Great Barrington — A real estate transfer fee to support affordable and workforce housing may be in the town’s future. At its Monday, July 10 meeting, the Selectboard reviewed a proposal for a potential fee which was made by Vice Chair Leigh Davis, who is also the Chair of the Selectboard and Planning Board Housing Subcommittee.
“In a nutshell, this is a transfer fee applied to certain real estate transactions involving property sold above the median sale price for single-family homes in Great Barrington,” Davis said. “The fee would be either split between the buyer and the seller or paid by just the buyer or the seller.”
She said that the revenue from the fee would be deposited annually into the town’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. “It would replenish the fund and provide money for affordable rental and homeownership opportunities to low and moderate-income households,” Davis said. “It’s a mechanism and a tool to replenish the trust so that we can provide more affordable and workforce housing to Great Barrington.”
Davis said that the proposed fee is one of several different initiatives the subcommittee has come up with to support the development of affordable housing and affordable housing opportunities. “What we’re trying to do is find ways to generate revenue because it comes down to money when you want to build affordable housing or workforce housing, create programs that incentivize property owners to create housing and create programs for senior citizens,” Davis said.
She said that some municipalities have adopted the transfer fee and that other municipalities are considering the same type of fee. “Transfer fees have been proven to be an effective way of generating revenue for housing,” she said. “There’s a movement in the state legislature right now to allow communities to bypass the need for having a Home Rule Petition and having to go through the State House to move it forward.”
Davis said that, if the Selectboard decided to do so, the proposal could go before town meeting voters. But until then, details on the fee still needed to be worked out.
In a spreadsheet presented at the meeting, Davis showed a list of properties sold in town in Fiscal 2021-2022 that included the property’s sales price, total assessed value, and how much the town would earn on a transfer fee if two percent was assessed on the sales price. “Should the transfer fee be triggered on a house sold at a million dollars or above?” Davis asked. “Our town is grappling with such immense housing prices, like so many towns in the Commonwealth. It’s just one mechanism we are looking at.”
Selectboard Chair Stephen Bannon said that, before the board would vote on any transfer fee proposal to send to town meeting voters, the board would have public input sessions on the proposal. “If it’s going to be a one percent fee and [sales price] of one million dollars, or a two percent fee and over $1.2 million, we want some talking points so that there is something to discuss, and we want public input before it gets on a warrant,” Bannon said. “We’re not there yet.”
As for the public input at the July 10 meeting, residents who spoke did not like the idea, even before it became a formal proposal.
“I want to make you aware of the people who’ve been living here all their lives and living in their homes,” resident Michelle Loubert told the board. “I inherited my parent’s house and, trust me, [the house] needed a ton of work. That’s my retirement. As you all know, my husband and I planned to travel and use it as a short-term rental. The current short-term rental bylaw isn’t going to help us. We are trying to decide if we’re going to be able to retire, but all of our eggs are in our house’s basket.”
Loubert said that she often has people stopping by her property asking if she was interested in selling it. “One person said it’s the average house with a million-dollar view, but that’s our retirement right there,” Loubert said. “I almost feel like you’re pushing my husband and me into affordable housing because we may no longer be able to afford our house. We may not even be able to afford to sell it if you’re going to tax me again.”
“I don’t see the Affordable Housing Trust getting a million dollars [from this],” Planning Board member Jonathan Hankin told the Selectboard. “Right now, I am fairly [financially] comfortable, but I pay more than a third of my income in taxes to this town. It’s already hard to sell a house. It’s impossible because of our taxes. Now you’re going to make it even harder.”
Resident Charlie Williams also blasted the proposal. “For over 50 years I’ve been trying to tell the town to slow down on taking our money away from us,” Williams said. “I don’t have the money to keep on giving it to other people. I feel sorry for other people, but it’s a bigger problem. It goes all the way up to the federal government. Their tax laws stink.”
