The Short-Term Rental Debate: How Did We Get Here?

Voters will gather at Nantucket High School on Tuesday for a much-anticipated Special Town Meeting (STM), in which they will vote on two competing short-term rental regulation proposals. The Current has written extensively about the articles and their supporters, but before the voting begins next week, it’s worth taking a look at how unique this STM will be, and how the island got here in the first place.

While Special Town Meetings have become relatively common for Nantucket's municipal government, this one is rare because it was only called after a citizen petition that was submitted by voters which required the town to organize a Town Meeting within 45 days. This year’s STM comes with easily the shortest warrant in recent memory, featuring a mere two articles, both on the same topic.

The length of this year’s STM has become a selling point. Brian Borgeson, who gathered the required signatures to hold the meeting and the sponsor of Article One, which would legalize STRs across Nantucket, has called for the meeting to last no longer than one hour. Proponents of Article Two, the more restrictive proposal, have said much the same. “Two articles, two hours,” one advertisement for Article Two reads.

Whether the meeting itself will be the shortest in recent years remains to be seen: during the Covid-19 pandemic, Nantucket held its 2020 Annual Town Meeting, which lasted only around 100 minutes. All non-essential articles on the warrant were held until subsequent years, which dramatically shortened the meeting.

One reason this STM is so unique is that it has been a long time since any issue has gripped Nantucket in quite the same way short-term rentals (STRs) have. Citizens and government officials alike have rolled out dozens of proposals seeking to regulate STRs on Nantucket. These proposals have charted out a broad universe of possible regulatory strategies, ranging from highly restrictive to entirely unrestricted. They have come from independent citizens, political advocacy organizations, local boards, and designated working groups. Some were crafted with help from professional facilitators and attorneys. Some were written by concerned locals with no formal training.

A couple of the proposals, including a ban on corporate ownership, have passed.

But every single proposal that has sought to amend Nantucket’s zoning to formally designate STRs as an allowed or accessory use, ending the legal feuds that have marred the debate for years, has fallen short, been tabled, or been withdrawn.

The first substantive attempt to regulate STRs that made it to Town Meeting was Article 90 in 2021, backed by political action group ACK Now. Among other things, the lengthy proposal would have capped most STRs at 45 rental days a year, with a minimum rental period of seven days. The article didn’t use the term “hosted stay,” which appears in several more recent proposals, including this year’s Article Two, but it defined “resident short-term rentals” as STRs at a Nantucket local's residence, allowing them to rent for up to 90 days a year.

The proposal generated significant controversy and ultimately failed 297-625, drawing only 32.2 percent of the vote. But any hope that the sound defeat of Article 90 would be the end of the issue was short-lived. The next year, the STR debate became even more divisive.

In February of 2022, Silver Street resident Cathy Ward, supported by ACK Now, sued her neighbors, Peter and Linda Grape, for short-term renting their home. She alleged that Nantucket’s zoning code didn’t allow short-term rentals as a principle use in residential districts.

That lawsuit still hasn’t been settled. For the last three years, it has wound its way back and forth through local and state-level appeals bodies, and even now, it remains at the heart of the STR debate, and a Land Court judge’s most recent ruling has been appealed by the town.

After backing Article 90 and propping up an aggressive legal strategy targeting local STR operators, ACK Now and its wealthy backer, Airgas Inc. founder and Nantucket summer resident Peter McCausland, became larger-than-life figures in the debate. Over the past four years, ACK Now’s involvement in the debate and McCausland’s motives have remained fodder for opponents of their attempts to restrict STRs.

The spring after the lawsuit was launched, STRs were back on the Town Meeting warrant. This time, voters had three articles before them. The first, Article 39, established basic fees and certification procedures for STRs. It passed easily. But dueling zoning bylaw amendments, one seeking a version of full codification and the other seeking to permit STRs only as an accessory use for residents and only with a special permit for non-residents and anyone renting a second home, were both referred for further study with 50.5 percent of the vote. Once again, ACK Now was behind the more restrictive proposal, with the Planning Board supporting full codification.

