Updated April 25
As town officials and housing advocates have worked to improve year-round housing on the Island, many see the rise in short-term rentals as one obstacle.
But in order to properly understand and regulate the industry, another hurdle that needs to be addressed is knowing exactly how many short-term rentals are actually on the Island.
“We know it’s happening,” Tisbury affordable housing committee chair Victor Capoccia told the Times regarding the growing number of short-term rentals. “We don’t know the dimensions of it.”
Tisbury and Oak Bluffs are aiming to launch a joint effort to develop a database and inspection program to help find some answers.
Oak Bluffs voters approved the proposed measure during their annual town meeting earlier this month, and while Tisbury voters have not cast their votes yet, town officials anticipate the proposal being accepted at the upcoming town meeting in May.
Recently, the Tisbury affordable housing committee members showcased the predicament Island leaders have to deal with. While the committee estimates an increase from 250 short-term rental units in 2022 to 312 in 2023, the actual count is uncertain. Additionally, committee members are unsure how many, or what kind, of short-term rentals are actually rented out in town.
Capoccia said this town’s estimate stemmed from a mix of the registry and a third-party contracting company.
The Massachusetts Department of Revenue’s lodging operations registry shows a much higher number of short-term rentals in Tisbury, at 694 properties. However, there are some quirks even with the state’s numbers that make the counts uncertain, with some properties duplicated.
How to actually assess the two towns’ short-term rental stock hasn’t been determined yet.
Oak Bluffs assistant town administrator Wendy Brough said the $50,000 approved at town meeting becomes available on July 1; the plan right now is to make sure the towns “get our ducks in a row” before creating a short-term rental database and regulations.
Oak Bluffs affordable housing committee chair and select board member Mark Leonard told The Times the assessment of short-term rentals will help determine what direction the towns’ leaders should go.
Some Massachusetts municipalities, like Nantucket and Salem, run their own short-term rental registries through contracted companies, like GovOS.
It’s not just Tisbury and Oak Bluffs that don’t have concrete numbers on the Vineyard. There is no central data-counting of short-term rentals on the Vineyard.
The state Department of Revenue’s registry shows that Martha’s Vineyard has nearly 4,000 short-term rental units. Edgartown has 1,420, Oak Bluffs has 957, Chilmark has 438, West Tisbury has 342, and Aquinnah has 143 short-term rentals listed in the registry.
While the registry shows what street the units are located on, there is no information regarding what type of property it is. Additionally, the numbers change if searched by zip code: Tisbury’s count of 694 short-term rental units, for example, increases to 707 when searched by its zip code, 02568.
Leonard also said the number of short-term rentals in Oak Bluffs according to the state was concerning, considering there are only just over 2,500 year-round housing units in the town. While he said that the higher rates homeowners can get through short-term rentals over year-round rentals is enticing, the overall effect decreases the housing supply for year-round Islanders, and increases rates.
Still, Leonard emphasized the balancing act the Island needs to take in regulating short-term rentals, saying the Vineyard would not want to outright eliminate short-term rentals.
“We’re a tourist economy, we can’t ban them,” he said. “We don’t want to go to that extreme.”
In Tisbury, Capoccia said there was “no doubt” that online platforms, like Airbnb, have increased the accessibility and supply of short-term rentals on the Island, contributing to the deterioration of the year-round housing stock.
Housing availability has been an issue Island leaders have been grappling with for years. While Dukes County experienced a 25 percent population jump between 2010 and 2020, the amount of housing on the Island grew by only 2 percent during the same time period, according to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. Meanwhile, the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority has a rental waitlist of 358 Islanders.
There have been efforts to support year-round rentals on the Island, like Oak Bluffs’ pilot program that started last year to subsidize renters who make 120 percent of the area median income (120 percent of the area median income is $109,400 for a single-person household on the Vineyard, according to the housing authority).
Leonard said this program has helped a municipal employee, a hospital employee, and a healthcare worker. Additionally, there have been efforts to develop more affordable housing complexes on the Island, like the Carl Widdis Way Apartments in Aquinnah.
