Regional Housing Strategy

Housing Cape Cod

Affordable and attainable housing for people with various income levels and needs is key to a vibrant, healthy, and resilient region. Cape Cod is facing a significant challenge in providing affordable and attainable housing for current and future Cape Cod residents.  This impacts not only those seeking housing but also our economy, as employers may struggle to find employees locally. The region’s highly constrained housing market is unaffordable to many Cape Cod residents; a problem which has only become more acute over the past few years as home prices have increased significantly.

The Regional Housing Strategy will address the housing supply, affordability, and availability issues facing the region by identifying appropriate areas for housing development and crafting policies and strategies to further its goals. Successful implementation of the Regional Housing Strategy will provide residents with safe and attainable housing and will provide a more reliable workforce and customer base for our local businesses.

Baseline Information

Understanding the current housing landscape will lay the groundwork for strategy development. This includes housing profiles for all towns in the region with relevant housing, demographic, and economic data, an updated regional housing needs assessment, and a zoning analysis.   
 
 

Strategy Development

Strategies and recommendations will be identified to facilitate action and alleviate the region’s housing challenges. Identifying these strategies will include researching existing tools and strategies in use in the region and across the country and will be informed by the stakeholder engagement process. 

Tools & Resources

To support implementation of the strategies identified, tools and resources will be developed. These will include residential design guidelines, model bylaws for towns, and a decision support tool. Identification of other tools and resources may come out of the stakeholder engagement and overall planning process. 

Stakeholder Engagement

A robust stakeholder process will engage the public, municipal representatives, housing advocates, builders, employers, and others to define specific challenges, identify opportunities, and develop local and regional strategies that meet the needs of Cape Cod.