West Tisbury is considering a program that could ease the year-round housing crunch by incentivizing homeowners to switch their vacation rentals to year-round.  

Affordable housing committee chair and select board member Jessica Miller and housing committee vice chair Kim Angell presented the idea of the program, dubbed Lease to Locals, to the town during a select board meeting last week.

“The idea of this program [is to] recapture some of the rental market that has gone into short-term rental, to use existing housing stock rather than trying to build new units,” Ms. Miller said.  

Lease to Locals was adopted by Chilmark in August. While the neighboring town’s regulations will guide West Tisbury’s program development, aspects such as cash incentive amounts, qualifications for tenants and where the funding for the program would come from are still being discussed by West Tisbury officials.  

There is little legwork for the town to get it up and running. But it would require public funds, so the town is seeking feeback, Ms. Miller said. 

In Chilmark, homeowners are offered up to $12,000 to rent year-round. Units must be rented out to those making less than or equal to 150 per cent of the area’s medium income, which is around $157,000 in Dukes County. Rental rates must fall inbetween $2,900 to $4,250, the price depending on how large the unit is.  

Funding for Chilmark’s 18-month pilot program comes from the town’s municipal housing trust, which allocates 2 per cent of the room excise tax. Since the program’s launch, Chilmark has had one homeowner successfully convert their property to a long-term rental.  

“We’ve had six other property owners reach out, and at least two or three of them are going to convert their properties in the next 30 days,” Colin Frolich, co-founder of Placemate, the company that developed the program, said. 

For West Tisbury, the town would ideally put a warrant article forward at the West Tisbury annual town meeting in April to fund the project, according to Ms. Miller.   

Placemate would charge West Tisbur $3,500 a month to run the program. Nantucket, Orleans and Provincetown are also currently piloting their own Lease to Local programs.  

Placemate is set to present to the West Tisbury affordable housing committee later this month and hopes to continue working with other Island towns and the Martha’s Vineyard Commission to expand the program. 

“What would be ideal would be getting most jurisdictions on board to work together throughout the Island,” Mr. Frolich said.

Ms. Miller and Ms. Angell encourage West Tisbury residents to attend future affordable housing committee meetings to learn more and share their input. 

“We acknowledge that this is not a long-term solution to our housing crisis. What we need is long-term, sustainable and attainable housing, but in the meantime... this program could provide people with temporary affordable housing,” Ms. Angell said.