A house becomes a home, and a home can become part of a family, a place of first steps, first words, first days of school and other shared memories. It’s not unusual then, that a parent hopes to pass a house on to a child, or a spouse to a husband or wife.

But within current affordable housing regulations, that may not be possible. While Chilmark town officials seem to agree on the benefits to the community of maintaining the family unit through affordable housing, an existing bylaw restricts the inheritance of an affordable homesite to income-qualified heirs only. An heir must make within 150 per cent the Dukes County median income in order to inherit a deed-restricted affordable home.

The reasoning is that affordable housing efforts are considered an investment in families on the Island. Average working-class families have long been priced out of the Island housing market, and that’s unlikely to change. Affordable housing efforts aim, then, to make home ownership possible for families now, but not only now. The aim is to keep this housing perpetually affordable, keeping mortgages pegged to median incomes, keeping families from being financially forced off-Island.

But while affordable housing groups invest in the family unit, those families often make great investments in their houses, and not just financially. It’s a conundrum.

This year, Chilmark officials will turn it over to town residents to decide if the regulation should stand. Recently the planning board held a public hearing to discuss the proposed amendment. They agreed to place the topic on a warrant article for the annual town meeting in April, and suggested that further discussion on the matter should be held by those town residents who might be directly affected by the rule.

“My sense, from the housing committee, is that we’re really trying to get this in front of the town in a way that would bring the debate to the front,” said planning board and housing committee executive secretary Todd Christy, at the planning board meeting last month. And while it will be a new topic at town meeting this year, the debate has been ongoing for years.

“This, I think, has gone on for about seven years,” said Mr. Christy, adding that the housing committee has been divided on the subject.

So, too, has the board of selectmen. In March of last year, the selectmen voted to lift the restriction for residents Dardanella and Sean Slavin, ruling that their homesite could be passed to an heir without income restrictions. Even then, the board was divided, with selectmen Warren Doty and Frank M. Fenner Jr. voting to lift the restriction, and selectmen chairman J.B. (Riggs) Parker voting to uphold it.

At the time, the Gazette reported that Mr. Fenner argued that his decision was made based on the individual case, and should not affect the standing town policy restricting heirs to be income-qualified in order to inherit an affordable homesite.

The division remained when the topic was raised at a selectmen’s meeting in early March.

“I personally feel that the family institution is king,” said Mr. Fenner at the March 2 meeting. “I certainly don’t want to be the person to say to a family that if the recipient of the lot dies, the spouse or child has to leave that lot. I would like to see the spouse or child not have to income-qualify, but see that they follow all other [affordable housing] regulations.”

But Mr. Parker spoke strongly against lifting the regulation. The proposal to do so is inappropriate for Chilmark, he said, as the covenant was designed to keep affordable housing properties perpetually affordable.

Planning board chairman Janet Weidner acknowledged that concern at the Monday night meeting. “I believe one of the arguments against this is the fact that [the homesite] is no longer perpetually affordable,” she said. “It’s out of the pool, so to speak.”

But Mr. Christy suggested there are ways to keep the property affordable, even while lifting the restriction. For instance, the bylaw amendment could be limited to a single generation of heirs.

The planning board discussed the many variables that they expected to come up at town meeting, including an affordable homesite recipient who marries after receiving the property. This might exclude a spouse from inheriting the property in the event of his or her death. Other families might be turned off to affordable housing, knowing that descendents might have to minimize their income potential in order to qualify to inherit the family home.

At the meeting, the board identified spouses and descendents as inheritors eligible to inherit homesites, should the amendment pass at town meeting.

According to Mr. Christy, one complicating consequence of lifting the inheritance restriction would be that affordable homesite recipients would no longer be able to enter a 99-year ground lease agreement with the town. Instead, under state law, the lease would be limited to 30 years. After 30 years, affordable homesite recipients would have to be requalified by the town,for the property.

Planning board member William Meegan said that he, too was torn about the amendment. “I understand the sentiment. If somebody dies, you don’t want to be booted out,” he said. But affordable housing was not designed to be a family nest egg, he said, and homes were eventually meant to re-enter the pool, as a new opportunity for Islanders making within 150 per cent of the county median income rates.

There was no public comment on the proposed article, and the planning board did not make a recommendation to town residents on the matter. “I’d like to be as neutral as we can,” said Ms. Weidner.