 20 percent of them have to be affordable.
GG Why is this something the Truro zoning task force is interested in looking at?
LH So the zoning task force was created last year and charged by the Truro Select Board with two tasks: create housing and expand economic opportunity. And they need to do that because housing here is really, really expensive. I did a story last month about how schools are losing enrollment, and everyone I talked to said the reason that's happening is because young families just can't really afford to live here. I asked the town assessor and he said the median price of a single-family home last year was over $1.4 million. And if you do the median with single family homes and also include condos, that was about $777,000. And so young families are struggling to afford to live here, and the workers who make the town function can't afford to live here, so the inclusionary bylaw is one of a few measures that the zoning task force is considering this year for how they can chip away at that affordability issue.
GG What concerns, if any, did task force members have about the effectiveness of an inclusionary bylaw in Truro?
LH I don't think anyone in Truro expects that this one measure alone is going to somehow solve the housing crisis. Inclusionary zoning bylaws are typically intended for new multifamily developments, but those kinds of developments are really rare in Truro because they don't really fit in with the vibe of the town. One task force member told me that he just doesn't see any major developments happening in the next three years that would kick in inclusionary zoning. What's more likely to happen is, let's say the owner of a cottage colony wants to convert the cottages to condos. Then Truro could see a few affordable ownership units come out of that if they have inclusionary bylaws.
GG What does the future look like for a bylaw like this in Truro? If it was something that the task force wanted to move forward with, would it go to a town meeting for a vote?
LH Yes. If the task force wants to move forward with it, it would need to pass the town meeting. In the past, it's been a kind of controversial issue, so the zoning task force in the weeks and months to come is going to have some public forums in order to get some feedback from the community and kind of [figure] out how likely this would be to actually pass.
