Select Board: Harwich Opposes Real Estate Transfer Fee

HARWICH – By the narrowest of margins, the county assembly of delegates passed a measure last month seeking special legislation that would allow Cape towns to adopt a fee on real estate transfers over $1 million to raise money for housing initiatives. The petition was drafted in part by Harwich Assembly Delegate Elizabeth Harder, who said it merely allows towns to opt in to the tax — and only after extensive evaluation and votes at town meeting and at the polls. 

But the select board last week chided her for not consulting with them or with local residents before voting in favor of the proposal. 

 “I think you should’ve taken the temperature of your community before you voted yes, because if you just paid attention — which I know you do, you’re everywhere all the time — you would have realized that with Pine Oaks and a little bit going on with Pennrose, that any kind of money given to affordable housing right now is a hot topic,” board member Jeffrey Handler said.

 “This was not a vote for a transfer fee. It was a vote to ask the state legislature to allow individual towns to institute a transfer fee, should they so wish,” Harder said. 

 Harder was one of the authors of the measure, which passed the county assembly on Feb. 19 on a split vote. While a minority of towns favored the initiative, assembly votes are weighted based on each town’s population, with 51 percent of the weighted vote in favor of the petition. Six towns on the Cape eagerly want to adopt a high-value real estate transfer fee, seeking to use the revenue for housing projects, including small-scale developments, workforce housing, municipal housing and refurbishment projects. 

 “They believe it is a way to help finance the kind of small housing projects most towns want,” Harder said. Harwich would need to opt in to any such tax, she noted.

 “We would have to do hundreds of meetings and hearings and studies and then vote for it at town meeting, and then again on the ballot,” she said. “If — big if — the legislature allows towns to institute a transfer fee, the good thing for us is we can see what happens with the towns that do want to implement one. We can study their results,” she said. Harder said her vote merely opened the possibility that those six towns might pursue a transfer tax. “It didn’t hurt Harwich to vote yes,” she said. Any discussion of Harwich adopting the tax could be years away, Harder stressed.

 News of the assembly’s vote sparked a flurry of opposition on social media and caught the attention of the select board.

 Handler said that as an elected representative of the town, Harder had an obligation to consult with her constituents or at least inform them of her position. “You didn’t feel the need to inform, over 14 months of time, any of us?” he asked.

 “I didn’t come to you because this topic of a transfer fee is years away from being discussed in Harwich,” Harder countered. 

 Handler noted that the delegate from Chatham opposed the proposal, and the Wellfleet delegate embraced it, each after talking to their select boards and townspeople. “Personally, I admire those two for their transparency and I think this is my expectation of what our delegate should have done,” he said. With residents finding they have little control over the large housing projects happening in town right now, they are losing trust in certain aspects of government, Handler said. Harder’s vote was a betrayal of that trust, he said.

 Board member Peter Piekarski said that Harder’s vote implies support for the measure. “I’m not aware of funding being the main issue of creating affordable housing, especially not in Harwich,” he said. While the town has a long history of supporting affordable housing initiatives, this proposal raises many questions for members of the public. “They don’t have an appetite for this,” he added.

 Board Chair Donald Howell said the proposal seeks to create a management board to oversee how the revenue is spent. There is no assurance that all funds raised by Harwich would benefit housing projects in town, he noted. “This inserts the county into a role that it currently doesn’t have,” Howell said. 

 “There is a hell of a lot of angst in the community” about housing initiatives now, with many voters feeling like they have little control over the type of housing being built and how it’s funded, Howell said. This proposal would further erode that trust, he said. 

 Resident Richard Waystack, a real estate agent who has been involved in housing initiatives for years, spoke against the petition.

 “I believe this proposal may create substantially unintended negative consequences for Harwich residents, for property owners and our local economy,” he said. But chiefly, Waystack said, it’s unfortunate that the petition is being debated after the county assembly cast its vote.

 “I think there’s a disconnect between the town, the board and the delegate,” he said. “The delegate has misread the needs of our community.”

 The select board voted unanimously to write a letter of opposition to the proposal and to send it to the state legislature. This week, the board was set to consider a draft of that letter.

 Board member Anita Doucette said she believes Harder could have done more to keep the board and the town informed.

 “Maybe you can learn a lesson from this point forward,” she said.

 Harder said she has learned that lesson.

 “From now on, I’ll let you all know exactly what I’m doing at the county. You’re going to be sick of hearing from me,” she said.