Massachusetts housing availability and affordability victims are due to the violation of their 14th amendment rights. Specifically:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The Massachusetts legislature has denied two generations of our youth the equal protection of the laws. Specifically, MGL. Chapter 59, section 2a. of the property tax collection laws of the state of Massachusetts. This law establishes the definitions of terms for the definition of property types or zones for proper property tax valuation and assessment. This law specifically defines residential property as “non-transient” use. It also defines inns, hotels and tourist homes as commercial property. Each town also has zoning laws, that they selectively ignore, that pertain to the legal use of commercial and residential property in various sub-zones of varying restriction, but the most heinous and destructive abuse of the citizen is inflicted by the selective enforcement of the most basic element and purpose of zoning, which is the separation of commercial and residential zones for reasons of quality of life issues and property values. Locally, we also ignore our home business and rooming house regulations when it comes to the illegal weekly rental. I say weekly rental, however many properties are advertised on a per-day basis.

This law has been ignored since the early 1970s. For almost 50 years the next generation has had to financially compete for residential housing against an illegal commercial use of that residential zoned property. Those residents who managed to own homes before the costs went completely out of range have their property improperly and illegally equally assessed and pay the same property tax as those that are commercial, rented weekly and even daily. Even a well-paid town employee can not compete with $2,000 per week, let alone the $5,000 per week or $10,000 per week. And imagine, even those who get $50,000-plus and beyond per week pay nothing back to the state or town, forcing the resident to pay equal property taxes to support the tourist infrastructure for the transient accommodation industry that is pushing them out of their year-round rental or denying them the possibility to own a home. Pursuit of happiness denied?

It is obvious that in many situations, wealthy residents in new high-pay industries drive the prices of residential real estate up in a given region, and subsidies for low-cost residential housing are necessary for some balance. The idea that the resident can compete with commercial use of residential property is absurd and disgusting. Subsidizing housing with the tax dollars of hard-working Americans across the country, when the problem is the self-inflicted inflation of value and demand from an illegal commercial use, that is completely ignored at the state and local level, is a fraud on the federal government, the American taxpayer, with no possible end or even interest in a legitimate solution in sight.

Legislation to regulate and tax this illegal multi-hundred million-dollar per year industry fails in the legislature regularly. Most importantly it amounts to a violation of the citizens 14th amendment protections

Donald Muckerheide
Oak Bluffs