But, there are also more local options that are under consideration to help rein in the short-term rental market: bylaws.
Carpaccio had said creating a short-term rental bylaw would allow these operations to continue, but possibly prevent entities like real estate investors from hoarding multiple properties.
Additionally, towns looking to potentially develop short-term rental bylaws are reviewing a ruling that took place in a Massachusetts Land Court case involving another resort community, Nantucket. The court decided that a property in a residential area cannot have its principal use be for short-term rentals, which would be considered a commercial venture. Additionally, the ruling stated that if a town regulates activities, like short-term rentals, through zoning bylaws, then its general bylaws cannot go against them.
According to Ron Rappaport, who serves as town counsel to nearly all Vineyard towns, the Island’s municipalities currently lack short-term rental bylaws.
West Tisbury is the closest one to regulating the short-term rental market, where voters approved passing a short-term rental bylaw earlier this month during their annual town meeting. That would include requiring homeowners to register their short-term rentals with the town. Key to West Tisbury’s regulations is that homeowners must live in the home for 30 days out of the year, a provision that is an attempt to keep larger businesses from buying out properties.
The regulation still needs approval from the attorney general, and is expected to come into effect in 2025.
While the up-Island town passed the ruling as a general bylaw, Rappaport said, West Tisbury isn’t done, and the planning board plans to follow up with a short-term rental regulation for the zoning bylaws in the future.
“It’s just that they’re doing it in two steps,” he said.
Additionally, Rappaport pointed out that the additional information from the Nantucket case was not available when the bylaw was being developed.
West Tisbury short-term rental committee member Bea Phear, who presented the bylaw during the town meeting, said she personally thinks the bylaw will be fine, since it references the town’s zoning bylaws addressing accessory uses, which is what short-term rentals would fall under. However, Phear also said the town will need to determine further details regarding the bylaw if it passes muster with the attorney general.
“We’ll need to see how it goes, and whether someone challenges that,” Phear said.
A previous version of this story stated the area median income in Dukes County for a single-family household was $109,400. The area median income in Dukes County for a single-family household is $87,450.
Nantucket was right to say that a residential home cannot have its principal use be a commercial venture. It isn’t fair for families with children, especially, to be subjected to living in a neighborhood that is commercial, even if that commercial use is other people. How can families feel safe if they have no idea who is next door on a regular basis? How can families develop relationships with neighbors if the neighbors are a revolving door of strangers?
Just because tourism is the main industry doesn’t mean it has to happen in family neighborhoods. That’s what hotels are for, in commercial neighborhoods.
West Tisbury doesn’t go far enough by restricting owners to stay in the home 30 days per year.
Short-term rentals should not exist in residential neighborhoods. Choose which neighborhoods can be commercial neighborhoods.
That’s pretty much how I feel about illegal immigrants.
Gerald, how are you identifying illegal immigrants? Skin color? Hair color? A yellow band around their arm? A scarlet letter on their chest?
Not to speak for Gerald, but I would think the definition of “illegal alien” would be a non-citizen who enters the country illegally.
Um anyone who crosses the border illegally.
“A yellow band around their arm?”
I think this remark is in poor taste.
No one here implied that immigrants can be identified (or need to be identified) as undocumented by sight. I agree that we shouldn’t assume anyone’s legal status or behave unkindly. However, we know there are millions of undocumented folks living in the U.S. based on government stats. And the news. This has created vital, practical issues that have nothing to do with race.
I had the same thought as Jackie did about your stances. Under a different article, you said, essentially, that you can’t imagine anyone being afraid of strangers. That there’s no cause for it. The strangers in that instance were from other countries.
But when it comes to short-term rentals, you’re deeming vacationers—who are also strangers–a frightening threat to the neighborhood. To children. Enough so that we need to make a major change, even after decades of these week(s)-long rentals working out for the most part.
What if the vacationer next door is also an immigrant?
