West Tisbury residents got a chance to weigh in on a proposed bylaw to regulate short term rentals in town at a joint meeting of the planning board and short-term rental committee Monday, Nov. 27.

The meeting was the first in a series of planned public input sessions ahead of an official public hearing process said Bea Phear, chair of the short-term rental committee.

Work began on the bylaw two years ago, she said, aiming to address legal issues with short term rentals and limit the impact of investment properties in the community. According to state data, she said, there are now around 315 short term rental properties in town.

The draft bylaw would limit residents to one short term rental property per person, with 12 weeks total allowed to be rented on a short-term basis. The rules would also institute a minimum rental period of one week and require people who rent out properties to reside there for at least one month each year, register their rental with the town and have their property inspected each year.

“The purpose of going through these steps is so that we have some boundaries,” said committee member John Rau, adding that a recent state court legal decision had disallowed current rental practices in much of the town.

“Anybody who is renting their house on a short-term basis is in violation of the existing zoning bylaws,” he said, with the practice now considered a commercial use in residential areas. “We have to do something.”

But some present at the meeting took issue with the bylaw’s provisions.

“This bylaw would put me out of business,” said Julie Braverman Bruno, a seasonal resident who rents her home through Airbnb, an online short term rental service.

Ms. Bruno said she rented out her house for 50 days this year, and all her renters came for a period less than the proposed seven-day minimum.

“They can’t afford to come for seven days,” she said. “I would not have any renters...they would go to another town.”

Planning board member Ginny Jones, meanwhile, spoke in favor of the seven-day minimum, to “keep the community where we know the people that are next door.”

Reid Silva, a member of the short-term rental committee, also criticized the draft bylaw, which he said had grown too complex and far-reaching.

“I wish the planning board would put forth to the town something a little more simplistic and basic, that will get the principles in place to stop proliferation,” he said.

Mr. Silva also thought the increase in rental inspections could strain an already overburdened town building department.

“We can’t even control what we have going on today,” he said. “I just see it as the expanse of a huge program in the town’s building department.”

After more an hour and a half of public input, Ms. Phear closed the meeting.

The next public input session is scheduled to take place in January.