The afternoon of July 4th, 2023 in Edgartown, Massachusetts, one of the six towns on Martha’s Vineyard, was muggy, and rain was threatening. Near the top Main Street, the local parade participants gathered, looking up at the sky. The popular farm stand, Morning Glory was on the edge of the street with a tractor.
[[{“value”:”One of the six towns that make up Martha’s Vineyard Island, Edgartown, Massachusetts, experienced a humid and rainy afternoon on July 4, 2023. The native parade’s participants gathered near the top of Main Street while gazing up at the sky. The well-known farm stand on the outskirts of town, Morning Glory, had a tractor it. The restored 1855 hand-pumped Button Tub had been rolled out by the fire department. The Vineyarders, the native football team, were getting ready to ride an astroturfed float as the staff and campers of Camp Jabberwocky—the country’s oldest sleepaway camp for people with disabilities—had put on costumes.
A housing crisis is disturbing to destroy the local community, and 20 members of the Coalition to Create the MV Housing Bank rallied against it amid the Americana of it all. Their pleading slogan,” Please Gimme Shelter,” was inscribed on placards and black T-shirts. As the parade got underway, it started to drizzle. Noah Lipnick, the 6 foot 5 inch tall, dark-haired oyster farmer who serves as the group’s spokesperson, raised his half of a banner stating that” Housing Is the People Right.”
Florida Governor’s Vineyard In a grandstanding effort to highlight the hypocrisy of the progressive elite, Ron DeSantis famously stranded an entire planeload of immigrants. Where the Clintons have vacationed and the Obamas own a$ 12 million home, Ted Kennedy left Dike Bridge in his car. It’s where Spike Lee summers and Larry David calls Alan Dershowitz “disgusting” to his face for supporting Donald Trump. Every year, about 200,000 visitors come here to enjoy the reflected light, stroll along the beach, savor some ice cream, and jump off the Jaws bridge.
One seasoned Vineyard resident claims,” I’m living in a shack right now, with cold water, composting toilets, and an exterior shower… And it’s okay, but I’ve been here for 70 years. ” This is not a way to live.”
The 17, 000 year-round residents—teachers and doctors, carpenters and fishermen, old island families and immigrants ( about a third of island high schoolers speak Portuguese at home)—who are increasingly being squeezed out—live on Labor Day, when the rich tourists return to New York, Boston, or LA. I was raised on the island, and I’ve seen the pressure increase for a long time.
A tour of the coalition’s complaint is provided by the parade route through the postcard-perfect downtown of pale colonial-era homes and boutique shops in Edgartown. A 1, 604 square foot five-bedroom house with scuffed floors, basic appliances, and a few dangling shingles had sold for$ 1.6 million the year before, just one block away from the route’s beginning. The parade passed a similarly neglected 1, 222 square foot two bedroom that had sold for$ 1.7 million in the fall and what was advertised as an “elegant and well-appointed” 481 square f one bedroom recently purchased for$ 805, 000 as it moved down Edgartown’s main drag. The route passed a” classically styled” 2, 079-square-foot three-bedroom home that sold in April for$ 2.6 million —a 338 percent markup over its August 2020 sale price—and the 4, 388-squat 6-bedroom harbor-front home, which changed hands for an even$ 15 million in January 2023, as it entered the harbor and wound back inland. If you work in finance or have a sizable trust fund, the Vineyard is an ideal summer playground. If no, the options are now more limited.
The community’s great plan to change things includes the housing bank. The island is fighting for the right to levy a transfer fee on high-end real estate sales—a mansion tax—to fund year-round housing, along with twelve different cities and towns across the state. The Mass General Brigham hospital system, the state’s largest private employer and the parent company of the island hospital, which is experiencing staffing shortages due to high housing costs on the Vineyard and abroad, has supported the idea despite local skepticism. The housing bank would be free to purchase and construct housing that serves a larger population than conventional inexpensive housing using funds raised by the transfer fee, which must be approved by state legislation.
However, there is also opposition: according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, the fee will only make homeownership more out of reach and burden some middle-class homeowners. At a hearing in October, Mark Kavanagh, the association’s chairman of the government affairs committee, stated that “1, 727 Massachusetts residents are priced out” for every$ 1, 000 increase in the cost of housing.
However, competition for short-term leased properties and second ( or third or fourth ) homes is what is driving prices upwards, not fees, and it shows no signs of slowing down. According to Tucker Holland, the municipal housing director of Nantucket, who has spearheaded the island’s push for a transfer fee,” The Vineyard has the crystal ball: It’d be referred to as ‘Nanteuckert’, where the median home price is now$ 3 million.”