Would you judge that person as good or bad?
Katie, you think that drawing an allusion to a “yellow band” is in poor taste. I do not. I see a person running for president of the US who has followers who have lifted up their arms to make oaths to essentially repeat Crystal Night. Check out Alex Stein’s show the episode when Ms. Trump was his guest.
Madeleine Albright has tried to warn us. So has Liz Cheney.
Mary Hansen, if you want to translate the German, Kristallnacht, into English, please call it “Night of the broken glass”. It is disrepectful and frankly ignorant to use the literal translation which makes a night of terror and death and destruction sound like something pretty. “Yellow band” is also in poor taste, as Katie informed you.
During the Holocaust, concentration camp prisoners were identified according to color and shape of badges sewn into their uniform, categorizing which dehumanized group they belonged to: Jews, gays, Roma, POC, etc. Jews had a yellow star, so that Nazi guards knew to treat these prisoners with special brutality.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/classification-system-in-nazi-concentration-camps
Would you call Hamas’ brutal invasion of Israel on October 7th, to commit genocidal, horrendous atrocities including sexual mutilations, “Neighbors visit Israel”? You’ve made a mistake, two if them, both offensive. Why not apologize? It sounds like it’s coming from a place of a lack of knowledge rather than something more ugly we see coming from other commenters.
Mary, look at it within the context of current events. I feel your example was in poor taste when actual methods used in 1930s Germany are being employed on U.S. campuses right now, not to mention in locations worldwide. I would never dilute such a reference when the real thing is ongoing. It’s hard enough getting the public to take this form of prejudice seriously.
You brought up Hitler, but you didn’t include an objection to this Nazi-esque behavior. I dislike it when folks borrow from past instances of Jew-hatred, reassigning the significance to unrelated issues. In this case, nobody called for migrants to be identified. The comparison wasn’t warranted. A straw man.
This clip describes what we should all be focused on. Plenty more has been reported and caught on camera.
https://youtu.be/BBE6fHUb5kY?si=qwNlbIdyUih_nDoM
Please explain why your hypothetical is more urgent than the worst examples of antisemitism since the Holocaust, still actively unfolding on the left. How did that go unmentioned? To me, this is like fretting over possible rain while a hurricane rages.
Kristallnacht refers to pograms. There are countless Dems ignoring or acting in support of terrorists who committed the most deadly, most savage pogram in recent memory. Hamas has announced they’ll do it again, and again, until every Jew has been hunted down and murdered. Until their faith and culture are no more. Many liberals, including some locals, have co-signed this by using their genocidal chants.
Does that worry you? It horrifies me. There are far-right supremacists who hate Jews, but it’s been shown that they don’t represent conservatives on the whole. The majority on the right, from what I’ve encountered, are speaking out against antisemitism. Thank goodness.
I remain in shock that any Dem, let alone almost everybody I know online, is agreeing with the hateful abuse directed at our Jewish neighbors. Fellow citizens are being punished over a foreign war.
Can someone explain why this is okay? In the United States, in 2024, at the hands of the “inclusive” side? Were this occurring under MAGA rule, liberals would be apoplectic. But because they’re responsible for this discrimination, because they approve of the target and the message, a social pass has been given for selective bigotry. Bottom line: Jews are not being protected like we swore with “Never Again”.
Too few care. We are already on the path to a repeat, and it’s not the Proud Boys leading the charge. If that fact surprises you, we’re in the same boat. I did not see this betrayal of values—American, Democratic, human—coming.
Well, not to this extreme.
Tell me again about existential threats and the importance of morality. 😣💔
(You may see multiple versions of this comment. Seems it might’ve been withheld earlier, and I’ve no idea why. Tried editing at random. I’m resubmitting because I don’t want the thread to close before I can answer you. This is a vital topic.)
Don’t know how or why p-o-g-r-o-m corrects to pogram. Not sure that’s a real word, but hopefully my intended meaning is clear.
