by Eric Schwaab – posted 1/15/26 on Wellfleet Community Page (Facebook)
The real story about the housing needs of the workforce in Wellfleet is slowly surfacing.
Barbara Powers Canoni commented: Local workforce housing in Wellfleet must reflect the realities of the jobs year-round residents actually perform. Many local workers, fishermen and shell fishermen, tradespeople, landscapers, EMTs, town employees, and service providers, require space to store tools, equipment, and gear. Warehouse-style apartments and dense townhouses fail to meet these practical needs.
The Maurice’s Campground property presents a rare opportunity to address this mismatch. Affordable, modest single-family homes with storage and yards would far better serve Wellfleet’s full-time workers and essential service providers, while remaining consistent with the town’s rural character, zoning, and long-term sustainability.
In a recent article, Mr. Coburn explained the reasoning behind limiting local preference at Lawrence Hill, stating that in Outer Cape communities with small populations of people of color, allowing only existing residents to access housing could “build an automatic exclusion of having more diversity.”
While diversity and inclusion are critical goals, limiting local preference in affordable housing does not meaningfully advance them and instead risks undermining the workforce that keeps the Outer Cape functioning.
Wellfleet and neighboring towns face a well-documented housing crisis for year-round residents: teachers, childcare providers, EMTs, fishermen, town employees, and small business workers who already live here but cannot compete with second-home buyers, short-term rentals, or outside wealth. These are not hypothetical beneficiaries; they are the people who plow roads, respond to emergencies, educate children, and sustain the local economy through every season.
Reducing local preference does not automatically increase racial or economic diversity. In practice, it simply opens a limited number of scarce units to applicants from outside the community, many of whom may have no long-term connection to Wellfleet or its needs. This risks displacing long-standing residents in favor of newcomers who may stay only temporarily, further eroding the year-round population.
True diversity is not achieved by weakening protections for existing residents. It is achieved through inclusive outreach, fair application processes, and addressing structural barriers, without sacrificing the people already carrying the responsibility of keeping the town alive.
Local preference is not inherently exclusionary. In small, rural, and fragile communities like Wellfleet, it is a necessary tool to stabilize the workforce and preserve the social fabric. Protecting that stability is not a rejection of diversity; it is a prerequisite for a truly sustainable and inclusive community.
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Gina Stewart quoted excerpts from the recent SAB letter in recent comments…
“There needs to be opportunities for people in town to find housing that allows them independence and dignity…People want their own space, privacy, and freedom to work and live.”
They also make a point that is often ignored in housing discussions: shellfishermen don’t just need beds. They need yards, sheds, and space to actually run their businesses:
“Shell fishermen need places to store gear, conduct land-based farming operations, and overwinter product…They want to be able to pull their truck up to their home, and have their kids, dogs, and cats run outside and get involved.”
The closing argument is blunt: before the town tries to solve regional housing dynamics, it should first meet the needs of the community that already lives here.
Baxter Black commenting on statements made by Jay Coburn, president of the Community Development Partnership (CDP) in a recent article on Lawrence Hill by Provincetown reporter TylerJager:
It’s almost like Coburn has been feeling the heat from the “ less than truthful “ community statements he has made and that this group has questioned…
He knew that the way he orchestrated state and federal funding that the majority of applications would come from off Cape…
His pivot to populating the school is very telling.
Lawrence Hill proves that Maurice’s Campground master plan needs to be stopped in its tracks. The plan should only focus on family housing for Wellfleet residents using down payment grants.
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From my perspective there is a new consensus building that the planning for Maurice’s Campground isn’t all that it should be.
