Opinion/Brown: Is the ADU a chance to grow affordable housing on Cape Cod?

It was over a month ago that folks from the town of Yarmouth met to discuss making it easier for local homeowners to rent out parts of their property as ADUs, Auxiliary Dwelling Units. Thirteen towns on Cape Cod have accommodated ADUs so far.

Under a new petition filed with the town, site plans and local laws are protected. The addition of an ADU (two bedrooms maximum) is not supposed to change the appearance of houses on their lots. The ADU must be less than half the area of the rest of the house and cannot be enlarged. Parking must be off-street to not add to traffic congestion or change the character of the neighborhood. ADUs cannot be used for daily or weekly rentals.

Not enough of the board was present to vote that night so a decision will come later.

Alisa Magnotta from the Housing Assistance Corporation reviewed with us the current housing crisis on Cape Cod. With a hot housing market, rentals have been disappearing as their owners have sold their buildings and cashed out.

Factor in what various professions typically make and an accountant can afford a $300,000 house; a teacher can afford a $240,000 house; an assistant branch manager can afford a $200,000 house and the landscaper, a $160,000 house. Good luck trying to find those on Cape Cod. In this housing environment, ADUs are low-hanging fruit.  Building houses takes a long time. We can do this fast.

We have to remember that unpermitted ADUs exist across the Cape, and nobody notices.  So the loss of character in a neighborhood is not really threatened, but clearly, most of the people at the hearing felt very threatened indeed.

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The people from HAC having made their presentation, the meeting was opened for public comment. A Yarmouth speaker raised an issue that other speakers during the evening would raise over and over again. There is a concern about what are called LLCs, limited liability corporations. We're seeing around the country the same pattern where LLCs buy up housing — even trailer parks — and then steeply raise the rents for everybody.             

Moderate-income Americans are being priced out of their own homes all over the country. The concern is that a corporation could buy a home, add an ADU, and then jack up the rent. This isn't just a NIMBY concern. People are worried about loopholes and what happens in neighborhoods with very small lots.

It was pointed out at the end of the conversation that ADUs allow an older homeowner to age in place. They can even move into the ADU themselves and then rent out the larger home and, with Social Security, survive financially.

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Understandably housing on Cape Cod is a big and complex problem for us, but we have to begin to solve the problem one step at a time. The ADUs are something we can do right now.

Ideally, we should wish that as large building projects go up on Cape Cod, local capital — not out-of-state capital — gets to build it. At least that way we have a reasonable chance that most of the money generated stays here on Cape.

Ideally, we should not permit anyone to tell us that we have to choose between housing and preserving our natural surroundings. Housing and the environment cannot become a zero-sum proposition.

Ideally, all the housing options should not be loaded to benefit economic elites. We should develop approaches that water the tree at the roots where most people on Cape Cod are living. The ADU proposal is the only one I know of that benefits specifically middle-income Cape Codders — by design. 

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The good people of Yarmouth who came to the hearing have every reason to fear that what their town government does will benefit the heavy hitters at their expense. Americans across the country right now are convinced that the game is rigged against them in the same way. They're cynical about it; they're angry. People introducing new legislation have to take that into account.

It's up to our legislators and their legal experts to find language that protects Cape Cod and Cape Codders from the market forces that have made life so difficult for so many ordinary people across the country. The prices for damn near everything are going up — but wages are not. The ADU concept is one of the few that actually benefits the very people who worried about it at the hearing. Now we have to figure out how to keep it beneficial to them, then frame the proposal in language that guarantees it.

Lawrence Brown is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times.  Email him at columnresponse@gmail.com.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Yarmouth MA eyes ADU regulations to increase affordable housing