It’s liberal hypocrisy and no awareness of it. Undocumented immigrants you know nothing about living next door to your children, with strangers going in and out, are fine. Island citizens boosting their income from visitors with money to spend should not rent out because visitors are too dangerous to be next door to your children. That makes sense, right?
Yes it does make sense.
Having illegal immigrants living in the house next door, sending their kids to school, performing 2, 3, maybe 4 jobs on-island that would otherwise go unfilled, becoming neighbors that you come to know and care for … far preferable to 1-2week all-summer rotating renters who will care little about your peace and privacy.
It’s Conservative hypocrisy and no awareness of it. Native born Americans you know nothing about living next door to your children, with strangers going in and out, are fine. That makes sense, right?
Now my comment posts, but without the explanation that I meant p-o-g-r-o-m and can’t get my device to accept this word without hyphens.
A serious topic for such a bad typo. Sorry.
Eyeroll….
This isn’t about immigrants
Can you just stop it for a minute???
And pay attention to what is really at hand here?????????
Thank you!
What’s the definition of a “short term rental”. If I rent my house for 3 weeks each summer to help pay for my overhead am I living in a rental? How many islanders who rent their house out for the summer will be displaced if they lose that opportunity? If I live off island and me and my two siblings inherit a house to use as our vacation house which our family has done for 3 generations but rent it a couple of weeks a year do we lose that ability because we don’t live here more than 30 days?
John, families living in a residential neighborhood deserve the right to live in a neighborhood that has other families where they can develop relationships.
That’s not a right. Mary. It’s a preference. On an island with so many summer homes, you can’t expect to have year-round, familiar neighbors at all times. Rezoning won’t change this factor. I’m not putting down the Norman Rockwell ideal when and if you can get it. It’s great to have solid bonds with the folks nearby. But we can’t curate our streets to that degree.
To answer John’s question, a short-term rental is generally considered (though I can’t say whether this will apply on MV) 30 days and under. Longer rental agreements would still, presumably, be allowed.
Is there a big difference between living next door to a family that’s booked for four weeks (commercial use) vs. six weeks (residential use)? The proposed changes cannot ensure long-term relationships when the line separating what’s permitted would be this thin.
I could understand your argument a little better in a location where rentals have never been a thing before Airbnb. Where the community is, at present, mostly static. But on MV? People arrive, people depart. Often. Some feel we never should’ve become this dependent on expanding tourism, and I tend to agree. Nonetheless, it happened, and I don’t want to knock over anyone’s financial dominos by chasing an unrealistic outcome.
Again, locals benefit from those off-island tax dollars and visitors, but they don’t want to live among the people providing the funds. I’m not claiming every tourist is pleasant. I’ve seen lots of obnoxious behavior. (Hello, new folks, please don’t walk in the middle of the road. For your own well being and our sanity. Thanks!)
But this is the key that goes ignored during such discussions—Islanders have the same exact potential to be bad, problematic neighbors. To do foolish stuff in public. You only need to view the court report to discover how true that is.
It’s luck of the draw. Some people are polite and friendly. Some are not. The difference has nothing to do with where they’re from. It boils down to the individual.
We’re not special by virtue of calling this place home.
Mary, you really need to expand your horizons and take a trip off the utopian island of MV. There is no right to pick who your neighbor is. We went through that in this country and we have anti discrimination laws against telling your neighbor who you can and can’t rent to. Oh, but this is different because you don’t like it. Yes, now it makes sense. You and your kind know better for the rest of us and must dictate to how we live.
Mary the free market is not obligated to care about “”relationships”” for people and families. If I purchase a house and lament the fact that I am surrounded by Democrats it is no one’s fault except my own.
Well, Andrew, we can care about the law then. No business transacted in a residential zone.
I wish I knew which town you live in, Mary. Lots of places in OB are “mixed”; that is to say, the businesses and residences co-existed before zoning. And even the advent of zoning has been a bit shaky, what with “home businesses”, etc.
