Truro Affordable Housing"

Affordable housing in the towns comprising Outer Cape Cod is a serious issue and one that is contributing to the mass exodus of the area's young adult population. Each town has a nominal affordable housing authority which in turn makes limited attempts to rectify the situation confronting the majority of the area's young families, i.e. finding affordable housing and preferably building their family's equity. However most of the housing authorities truthfully accomplish little or fail in maximize their contributions as such the towns of the outer cape fall well below state guidelines in measurements of affordable housing. In some instances the authorities seem to exist as token entities designed to show that a town is attempting to tackle a "hot button" issue for the region when in fact the towns are committed to preserving the status quo. Take for instance the town of Truro, oftentimes described as the most rural town on the cape and one of the most expensive homes to some of the area's highest concentration of for lack of a better word estates and mansions. They have both the Truro Housing Authority and the Highland Affordable Housing ngo, both of which seem to have mastered the art of press releases that highlight their limited contributions. In fact an article was published today in the Cape Cod Times titled "Truro Moves to Boost Affordability," http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100219/NEWS/2190319 which details both Truro's acute lack of affordable housing stating that it has the lowest percentage of all 15 Cape Towns and how an owner donated a house to be used as affordable housing in the town, and how the housing authorities are now looking for a lot to host the house which would be available to any family making bellow $75,400, which is a great and would bring the total "affordable units" in Truro to a grand total of 9 out of a total of 2,551 housing units with over 1500 that are primly second homes or vacation rentals (http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=06000US2500170605&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_DP1&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-_lang=en&-_sse=on). This extreme paucity of affordable housing is a serious contributing factor to the further seasonalization of the Outer Cape Communities. In fact Truro's current zoning bylaws (http://www.truro-ma.gov/html_pages/documents/Town%20Clerk/zoning2006,no%20map.pdf?) are hostile to the supply of favorable year round housing, duplex's are only allowed by a Special Permitting process, and most egregious of all is the seasonal nature of condo complex's and an unwillingness to allow the conversion of cottage colonies into year round housing units the town bylaws state under section 40.3 section C that; "no units shall be occupied or otherwise used during each calendar period commencing December 1 and ending March 31 of the following calendar year," a provision that was recently upheld in 2009. These provisions are the single most damaging factor in the affordable housing market in Truro and as long as they remain in place there will continue to be an acute shortage of affordable housing within the town.