The housing bank organizers waved cutouts of houses attached to the ends of sticks as they marched in the parade. Grandkids of one member threw T-shirts into the crowd. Lipnick says,” There was a crescendo every time we turned the corner. ” Perhaps I’m biased, but I believe the cheers were a little bit louder as we passed by.” By the time the parade was over, the sky had begun to rain. After sending their message, the housers all fled for safety while shivering.
Edgartown homes and harbor.
LightRocket/Getty/John Greim
Inequality and the housing crisis are related. The main way Americans accumulate wealth is through home ownership, which can be used to pay for medical expenses or education. However, real estate is even a well-liked investment. Wall Street investors have been on buying binges in unassuming subdivisions all over the nation, and private equity firms have taken over as landlords, though perhaps they are having trouble finding homes these days. According to the Brookings Institution, the wealthiest 5 % of Americans—6 million households —saw an average increase in wealth of$ 140, 000 during the pandemic, fueling the already brisk housing market. People who had money for a lower payment benefited from lower interest rates.
An exaggerated version of this crisis exists in resort towns. Havens plagued by the 1 %, such as Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Vail and Aspen, Colorado, Nantucket, Provincetown, and the Vineyard in Massachusetts, have witnessed the disappearance of working- and middle-class housing. Airbnbs and other annual rental properties frequently cannibalize the market. In one extreme instance, Boston-area investor David Malm has acquired properties on the Vineyard and Nantucket, including a home in Edgartown that he rents for$ 45,000 per week, for close to$ 100 million since 2021.
It was n’t always this way. John Abrams, a coalition member and ardent supporter of housing on the island, asserts that” I believe the money followed the social celebrity.” The Vineyard’s character changed when Bill Clinton chose it for his 1990s national vacations. In the 1970s, when I first arrived around, there were campgrounds. At the back of a small plot of land, parents owned it. Shacks could be found in the woods. I mean, living was simple.
After spending the summer with her parents, Valerie Reese moved to the Vineyard in 1975 when she was 23 years old. For$ 115 per month, or roughly$ 650 today, she rented a 625-square-foot apartment overlooking Lagoon Pond, complete with 31 windows that provided ample light throughout. ( A comparable Airbnb currently charges$ 3, 640 per week after taxes. ) She created artwork and worked at a Greek eatery called Helios in Vineyard Haven, next to James Taylor’s co-owned Nobnocket car repair shop, which also gave rise to an artists ‘ guild. She claims that for her, “living on an island in New England was the most romantic thing I could think of. I did it, and I do n’t regret it.”
a property in Chilmark, one of the six communities that make up Martha’s Vineyard.
The Boston Globe, Keith Bedford, and Getty
Valerie realized how many had changed when the house was sold in 2014. She moved 21 times over the following five years. A client-turned-friend constructed a small in-law apartment and offered it to Valerie; however, the home was eventually sold as real estate values skyrocketed. After that, Valerie began a seasonal migration known as” the island shuffle” in which she would spend the winters in the homes of relatives and depart the following summer.
I currently reside in a shack that belongs to one of my friends and has access to cold water, composting toilets, and exterior showers. I’m 70 years old, but it’s okay, she said next summer. There is no way to live like this. She claims she will have to leave the island if she is unable to find a permanent residence by this summer.
Although it is difficult to quantify the exodus of long-term islanders, Valerie is obviously not only in her struggles. Arielle Faria, co-chair of the Coalition to Create the MV Housing Bank, who resides in a sought-after cheap rental built by the Island Housing Trust, claims that” thirteen or so years ago when I moved around year- round, there were still listings [for long-term rentals ] in the newspaper.” However, over the past few years, winter rentals have neither skyrocketed in price or vanished entirely. Numerous people apply for the rentals that do appear. The island experienced a net loss of 850 year-round units between 2012 and 2022. Only 39.2 % of the housing stock is currently set aside for year-round habitation. To make sure their employees have places to live, nearby businesses have begun to construct their own housing.
According to Dylan Fernandes, the state representative for Falmouth, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket,” Martha’S Vineyard is deeply costly to the point where no ordinary person could possibly live it and own a home it.” The median price of a home on the island more than doubled between 2012 and 2022, much outpacing wage growth.
According to Laura Silber, the MV Commission’s island housing planner who coordinates policies across the six towns, communities can be destroyed by the housing crisis ‘ compounded effects. Silber says,” I do n’t think anyone really understands how dependent volunteers are in these rural communities.” ” Everything falls apart when you lose year-round residents, including the fire department, the food pantry, library, school district, and Little League coaches.” The informal social structure begins to fall apart, which triggers a cycle of having to pay for fresh town services that those volunteers and neighbors had already provided. That raises taxes significantly and drives more people up. Some firefighters on Nantucket must travel there by car. Teachers, police, and firefighters in Sun Valley, Idaho, rely on neighborhood food banks, while workers live out of their trucks and in garages. The Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, which employs 160 annual health staff, has a hard time finding housing for them; according to reports from the school system, housing costs cost 7 to 10 teachers annually.