I think we tried to mandate by town meeting fiat some long time ago how many unrelated people could live in one dwelling. Actually, that article was removed from the warrant before it could be voted on. Then there’s the folks near Hudson Ave who didn’t want the homeless people to stay overnight in their neighborhood. Yeah, much better to have bunches of college-aged kids rollicking through the area all summer.
In other words, which people can live where and for how long is a thorny question, unlikely to be solved by the laws.
Andy, the free market does not care, the vast majority of the Island does.
What is it about the Island that draws those the few who don’t care?
Mr Engelman. Best comment of this thread. Well done sir.
Really?
John, if you rent out your house you own a rental.
If you live off Island you are not an Islander, you are an Island real estate investor.
You own a very valuable asset.
What is the true number of illegal immigrants on Martha’s Vineyard ?
Seems like understanding the make up the island population should be part of any discussion on housing on Martha’s Vineyard..
Why is everyone worried about the immigrants here??
They are not taking up our housing!
Big companies are!
Let’s worry about what is really at hand here…. Like enormous companies taking over our real. Estate
Example…. The guy who owns a hundred million dollars of property here
He rents one of his properties for $45000 a week.
Let’s get rid of people like him.!!!!!
People like him? What does that mean, Dolores. Get rid of him? What does that mean?
Will you be supplying the torches and pitch forks? Have we forgotten our history people?
That’s one person. How many “enormous companies” have purchased here over the last few years? The answer is virtually none. it’s an island myth and if not show me your facts. ( And please, a property bought my an LLC is usually not an “enormous company”)
Does the hundred million dollars guy vote?
$45,000 a week is not enough to carry a $5 million dollar property.
If somebody is renting out a home for $45K per week, it must be worth many millions, placing it outside of the affordable housing discussion. I doubt that rental has any impact on the lower end of the market.
Some Islanders would like to eat the rich and, at the same time, continue to eat off of their tips/purchases/business.
Why?
Tim what is your best guess?
.001%?
.01%?
How have they impacted you?
To not mention the windfall amounts in short rental tax the towns have garnered in the last few years is disingenuous. It’s been an enormous boost to general town funds
Is that a good or a bad thing?
Albert, short-term rentals are a bad thing
So, you’re happy to force me to sell the property that’s been in my family for 65 years to satisfy your sensibility.
William, are you planning to use your property that has been in your family for 65 years as a short-term rental? Is your property in a residential neighborhood? Is your property in a commercial neighborhood? If you need to earn more money from the property why not tear it down and build a big hotel to maximize your profits?
With no “reply” option under Mary Hansen’s post below, I’ll post here. I wonder how my invoking “family” and “65 years” leads you to “maximizing profits”? My point, apparently lost, was that short-term rentals is the only revenue path I see that saves this cherished property that we can sometimes visit and keep in the family for another generation. Short term-rentals allows me to pay the taxes, the insurance, replace the water heater, pay some modest grounds-keeping, pump the septic…etc. I make modest donations yearly to the libraries and the conservation groups. I have no vote, but I’m here, among you.
I grew up, seasonally, here, and I adore this place as the one anchor i always come ‘home’ to.
I vet my tenants. I’m not a corporate owner, maximizing my profits. I’m fighting for my children to have the cottage on the Vineyard that I’ve already long had to fight for. Now another struggle against strangling homeowner’s rights.
William, I appreciate you elaborating on your comment. It’s admirable that you want to save the cottage for your family. Can’t you see, however, that short-term rentals, in general, are what’s making it difficult for you to achieve that goal long-term? Collectively, short-term rentals are making property values soar. Therefore, increased costs in many ways.
There are people on a waitlist for renting—wouldn’t someone on that list be able to rent long-term to help you save your family cottage?
Another option is to draw different zones. Maybe your cottage could be in a commercial zone?
You talk about homeowner rights: yours—but you aren’t addressing other homeowners rights—people who want to live in a residential neighborhood and not a commercial neighborhood.
The voters should decide whether or not to rezone the entire island to be commercial.
