It's Official: Another Short-Term Rental Showdown Set For November Special Town Meeting

The Select Board opened, closed, and adopted the warrant for a Special Town Meeting at a brief meeting on Friday, confirming voters will have two short-term rental zoning articles to choose from on November 4th.

There was no discussion of the merits of either proposal at Wednesday’s meeting, which was primarily concerned with the logistics of complying with the 45-day timeline mandated by the Special Town Meeting (STM) petition filed by local charter boat captain Brian Borgeson.

“This is a process meeting. It is not about discussing the merits of either article,” Select Board member Brooke Mohr said. “This really was about squeezing a special town meeting in the timeline that was dictated by citizens.”

The STM will be held in the high school auditorium on Tuesday, November 4th at 5:00 p.m.

Borgeson’s short-term rental zoning proposal is similar to Article 66 from last year’s Annual Town Meeting, which was the latest in a series of failed attempts to codify STRs as an allowed use by right in all zoning districts, except the commercial-industrial district. While Article 66 garnered the majority of the vote, it did not gain the two-thirds support required to pass most zoning bylaw amendments. In addition to codifying STRs, Borgeson's proposal would also protect long-term rentals, which currently face no immediate legal threat, and define a "principal use" of a dwelling to include short-term rentals.

The most critical decision the Select Board made on Wednesday was the order of the two articles, with the Board voting unanimously to place Borgeson’s proposal, which would codify short-term rentals by right across the island, before a more restrictive proposal sponsored by Planning Board chair Dave Iverson.

A third article, written by island attorney Arthur Reade, which had been discussed at previous Select Board meetings and appeared to have sufficient signatures to make the warrant, never materialized. The draft of Reade’s proposal, previously shared with the Select Board, is similar to Iverson’s article, but it remains to be seen if Reade and his supporters will ultimately endorse it.

Iverson’s proposal would codify short-term rentals as an allowed accessory use, but limit the number of days a building can be used as a short-term rental (49 days between June 15 and August 31, and no more than 70 days in any calendar year) and cap the number of changes of occupancy permitted during the peak summer season at seven. Hosted stays, in which an STR operator lives in the building they are renting, or in another building on the same lot, would be exempt in Iverson's article.

Going second could boost the chances that Iverson’s article succeeds. Emerging from months of negotiations with stakeholders in an effort to find a compromise, Iverson’s article is an attempt to forge a coalition of support that can muster the necessary two-thirds to pass at STM. Iverson and Select Board member Tom Dixon, who also worked on the proposal, have emphasized that it isn’t necessarily their ideal option, but rather a proposal that seemed capable of garnering votes from a wide swath of concerned stakeholders. As such, there may be voters who would prefer to see Borgeson’s article pass, but would vote for Iverson’s proposal if it failed in an effort to stave off a potential future where STRs are all but banned on Nantucket. Full codification being placed first on the warrant means that those voters will already know if legalizing STRs by right remains a viable option when it comes time to vote on Iverson’s article.

“One's least restrictive and one's a little bit more restrictive, so I think we should go in that order,” Select Board vice chair Matt Fee said.

The November Special Town Meeting comes with a heightened sense of urgency surrounding STRs following the June 2025 Massachusetts Land Court ruling in island resident Cathy Ward's lawsuit against her neighbors and the Nantucket Zoning Board of Appeals, which has thrown Nantucket's zoning regulations pertaining to STRs into uncertainty.

In her suit, Ward claimed that her neighbors’ use of their property as an STR violated Nantucket’s zoning code. Land Court judge Michael Vhay has now sided with her twice. The town has appealed his latest ruling, and the parties involved reached a deal in July to pause enforcement of Vhay's decision while that appeal is pending.

“We need to codify long-term and short-term rentals, because in our town code, there is no language for rentals - it was taken out in 2015 in a clean-up," said Borgeson, explaining the reasoning behind his proposal. "We don’t have zoning for rentals. If you’re renting your house right now, it’s illegal.”

During Wednesday’s meeting, Fee noted his dissatisfaction with the timeline, which could have been significantly longer if Borgeson had indicated his intention to call an STM when the Select Board first discussed the possibility in July.

“I do wish it could be later,” he said. “I know it can't be, but I wish we had another week or two.”