In response to that vote, and seeing the need to forge consensus on the STR issue, the Select Board formed the Short-Term Rental Work Group, tasked with drawing up a consensus bylaw that could garner two-thirds support from the voters.

Next year’s Annual Town Meeting fell before the Work Group had a proposal ready, but that didn’t stop the STR fight from continuing. ACK Now came back to the table behind Emmy Kilvert’s Article 60, which would have allowed STRs only if a home was used as a long-term residence more than it was rented short-term.

By 2023, the sides of the debate were becoming clearer. Article 60 was supported by ACK Now and the Nantucket Land Council (now known as the Nantucket Land and Water Council). It was opposed by the Select Board, Planning Board and Finance Committee. It was also opposed by Nantucket Together and the Alliance to Protect Nantucket’s Economy, a pair of political action groups. Nantucket Together, like the Nantucket Land and Water Council and, to a lesser extent, ACK Now, is still a player in the STR debate. But the Alliance to Protect Nantucket’s Economy, which was ultimately revealed to be a Copley Group lobbying effort, has faded with the sell-off of the real estate organization’s STR portfolio on-island.

Article 60, like the zoning bylaws before it, failed, receiving only 40.4 percent of the vote.

But that fall’s Special Town Meeting looked like it could be different. The Short-Term Rental Work Group was able to draft an article broadly billed as a compromise, gaining support from over two-thirds of its members and a wide swath of local government officials.

There were signs of unease before the meeting. Most of the group’s members quit after the Select Board tinkered with its proposals. The Finance Committee later reverted many of their changes. Then, on the floor of STM, the proposal had to weather even more proposed amendments. And ACK Now never joined the compromise, going its own way.

Ultimately, the confusion and disagreement proved too great for any proposal to pass. The Short-Term Rental Work Group’s general bylaw proposal seeking to regulate STRs received 45.2 percent of the vote. Town Meeting voted to take no action on the attendant zoning bylaw amendment, which would have legalized STRs by right, with only 32.1 percent of voters opposed to that motion.

In 2024, ACK Now stepped back from the spotlight, but continued fund Ward’s lawsuit and to advocate for STR regulations. At the Annual Town Meeting, an attempt at full codification failed with 47.7 percent of the vote and an attempt to limit operators to two STRs was handily rejected. The 2024 Annual Town Meeting did see the most notable STR regulation to date: a ban on corporate ownership, which passed with 52.1 percent of the vote, needing only a simple majority.

At the following STM, several different groups of citizens came forward with their own STR proposals. They were invited to negotiate and find a compromise, and the bylaw that resulted ended up on the warrant as well. It was billed as the next compromise article, and included full codification with a series of attendant regulations. It received 46.8 percent of the vote and did not pass, meeting the same fate as the last compromise effort, unable to face down opposition from both sides.

Nantucket Neighborhoods First, another group advocating for STR regulations, which was initially invited to the compromise negotiations, ducked out and supported its own accessory use bylaw. To date, their effort is the most successful accessory use bylaw, but it still only secured 54.8 percent of the vote.

Several other STR-related proposals, including a separate effort for full codification, were tabled or easily defeated.

Then, just this spring, the same story repeated itself: full codification failed with 59.3 percent of the vote and a stricter accessory use proposal failed with 33.1 percent of the vote. A number of other stricter STR proposals also failed.

Over five years and seven Town Meetings, Nantucket has not come any closer to solving the STR issue. Town Meeting has voted on four articles that fall under the broad umbrella of accessory use, with no clear trend emerging. The articles received 32.2 percent, 40.4 percent, 54.8 percent, and 33.1 percent of the vote.

There have been two straightforward votes on full codification. It received 47.7 percent and 59.3 percent of the vote. Several other efforts at full codification were tabled, referred for further study, or bundled with other regulations in so-called compromise articles that then collapsed.

The two articles billed as compromises received 45.2 percent and 46.8 percent of the vote.

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 Ward's lawsuit, which has thrown Nantucket's zoning regulations pertaining to STRs into uncertainty.

Land Court judge Michael Vhay has now sided with Ward 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.