According to Silber, the Vineyard needs to take a significant action straight away. ” You have to alter the game’s rules if you want to sabotage a trajectory.”
The housing bank attempts to accomplish this, at least locally, by capitalizing on the housing market’s momentum. To provide loans and grants to projects that create and protect year-round housing, it would use money raised by a proposed 2 percent transfer fee that begins after the first$ 1 million. For instance, converting an existing home into income-restricted apartments or paying the owner of a seasonal leased all at once to enlarge the property so that it can only be rented out year-round moving ahead. Year-round residents who earn up to 240 percent of the area’s median income would be eligible for assistance ( the cutoff is now 80 percent ), helping people like teachers and medical staff who fall somewhere in between. This suggests that the proposed plan is more comprehensive than the island of current affordable housing options. ( A family of three’s area median income is roughly$ 112, 450. )
With little new development, the proposed fee, which is expected to generate$ 12 million annually, is anticipated to increase by 38 units annually. It’s a moderate victory—the island needs to secure 2,500 deed restricted units for year-round housing over the next ten years, according to preliminary projections from the MV Commission—but it is an important component of broader efforts that give the community vested interests.
The Vineyard has made three attempts to establish a housing bank, and the public’s backing of the initiative is evidence of how little has changed since the concept was first floated. Even though true estate agents on the island supported it, the second attempt in 2005 failed due to a lobbying campaign by realtors at the statehouse. A subsequent one, introduced in 2019, would have taxed short-term rentals to raise money, but it fell short in town meetings, where the most recent proposal has received resounding support. According to Julie Fay, another co-chair of the Coalition to Create the MV Housing Bank,” we cast the shield broad and focused on inclusion and understanding” in conversations with the community. ” No one felt as though we sneaked off and dove in.”
Massachusetts ‘ Democrat governor this fall A transfer fee provision was included in Maura Healey’s$ 4 billion cheap housing bill, which is a great victory in and of itself. The idea was opposed by Charlie Baker, the previous Republican governor of the state. Critical differences exist between the bill’s provisions and those of islanders and transfer fee proponents from various communities, including the sale price at which the fee begins. Islanders visited the statehouse in Boston in January to present their case and give testimony. The coalition of communities across the state must keep using their political clout to shape the bill’s language and push it to passage in the months to come. If the bill is passed, which appears to be a real possibility, every town in the state will have access to fresh resources if they so choose.
Romantic homes on Martha’s Vineyard in Oak Bluffs.
LightRocket/Getty/John Greim
Healey’s bill would enshrine the transfer fee and a” seasonal communities” designation that would put another housing options on the table, bringing islanders one step closer to building their bank. The transfer fee, however, only serves as a starting point. The difficult task of trying to bring the six towns of Martha’s Vineyard up to work up in their shared self-interest will be the next step in figuring out the specifics of how the bank will operate. That might not be simple, as the past has demonstrated.
In any case, will the bank be sufficient? As I took the ferry to Nantucket, where my dad is from, for a family funeral, I was reflecting on this late in the summer. Dad told me his grandfather used to live in one of the fishing shanties—now multi-million dollar cottages—perched over the water as I passed Old North Wharf on the way to the church. The developer Malm paid$ 6.5 million to purchase one in 2021. A sturdy plaque affixed to its exterior reads” Essex” in honor of the doomed Nantucket whaleship that served as the model for Moby Dick by Herman Melville. This ancient detail had been transformed into tourist kitsch, just a dash of native flavor, like so much else about the location.
If Nantucket’s predicament serves as a warning, it is never too late to try and to never wait. Holland, for one, is still optimistic. He claims that the housing bank fight is n’t just about rescuing communities that are on the verge of collapse. It’s about ensuring that” they never have to get even near to that” and “avoiding for “dire circumstances” for every town.”}]] Edgartown, Massachusetts, one of the six towns that make up Martha’s Vineyard Island, experienced a damp and rainy afternoon on July 4, 2023. The participants in the neighborhood parade gathered near the top of Main Street while gazing up at the sky. A tractor from Morning Glory, a well-known farm stand, was present.
The afternoon of July 4th, 2023 in Edgartown, Massachusetts, one of the six towns on Martha’s Vineyard, was muggy, and rain was threatening. Near the top Main Street, the local parade participants gathered, looking up at the sky. The popular farm stand, Morning Glory was on the edge of the street with a tractor.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/marthas-vineyard-housing-bank-fight-transfer-fee/
