Nantucket Town Meeting rejects limits on short-term rentals
Town Meeting voters in Nantucket on Saturday rejected a zoning proposal that sought to limit short-term rentals on the island by restricting them to homes occupied by the owner for at least six months each year.
The 558-378 vote marked the third time in three years that Nantucket Town Meeting members have refused to adopt regulations for short-term rentals at properties owned by non-residents. The proposal required a two-thirds majority to be enacted.
Emily Kilvert, a year-round resident for 25 years, sponsored the measure and urged voters to pass it, arguing that homeowners “have no zoning protections, and full-time commercial interests are taking over neighborhoods and threatening our yearround housing.”
“We don’t want full-time, commercial [short-term rental] businesses taking over our community. We cannot afford to wait any longer,” she said. “And we don’t need more data or consultants to tell us that the explosion of full-time, commercial [shortterm rentals] across the island is eroding the year-round housing that’s left and threatening our neighborhoods and local community.”
But some voters questioned whether the proposal would shortchange property owners who don’t live on the island for six months each year and rely on income from short-term rentals to maintain a home on Nantucket. Some opponents urged voters to reject the plan while a municipal panel called the Short-term Rentals Working Group crafts its own proposal.
The working group hopes to have its plan ready for a vote in November when Town Meeting convenes again, said Jim Sulzer, a member of the panel.
“We’ve made good progress. We’re just about there,” Sulzer said.
The working group, Sulzer said, is considering proposals that would enshrine rules about short-term rentals in Nantucket’s general and zoning bylaws, prohibit short-term rentals in properties owned by corporations, and establish rules to allow short-term rentals in properties owned by trusts or limited liability corporations.
“We believe they will steer Nantucket into that safe middle ground between over-regulation and under-regulation ... recognizing both the rights of property owners and the rights of neighborhoods to maintain their identity,” Sulzer said.
Town Meeting members spent more than 90 minutes debating the proposal in the auditorium at Nantucket High School. The debate was split between supporters and opponents of Kilvert’s plan, and some voters rose to pose questions about how the proposal would affect them.
Nantucket Town Counsel John Giorgio told voters he had concerns about how Kilvert’s plan was drafted because he believed it would not apply to shortterm rentals that have already been established. He said he favored proposals by the working group to pursue measures that would spell out short-term rental regulations in the town’s general and zoning bylaws.
“If you want to have a way to solve this problem and have it apply across the island, I certainly endorse ... that they consider that option,” Giorgio said.
The Alliance to Protect Nantucket’s Economy, a coalition of island businesses, residents, organizations, and professional groups, was among the organizations that opposed the measure. The alliance paid for research that examined the island’s housing stock and the impact short-term rentals have on Nantucket’s economy.
The research found there are three times as many houses on the island as there are yearround households. There are 840 hotel rooms, enough to house about 2,700 visitors per night, but a fraction of the 9,100 that can be housed in the island’s short-term rental stock.