Latest Short-Term Rental Proposals Coming Into Focus For November Special Town Meeting

A fall Special Town Meeting on Nantucket is now confirmed, as the town has finished certifying the necessary 200 signatures on a petition by local charter boat captain Brian Borgeson that requires one to be held within 45 days.

The Special Town Meeting (STM) looks set to feature at least two competing articles that seek to address short-term rentals (STRs) on Nantucket: Borgeson’s proposal, and an alternative spearheaded by Planning Board Chair Dave Iverson. Other articles, including one written by island attorney Arthur Reade, may also be submitted before the Select Board closes the STM warrant, which is likely to happen within the next week.

Borgeson’s 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. That article’s sponsor, psychologist Caroline Baltzar, was also involved in drafting the new article. In addition to codifying STRs, the latest article 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.

"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." 

Read the full text of Borgeson's warrant article here

Despite six previous failed attempts to codify short-term rentals in Nantucket's zoning code, Borgeson suggested that things might go differently this time. That's because of the urgency, he said, 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 that 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.

"The difference is we have the ruling by the judge," Borgeson said. "My clients who came out this year after the ruling said, 'Are we going to be able to come here next year? We only come for five days. Do they not want us here?' There’s a ton of uncertainty. And the answer I want to tell them is yes, keep coming and doing what you've done for the past 35 years."

Meanwhile, Iverson has spent the last several months meeting with stakeholders in the STR debate in an effort to craft what is being billed as a compromise proposal, which neither allows STRs as a primary use across the island nor bans non-owner-occupied STRs, as Vhay’s decision might.

Several members of both the Planning Board and Select Board have suggested that they will endorse Iverson’s article in an effort to present the voters with a unified front on the floor of STM. But other attempts at compromise articles, even with the overwhelming support of the island’s elected and appointed leaders, have failed at past Town Meetings. The article will be discussed at a special meeting of the Planning Board this Wednesday.

The details of Iverson’s proposal are not set, and may shift as he seeks the backing of local regulatory bodies. However, drafts posted as part of the Planning Board’s agenda packet suggest the article would limit the number of days a building can be used as an STR (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, where an STR operator lives in the building they are renting, or in another building on the same lot, would be exempt.

Read Iverson's draft warrant article here

The certification of the signatures on Borgeson’s petition caps months of uncertainty around whether Nantucket would have an STM this fall, with the Select Board initially planning for one, and then backtracking after hearing from their attorneys that no one had indicated an intention to call an STM.

Under Massachusetts law, a Special Town Meeting may be called by 200 or more citizens, regardless of any objections from the Select Board. If they choose to do so, the meeting must be held within 45 days, despite the often enormously challenging logistics.