Short term rentals employ A LOT of islanders. Do you want to ban these people too? Are rentals bad because they employ landscapers, cleaners, pool cleaners, etc. Oh, ya, these people often don’t look like you so they must be bad.
John, having discussions about accessory dwellings, affordable housing, short-term rentals, leaving homes empty—can be tied to the problem of cleaners, landscapers, and homeless people not having adequate housing. Let’s build a bridge to the mainland so everyone has access to the housing they want.
“If you need to earn more money from the property why not tear it down and build a big hotel to maximize your profits?”
What a rude thing to say. There are people on this island who inherited property that means a lot to them. It has sentimental value. They rent it out to cover the taxes and other costs, so that they don’t have to sell a place filled with memories.
I’m beginning to think that’s the problem. That some would like to change the bylaws and force the hand of those who are *not* rich, just to add to the housing pool.
Either way, not a very neighborly attitude. You are assuming it’s all about greed. That’s rarely the case in my experience.
John, maybe you’re right. Let’s allow every residence to turn into a short-term rental. Then we can employ A LOT of people.
Katie Lane, thank you for your thoughtful response. You brought up a good point: property with sentimental value can be rented to cover some of the costs. A home in a residential neighborhood can be rented long term.
It’s not about greed. It’s about Judge Vhay’s judgement that short-term rentals are not a residential use. If you want to have a commercial short-term rental property, then it needs to be in a commercial neighborhood. And if you want a commercial property, then why not go all the way and have a hotel?
Mary, if MV were undeveloped land and we were starting from scratch, I would probably agree with you. Commercial buildings to one side, hotels and homey rentals in another area, purely residential properties in a third. Clean, simple. Buyers can opt in and plan accordingly, knowing what they’re getting into.
Unfortunately, the island isn’t divided up that way in most locations, and it can’t be done retroactively without causing major issues. It’s mixed. To redraw the lines so starkly will put locals and seasonal folks at a huge disadvantage. If we eliminate all short-term rentals, some of our residents won’t be able to count on the money they usually set aside for winter. This would hurt the very population we need to retain.
It’s also just unfair. The struggle is already tough.
Back in the day, there were two teachers, both extremely popular and considered highly competent. It was common knowledge that they moved out of their houses for almost three months every summer to live in tents. That rental income allowed them to stick around during the off-season.
Had the changes you’re suggesting been in effect, MV would’ve lost two valuable educators. Perhaps more. There are all sorts of ways that people here have been making ends meet for decades. I do not want to interfere with that delicate balance.
The legal specifics are currently up in the air. Even the attorney who represents five island towns confirmed as much. We really don’t know yet how the Vineyard will be impacted, but it’s not as straightforward as you’re implying. More info is needed.
Mary, hotel rooms are a bad idea?
Weekend rentals?
Week?
Month?
Season?
Year around rentals only?
Albert, hotel rooms are a great idea.
The different set of rules invoked for different groups, depending on who liberals decide to shower with compassion, is evident here. Every time I comment about the disconnect liberals show between “enough daffodils for everyone” when it comes to migrants without papers, compared to citizens trying to afford their property, or heaven forbid, make some money like everyone else bowing to island visitors, I get censored.
I guess since every topic comes down to the
liberals and how they are ruining the island and in fact the world,
perhaps we should just ban liberals. Or at least
what they say… I get banned all the time
WHAAAAAA@!!!!! But if we solved the
“liberal problem” we would have to blame
some other group of people for everything.
Jackie, I hope my comments make it because the liberal hypocrisy of “enough daffodils for everyone” to its our right to decide who lives next to ME is astounding. Next it will be we can’t have a Jewish family live next to me because a terrorist may mistake their house for mine. Mind blowing hypocrisy of people who have forgotten their history.
Exactly. The pro-Hamas liberal antisemites on college campuses are already barring some Jewish professors and Jewish students from entering the campus, and harassing them when they do.
Exactly and the reason given them from allowed to enter is we can’t protect you. How sick is this thinking? Have you seen the insurrection at Columbia?
