For Fifth Time, Nantucket Voters Reject Short-Term Rental Zoning Bylaw Amendments

For the fifth time in the past four years, Nantucket voters turned down short-term rental zoning bylaw amendments on Tuesday, rejecting the latest compromise effort crafted by the Select Board over the summer, as well as another warrant article sponsored by the political action group, Put Nantucket Neighborhoods First.

The two competing proposals were both defeated as, once again, a compromise proved elusive on the divisive issue that has dominated the debate during every Town Meeting since 2021. Tuesday's Special Town Meeting was called for the very purpose of finding common ground on short-term rentals. But it was not to be.

Article 1 - which has been described by supporters as a compromise proposal - was a zoning bylaw amendment drafted by the Select Board and a group of citizens that would have placed some limits on short-term rentals and written them into the Nantucket zoning code as an allowed use in all residential districts. Despite earning the endorsement of the Select Board, Planning Board, and Finance Committee, Article 1 was soundly defeated, with 416 votes in favor and 472 votes opposed. It had required a two-thirds majority vote, so the article was rejected by a wide margin.

Article 2, an accessory short-term rental zoning bylaw amendment proposed by island resident Charity Benz and the Put Nantucket Neighborhoods First group, fared better than Article 1 but was also defeated by voters despite earning a majority. The proposal would have allowed short-term rentals as an accessory use - meaning an owner would have to use their property as their primary residence for more days than they rented it. The final vote on Article 2 was 478 - 394. It garnered the support of 55 percent of those in attendance, but as a zoning bylaw amendment, it required a two-thirds majority, a threshold of 581 votes that was not met.

The votes came just four months after island residents had rejected similar proposals at the 2024 Annual Town Meeting in May.

Article 1, the successor to the doomed Article 59 from May, was an attempt to thread the needle by implementing restrictions that proponents believed would reduce "unlimited turnover" of vacation rentals and disruptions of neighborhoods while stopping the conversion of year-round housing into short-term rentals. It would have done so by limiting existing short-term rentals to one rental property per person, with eight changes of occupancy during the peak summer of July and August, and unlimited rental contracts outside of those months. Under Article 1, short-term rentals would have been written into the town's zoning bylaw as a primary use allowed in all residential zoning districts by creating a new "Nantucket Vacation Rental" category that would be required to abide by all of the town's existing rules for short-term rentals (including the new registry) as well those created in Article 1.

"It's a true consensus article," Planning Board chair David Iverson told voters on Town Meeting floor. "It doesn't represent the more radical sides of this issue...It’s time for us as a community to put the short-term rental debate to rest, and we have an opportunity to end this divisiveness tonight."

Article 1 was also meant to end the legal limbo and ongoing litigation resulting from the fact that short-term rentals are not specifically mentioned as an allowed use in Nantucket's zoning code despite their long history on the island. For town officials and many in the real estate industry, codifying short-term rentals in the zoning code had taken on a new urgency following the bombshell Massachusetts Land Court ruling against a vacation rental on West Dover Street earlier this year.

But opponents called it "rushed" and "reckless," as those who spoke out were concerned about the implications and consequences of making short-term rentals an allowed use under the zoning code.

"The cost to neighborhoods in quality of life is far greater than any of the guardrails in this article could assure," said Put Nantucket Neighborhoods First member Emmy Kilvert. "It's our job as legislators to protect Nantucket from the damage that unrestricted and unregulated short-term rentals have already inflicted around the country and the world."

Debate on Article 2 ensued immediately after the vote on Article 1, and sponsor Charity Benz presented a new, positive motion on the article on Town Meeting floor. The article was focused on codifying short-term rentals as a so-called accessory use in the town's zoning code, meaning it would have to be used more as a primary residence of the owner more than it is used as a short-term rental. The original article - which earned a "take no action" recommendation from the Planning Board and Finance Committee - was revised by PNNF just prior to the start of the Special Town Meeting. The revised proposal included a 30-day residential requirement for any short-term rental operator, mandating that the owner spend at least a month at their island property each year for it to be eligible for it to be rented. That requirement was modeled on a recent bylaw amendment approved by the town of West Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard and ratified by the state attorney general's office last month.

"This article is a win-win, it sets up some regulations, yet also protects the Nantucket tradition and preserves the accessory use in the land use chart," said supporter Meri Lepore. "The purpose of this article is not to take away property rights, it's about preserving the future of Nantucket. Let's stop the commercialization of our island and do all that we can to safeguard our neighborhoods. There's a limit to what the island can sustain and we may have passed that already."

Former Select Board member and charter boat captain Bobby DeCosta challenged Benz to explain how the town would determine if someone lived in their home longer than they rented it and if it could be enforced.

"How are you going to track how long a homeowner is in the house, how long a tenant is in the house, are we going to have to have ankle bracelets? I mean Christ," Decosta said. "this is great because I'll just say I'm in the house 180 days, and I'm going to rent 179, how are you going to prove I wasn't or I was? I don't know how you're going to do it. I'm not telling you where I am every day of my life."

Benz said property owners who use their home as a short-term rental are required to report those things to the Internal Revenue Service already and that she operates a short-term rental in Maine.

"That's exactly what I do, I keep track of it," Benz said.

Article 2 was also opposed by Nantucket's Advisory Council Of Non-Voting Taxpayers, which called the residency requirement "unconstitutional" and stated it violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. 

A third zoning bylaw amendment dealing with short-term rentals - Article 4 - put forward as a citizen petition by island resident Grant Sanders, was also defeated.

As Town Meeting voters streamed out of the exits of the Mary P. Walker auditorium following the vote on Article 2, the discussion on Sanders' petition began.

"Article 4 only limits new owners - if you're a new owner, you get one short-term rental and three turnovers in July and August," Sanders said. "Anyone running one now has no changes to the way they operate their business...This is a deterrent to someone just here to make a lot of money."

But once again, voters were unconvinced and rejected Sanders' warrant article. The final count was 147 votes in favor and 607 opposed.

The votes on the zoning bylaw amendments came against the backdrop of a controversial case before the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) dealing with the legality of a short-term rental operating in a residential neighborhood on the island. The ZBA voted 4-1 last week that the use of the property on West Dover Street as a vacation rental was permissible under the island’s zoning code. The decision in favor of the property owners - Peter and Linda Grape - came during a remand hearing stemming from their neighbor Cathy Ward’s lawsuit against them over the use of the Grape’s property as a short-term rental (STR).

The case has been in dispute for several years. Back in March, Massachusetts Land Court judge Michael Vhay had rejected the ZBA’s first decision in the case and issued the ruling that the town's zoning bylaw does not allow short-term rentals as a principal use of a primary dwelling but that they could be permissible as an accessory use. Vhay's judgment rejected the town's long-held position that short-term rentals are a residential use under the town's zoning bylaw. That interpretation had been used by the town's building commissioner Paul Murphy and the Zoning Board to dismiss requests for enforcement actions that challenged the legality of short-term rentals operating in residential neighborhoods. Vhay remanded the case back to the ZBA for further deliberations on whether the Grapes’ rentals of the property qualified as an accessory use. Last week, the ZBA approved a decision drafted by town counsel George Pucci in favor of the Grapes that will almost certainly be appealed back to the Massachusetts Land Court.

The only short-term rental proposal that passed on Tuesday was Article 5, a general bylaw amendment sponsored by island resident Pamela Perun that tightened the language of the portion of Chapter 123 of the town code that restricts corporate ownership of short-term rentals. Perun's article added partnerships and real estate investment trusts to the types of entities prohibited from operating short-term rentals.