Consultant: Manchester has large affordability gaps as town nears SHI half-way mark

Manchester-by-the-Sea ' At a public forum to update the town's five-year Housing Production Plan, consultant Karen presented a housing needs assessment that found Manchester has about 2,293 year-round housing units and roughly 115 units that meet the state's Subsidized Housing Inventory (SHI) criteria — roughly 5 percent of the total.

Karen told attendees the town remains below the state's 10 percent target for SHI and that, even if pending projects push the town over that threshold, "there'll still be serious unmet housing needs." She reviewed the state's counting rules for SHI units: a unit must be deed-restricted (typically in perpetuity unless shorter-term restrictions are approved), affirmatively marketed and subsidized or approved through a state agency, and generally available to households at or below 80 percent of Area Median Income (AMI).

The presentation highlighted several demographic and market trends that drive local need. Census-derived figures show Manchester's population aging: residents under 18 have declined about 23 percent since 1980, while residents 65 and older increased about 141 percent. The town's income distribution shifted toward higher brackets: a large share of households report $150,000 or more, while about 9 percent report incomes under $35,000.

Karen said those aggregate incomes mask affordability problems. She reported a median single-family sale price near $1.35 million and presented a median-household-affordability estimate of roughly $860,000 under a 30 percent-of-income affordability assumption — producing an affordability gap of several hundred thousand dollars for a typical household. She also noted that among households at or below 80 percent AMI, about 74 percent are spending more than 30 percent of income on housing and nearly 39 percent are spending more than half of their income on housing costs.

On rental markets, the consultant cautioned that the census median gross rent ('$1,811) includes subsidized units and so understates market rents for units that turn over; attendees and staff estimated market rents for many available apartments nearer $2,300'$3,000. Karen also reported a net loss of rental units since 1980 (about 130 fewer rentals) and a near-zero rental vacancy rate, which participants said limits choices for renters and increases competition for any newly available units.

Participants asked about "naturally affordable" units — market-rate apartments whose rents are low enough that the units could qualify for SHI if deed-restricted. Karen said the draft housing needs assessment breaks out units by rent band (for example, the draft identifies units in the $1,000'$1,500 range) but cautioned that small owners face an administrative burden to place units on the SHI, including marketing plans and monitoring that make qualification difficult for incremental single-unit changes.

Karen said the next steps are to complete the draft sections on challenges and strategies, identify potential town-owned or other sites to investigate, and return with a full draft for public review before seeking Planning Board and Select Board approval and submission to the state.

Provenance: transcript excerpts supporting this article appear between SEG 018 (consultant intro) and SEG 2028 (closing/next steps).