A new incentive program that rewards homeowners for renting to year-round working residents, instead of as short-term rentals, just went live in Chilmark.
Seasonal residents who have a backyard cottage, accessory-dwelling unit, or apartment on their property could make up to $12,000 in their first year of renting as part of a new “Lease to Locals” initiative that officially launched on Monday.
“This allows homeowners to help the community they love,” said Colin Frolich, the co-founder of a company that has brought these programs to resort towns across the country.
Chilmark is the third town in Massachusetts to introduce this model, following Nantucket and Provincetown. Lease to Locals aims to take existing housing stock that’s available and largely unused — or under-utilized — and it incentivizes homeowners to outsource to local residents in areas where housing supply is dwindling.
The town is collaborating with Frolich through Placemate, Inc., the company that initiated the Lease to Locals incentive models. He said the benefit of Lease to Locals is not just for the year-round residents, but also for seasonal residents who have been looking for ways to help the community they visit and cherish.
The first year it’s introduced in Chilmark will be as a pilot. The town will fund efforts using the room excise tax.
“The program was a natural fit for Chilmark, who is facing a similar housing crisis as those communities where Lease to Locals celebrated successes,” a press release from the town of Chilmark stated.
In order for a homeowner to receive the stipend, there are rent limits according to an Area Median Income (AMI) of 150 percent: the maximum rent homeowners can charge is $2,900 a month for a studio, and $4,250 a month for a three-bedroom unit. For one tenant, the incentive price is $4,000, and there’s a limit of three people, for $12,000 total available for each lease.
Chilmark affordable housing committee chair Peter Cook said any movement forward for more affordable housing on the Island could be a benefit to local residents.
“Whatever progress we can make in any of these housing initiatives is very important,” Cook said.
Frolich said the idea for the company was born when he and his wife, Kai, were living in a seasonal town in California. Their goal was to work with the stock that was available, instead of building extra housing developments. Their success with the model, he said, has largely been through interfacing with towns directly, and reaching locals who have extra, unused space in their homes.
As of now, they’ve launched Lease to Locals in fifteen resort communities, and he said their efficacy has not been exclusive to the first year — when homeowners are earning that stipend — but has continued with the traction it started with. Over 75% of the homeowners who initially started with the program have continued leasing to year-round residents.
“It’s a really great way to help with the problem — and do it without putting a shovel in the ground,” Frolich said. “We work with towns where often there’s a lot of second homes, high seasonality, and high amenities.”
In Chilmark, the seasonal residents are nearly double the year-rounders. Over 2,000 people live in the town in the summer, according to newly released housing production plan drafts, compared to the almost 1,200 through the year. And the town has experienced a 40 percent increase in population between 2000 and 2020, but still has a large amount of housing stock in the form of accessory units or extra rooms, according to housing officials.
According to the press release, there’s a “lack of year round housing options for locals” in Chilmark — a phenomenon they’re hoping to mitigate with programs like this one.
“Placemate’s Lease to Locals program is not only innovative, but has an impressive track record
in a number of other communities,” Cook stated in the press release. “As we all know, new affordable housing projects take time, construction costs have risen dramatically, and it’s clear we can’t build our way out of the existing housing crisis. The core concept of Lease to Locals — repurposing existing housing stock — makes a great deal of economic and environmental sense.”