Carl, you said that I’m exhibiting hypocrisy. Is name calling a rational argument?
I agree that some neighborhoods should be residential. I agree that some neighborhoods should be commercial. I agree that that residential and commercial neighborhoods are physically different places. I did not claim that every neighborhood should turn residential. I do believe there should be a conscious choice between residential and commercial and not allow all residential neighborhoods to slowly transition to commercial neighborhoods. You may feel differently, which is your right.
Mary, read what you wrote. You don’t want people renting to people in residential neighborhoods because you don’t think short term renters are worthy enough. And yes it is hypocritical to allow housing for certain groups of people while restricting for others.
Carl, yet again, residential neighborhoods are not commercial neighborhoods. Perhaps we will have to agree to disagree.
Noticing hypocrisy, antisemitism, racism, or a profound ignorance of the island, individuals, and neighborhoods, and pointing it all out, is not name calling. Calling Trump supporters “maggots” is dehumanizing name calling. Calling a Jewish person a “radical Zionist” or “so and so Chosen People” is name calling—- and antisemitic. Confusing a person’s “rights” with a biased, controlling “preferences is like saying Israel’s RIGHT to exist and to defend itself while trying to protect civilians is “genocide”. Being prejudiced against certain groups of people living next door but favoring only specific others is a personal prejudice here in America and has nothing to do with citizens’ rights. Discrimination based on who your neighbors are is… against the law. And that’s just to start with what’s wrong with your prejudices. Who else don’t you trust to interact with your children?
Jackie’s right. Wanting to be close to our neighbors on a personal level may be a preference. One that can’t be forced through bylaws. Wanting our neighbors to be from a certain place or of a certain background before we’ll embrace them and give them a chance is plain prejudice.
Ok Mary, let my try again. If I own my property I have to check YOU and get your permission before I rent it out. It’s your choice if can rent it to a veteran, minority or member of the LGBT community? You clearly have no concept of zoning. People are living in these houses not running a massage parlour out of them. See the difference? Your argument is that there should be no rental properties in residential zones.
Carl, you have attributed several things to me that I didn’t say, perhaps you are having conversations with other people and are confused? Nevertheless, Massachusetts law will apply to you, whether or not you choose to rent.
The different set of rules invoked for different groups, depending on who conservatives decide to shower with compassion…
Yes, let’s lay the blame for not approving building permits hidden behind the guise of “historical conformity” and “climate change” on short term rentals. The Housing shortage will continue until we allow more reasonable building. The number of corporations (as oppose to individuals) buying rentals and renting them out is a small percentage of the short term rental market.
Nick Dean, the housing shortage will continue until we allow more reasonable building.
Let’s say we allow more reasonable building. At what point will those units be allowed to become short-term rentals? Will we have to start over to find enough affordable housing? The solution MAY be more reasonable building, but it also MAY be more reasonable rules.
Short-term rentals can indeed spoil the character of a settled neighborhood. One week a house can be empty, or have a quiet renter down for some peaceful enjoyment, but the next week it’s a ragin’ party house with people coming and going all hours of the night…absolute h3ll on nearby residents. That breed of renters has no vested interest in the community, and could care less about their impact on the neighbors. By the same token, owners who basically reside as year-rounders should be able to do a limited amount of in-season s/t rentals if they register their property accordingly for reasons mentioned in comments above. For these and other reasons, it’s essential to have one island-wide agency charged with registering and enforcing whatever limits on S/t rentals are ultimately arrived at, and have it supported by fees from those s/t rentals. Nantucket’s on to something-
Nantucket has a slightly easier path as it is one county and one town (Siasconset and Madaket are part of the town of Nantucket). As someone who has quietly espoused regionalization on a variety of issues (schools, police, fire, etc.) I recognize the near-impossibility of having an Island-wide plan for “registering and enforcing…” short-term rentals. Clearly we need to do something rather than cry “NIMBY!” every time the threat of short-term rentals shows up next door to us.
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