A study commissioned by the Home Builders Association of Cape Cod has shown that there is far less buildable land on Cape Cod than the state estimated several years ago. The above property is located in the Marstons Mills section of the Cape town of Barnstable.
A new study has found that there is even less buildable land available on Cape Cod than previously thought.
A study commissioned by the Home Builders Association of Cape Cod revealed there are 21,388 lots available for residential development, far fewer than the 37,209 lots that the state estimated were open for development several years ago.
The homebuilders’ group is using the survey findings to push for more housing development, particularly housing that is affordable to the Cape’s workforce.
“With a third of the Cape already preserved as open space in perpetuity, land already zoned for housing should be used to fulfill that vital need,” according to the survey’s executive summary.
Elizabeth Kovach, president of HBACC, said the group decided to do the survey after the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs conducted building studies throughout Massachusetts several years ago. The state reported that the Cape had about 37,000 buildable lots, but homebuilders immediately realized that the geographical maps the state used had factored in land that couldn’t be developed, including cemeteries, athletic fields and other public space.
“We wanted to get a truer number,” said Kovach, owner of Windswept Custom Homes in East Dennis. “It’s important to get a realistic number to start a dialogue and start the process of how to develop [housing that’s affordable to the Cape’s workforce].”
‘Planning Purposes’
Kovach said the new study – which was conducted under the supervision of Nora Ganim Barnes, director of Slade’s Ferry Bank Center for Business Research at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth – used a different method in its analysis than the state did.
“The method [the state] used was a broad brush-stroke type of analysis,” she said.
The HBACC study, however, looked at each town’s zoning laws and assessors’ maps, and only considered residentially zoned land.
“The significance of this is primarily for planning purposes,” said Jim Tobin, an HBACC member and builder in Orleans who also belongs to the Cape Cod & Islands Association of Realtors. “If we’re going to plan for the future of the Cape, we first have to have accurate data to determine how we’re going to use land for sustaining the region’s economy.”
With 3,661 lots available, the town of Falmouth could accommodate the most housing construction, according to the survey, followed by Bourne with 2,776 lots and Barnstable, which could accommodate 2,584 additional homes.
That’s in contrast to the state’s findings, which showed that Barnstable had space for 6,874 new housing units, Falmouth 5,849 and Bourne 3,080.
Large-lot zoning adopted by some Cape communities is driving up housing costs and making housing construction more difficult, according to local homebuilders.
At least two towns on the Cape, Barnstable and Brewster, have acre-plus zoning. Seven out of 15 towns on the Cape require minimum lot sizes of 40,000 square feet, which is close to an acre, or more. The town of Brewster requires 60,000-square-foot lots.
With those type of zoning restrictions, “you’d be hard-pressed to find lots under $200,000,” said Kovach.
“As a private builder, it’s very difficult – given what you pay for land and [the restrictions] to put one house on one acre – to make that house [cost] less than $350,000,” she said.
Out of 279 lots listed for sale in the Cape & Island Multiple Listing Service on April 23, the lowest-priced lot was $50,000 and the highest was $11.5 million.
“Building lots have gotten a lot more expensive on the Cape … and they’re harder to find,” said Rick Presbrey, executive director of the Housing Assistance Corp., a regional nonprofit group that provides housing assistance to Cape residents.
Given the trend of larger-lot zoning, Presbrey said he expects to the see the expansion of downtown areas on the Cape in future years, along with the development of village centers that feature a mix of housing units and retail and office space.
“The clear implication [of the survey], of course, is that the kind of development that’s going to take place on the Cape 20 to 30 years from now will be much different from the development in the last 20 to 30 years,” said Presbrey.
Some communities have been drawn to the concept of creating village centers. Open space and land preservationists like the idea of village centers, but in exchange they want to keep outlying areas from being developed.
Kovach said builders have discussed the survey findings with some town planners and with the Cape Cod Commission, a regional planning and regulatory agency, in order to craft solutions for the Cape. “Obviously we all agree on doing village-style development,” she said.
Besides zoning restrictions, another factor diminishing the supply of buildable land and driving up housing costs is land preservation on the Cape. Over the years, towns and groups have purchased land or sought other means to keep land from being developed.
The Cape even has a District of Critical Planning Concern designation that towns can seek to implement a temporary moratorium on development in certain areas so the communities can address affordable housing and growth issues. The DCPC designation is typically given to areas of particular significance, including regions that are home to important natural, coastal, economic, archaeological, architectural and historic resources.
In 2001, the Cape Cod Commission accepted an application from Barnstable to designate the entire town as a DCPC, and county officials approved it. But the HBACC challenged the designation and in June 2002 the Barnstable Superior Court sided with the homebuilders group. The town and the CCC have appealed the decision to the Supreme Judicial Court, where the case is waiting to be resolved.
Aglaia Pikounis may be reached at apikounis@thewarrengroup.com.
