Co-Owner Of Richmond Development Seeking Rollback Of Restriction On Short-Term Rentals

A real estate investment company is petitioning the Select Board to lift the restrictions blocking short-term rentals (STRs) in the Richmond Great Point affordable housing development, the first major test of how the town will handle STRs after voters at Special Town Meeting voted to legalize them island-wide.

“We do not believe it is equitable for the Town to continue to impose this restriction,” attorney Johanna Schneider, who represents the real estate investment company—known as Nantucket Property Owners—wrote in a letter to the Select Board.

The Town Meeting vote last November clarified Nantucket’s zoning regulations by explicitly codifying STRs as an allowable use in almost all of the island’s zoning districts. The landmark vote, later upheld by the state’s attorney general, broke a lengthy stalemate that had dominated Nantucket politics for years and freed up many Nantucket homeowners to rent their properties without fear of legal repercussions. But it did not ban the town, private developers, or homeowners associations from blocking STRs on certain properties.

In its letter, Nantucket Property Owners claims that the restriction on STRs in the Richmond development “does not apply to other residential properties in Town.” This is, at best, misleading: several major housing developments on Nantucket, including Sachems Path and Abram’s Quarry, ban STRs outright. Additionally, STRs are blocked in essentially every deed-restricted affordable housing unit on the island, and a number of local homeowners associations have policies that disallow STRs.

Banning STRs in housing developments that are intended as affordable or workforce housing is a common way to ensure that the homes remain occupied by year-round residents, rather than seasonal visitors. In the Richmond development, as elsewhere on the island, the ban goes hand-in-hand with similar restrictions, such as rules against subletting or requirements about the length of a lease. However, the majority of the housing in the Richmond development is not deed-restricted as affordable housing, and is, instead, market-rate units.

Nantucket Property Owners feels that the ban is an example of unfair treatment. The company, which purchased 36 lots in the Richmond development’s “Sandpiper” subdivision in 2022, has sent multiple letters to the Select Board since the attorney general’s ruling asking for the restriction to be lifted.

“Singling out these homes for prohibition of an activity that the broader community is now free to engage in is inequitable,” attorney Johanna Schnieder wrote in a letter to the Select Board, calling the prohibition “squarely at odds with what Town Meeting voted for and what the Attorney General has now affirmed as valid Town policy.”

Schnieder claims that the prohibition is based “solely upon a contractual provision negotiated years ago as part of the original zoning approval” and that “there is no continuing land-use rationale distinguishing this development from other properties now permitted to operate short-term rentals.”

Eliminating the ban would open up dozens of Nantucket homes in what remains by far the island’s single largest affordable housing development to the seasonal market. But Schnieder and the Nantucket Property Owners argue that allowing STRs in the development would actually further Nantucket’s workforce housing goals.

“To the extent that a primary goal of the Sandpiper development was to foster the creation of workforce housing on Nantucket, that goal has been met,” the letter continues. “It is well- documented that in a destination resort community like Nantucket, short-term rentals create and preserve opportunities for people to keep their homes while affording the high cost of living on the Island. Denying homeowners within the Sandpiper development – including those who are members of the local workforce – this economic opportunity is contrary to Town’s intent of supporting this critical segment of Nantucket’s population.”

Schneider added that “there have been a number of buyers who have not purchased at the Sandpiper development and purchased elsewhere on the island because of the inability to provide short-term rentals,” and that, with the ability to rent short-term, “homeowners, including year-round, could generate rental income either in the upper floors or the finished ‘lower level’ of homes within the development.”

Schneider characterizes the request as an effort to increase economic opportunity for local homeowners who may be struggling with higher cost-of-living expenses and the large price tag attached even to Richmond’s affordable housing units. Opponents may see it as another attempt to maximize profits by tapping into the island’s massive vacation rental market.

On Wednesday, the Select Board will have to decide whether to leave the ban on STRs in place or lift it. Although over a decade has passed since the original agreement was signed, the majority of the current Select Board members voted on that first document: Matt Fee, Bob DeCosta, and Dawn Hill were all serving on the Select Board in 2015. Hill, however, often recuses on topics related to STRs and may do so again Wednesday.