Select Board Won't Issue Formal Endorsement Or Comment On Short-Term Rental Proposals

The Select Board decided not to endorse Planning Board chair Dave Iverson’s short-term rental regulation proposal or local charter boat captain Brian Borgeson’s article during its meeting on Wednesday.

“I think this has always been a question for Town Meeting, and I think Town Meeting has to decide what direction to go,” Select Board member Brooke Mohr said. “Our recommendations have served no purpose or value to date. No one has listened to us.”

Select Board vice chair Matt Fee and member Malcolm MacNab expressed their preference for Iverson’s article over Borgeson’s.

“If I had to, I would not support (Article) 1. I would support (Article) 2, because it is a compromise. It is, after all these years, people in the community from both sides getting together and actually coming to some kind of resolution,” Select Board member Malcolm MacNab said. “I don’t like Article 2, but I could endorse it over (Article) 1.”

Borgeson’s proposal is Article 1, and Iverson’s is Article 2 on the Special Town Meeting warrant.

With the Planning Board backing Iverson’s article on a 3-2 vote and the Finance Committee coming down in favor of Borgeson’s article, town officials are split heading into November’s Special Town Meeting.

Borgeson’s article would allow STRs by right across the island, except in the commercial-industrial district, without any further regulation beyond what currently exists.

Iverson’s article, billed as a compromise, would cap the number of days a building can be used as an STR at 49 between June 15 and August 31 and 70 in any calendar year. It would also limit the number of changes of occupancy permitted during the peak summer season to seven and require that all STR contracts last at least seven days during the peak season. For properties with two or more dwellings that are rented separately, each day that each unit is used as an STR would count towards the maximum of 49 days during the peak season, and 70 days for the year. 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.

“I would like to see us support the Planning Board recommendations,” Fee said after speaking in favor of Iverson’s article. “I think it would show leadership, I think it would show support for some people who did a lot of work to even get us to here.”

With MacNab and Fee expressing their support for Article Two, it briefly seemed possible that the Select Board would come down in favor of it, as Select Board member Tom Dixon was directly involved with drafting the proposal. But Dixon was clear that, despite his involvement, he felt the Select Board should not comment on either article.

“I would support not making a comment,” Dixon said. “I think it’s largely said in the Planning Board and [Finance Committee’s] comments.”

Several Select Board members argued Wednesday that the STR debate has become polluted with inaccurate information, and that a factual narrative about the impact of STRs on Nantucket, whether positive or negative, may be impossible.

“People have made so many claims on this issue because we don't have—we will never have—the kind of information we need,” Mohr said. “We will never be able to quantify.”

Due to her employment at an island real estate firm, Select Board chair Dawn Hill continues to recuse herself from deliberations and votes related to the town's short-term rental policy.

Ever since STRs emerged as an issue on Nantucket, the community has been divided, with article after article failing at Town Meeting after Town Meeting. There are few issues that elicit more emotion, or lead to longer debates, than STRs.

“We’re emotional and tied up with this as much as the community is,” Fee said.

And now, once again, voters will pack into Nantucket High School in an effort to reach some sort of resolution. But they don’t just disagree on the solution; they disagree on the problem itself - or whether there is any problem at all.

If this is the year that the stalemate breaks, it could be because 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. and raised the possibility that they may not be legal at all.

In her suit, Ward claimed that her neighbors’ use of their property as an STR violated Nantucket’s zoning code and is an illegal commercial use in a residential zone. 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.