Political Action Group ACK Now Endorses Planning Board Chair's Short-Term Rental Proposal

ACK Now, the political action group that has attempted to regulate and restrict short-term rentals (STRs) on Nantucket for the past five years, has endorsed a compromise STR zoning proposal sponsored by Planning Board chair Dave Iverson in the lead up to November’s Special Town Meeting (STM).

“This compromise article is the result of finding common ground,” said Carl Jelleme, the chairman of ACK Now's board of directors. “It ensures that property owners can benefit from short-term rentals, while setting limits to protect our housing stock and the character and livability of our neighborhoods. Although we have our differences, we respect and applaud Dave Iverson for the leadership he has shown and for the hours of hard work that he and others have put in to bring the compromise article forward. It is our hope that the compromise article will get the required 67 percent favorable vote at the Special Town meeting on November 4th and bring resolution to an issue that has divided the community for years.”

Iverson’s proposal 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. The zoning article would also codify short-term rentals as an allowed accessory use.

Over the summer, ACK Now representatives were at work on their own STR proposal, written in part by local attorney Arthur Reade. But they chose not to file their article, and instead endorsed Iverson’s framework.

“The article is the result of concessions by most of those involved in this issue,” ACK Now wrote in a press release Tuesday, clarifying that the group does not agree with every provision included in the compromise proposal. “This is the nature of compromise.”

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.

“The organization feels strongly that it is time to compromise and to move on,” ACK Now’s press release continues.

Iverson’s article will go up against an alternative proposal sponsored by charter boat captain Brian Borgeson that seeks to legalize STRs by right across the island, except in the commercial-industrial district. In addition to codifying STRs, his 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.

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.

ACK Now has been funding Ward's lawsuit from the start of the litigation.