A town meeting debate is shaping up for April 28 in Tisbury, after the select board voted Friday in favor of a warrant article seeking to abolish the 75-night annual limit on short-term rentals.
The article, which also asks to raise the local tax on short-term rentals from 6 per cent to 9 per cent, was drafted by select board chair Roy Cutrer.
“By limiting those nights, we’re limiting the town’s revenue,” he said at Friday’s board meeting, which was postponed from Tuesday due to aftereffects of the blizzard.
First unveiled at the Feb. 10 select board meeting, Mr. Cutrer’s warrant article has drawn opposition from other elected and appointed Tisbury officials, who say that lifting the rental cap — which has not been enforced since it was passed — will further erode the dwindling supply of rentals for year-round Tisbury residents.
“We cannot build our way out of a housing crisis,” said Ruth Konigsberg, a member of the finance and advisory committee.
Unlimited short-term rentals also take a toll on traditional neighborhoods, said Melinda Loberg, a former Tisbury select board member who was appointed Friday to a vacancy on the finance and advisory committee.
“It’s a quality of life issue for our residents. They’ve given up their summer months…but to have it continue all year long, I think is really unfair,” Ms. Loberg said.
Mr. Cutrer, a part-time real estate broker, has been pushing to drop the 75-night rental limit, which passed at a special town meeting in December, 2024 over his proposed amendments to extend it from 90 to 120 days.
He now wants to bring it to the annual town meeting, Mr. Cutrer said Friday, because there weren’t enough voters at the special town meeting to make such an important decision.
John Cahill, currently the select board’s only other member, said he agrees the 75-night limit is too low and believes that voters should have the final say.
“I want to have this discussion in a democratic format, where we as a town can decide our future on this issue,” Mr. Cahill said.
Also Friday, the select board approved a second warrant article that would, with voters’ assent, grant the town’s $2,773 residential housing credit to Tisbury landlords who rent their properties year-round.
At present, the residential credit — set at 22 per cent of the median home value in Tisbury — is available only to year-round residents living in their own homes.
Anne McDonough, a member of both the Tisbury planning board and the town’s affordable housing committee, said it’s unlikely the program will make much of a dent in the municipal treasury.
“It would be fabulous if we could get 20 people. That would be pie in the sky,” she said.
A public forum on the proposal is set for March 30 at 4 p.m. in the Tisbury senior center, Ms. McDonough said.
In other business Friday, the select board approved new waterways regulations that give the harbor master the discretion to remove long-unattended dinghies from town property and allowed the Vineyard Haven Public Library to add a sewer tie-in, which has already been approved by the wastewater department.
This article appears in March 6, 2026.
Why do we always insist on shooting ourselves in the foot?
Affordable housing is the biggest issue the town is facing but instead of addressing the issue further, the town is sacrificing affordability in the name of just a bit more revenue.
Every time a property comes up for sale, it is sought after by both people trying to make it their homestead and people that want to use it for an investment property. Can we please stop pretending the SB cares about affordable housing when they keep tipping the scales towards the private investor looking to use the house for commercial purposes?
Extending the limit beyond 75 days will in no way extend the season so more people will invest in turning homes into summer rental units . That’s just a silly notion. If you know anything about the summer rental market it’s shrinking not expanding. Demand for August weeks is insatiable yet demand for July weeks is slowly diminishing. Extending the season beyond 75 days may result in an incremental increase of tax revenue for Tisbury but it by no means would decrease the quantity of year round rentals. That’s just a silly and ignorant view.
We watched this process play out on Nantucket. Ultimately it became an as of right use. It’s exactly what we need on Martha’s Vineyard. We do not have any other economic options. We are solely driven by tourism. The argument of corporations buying up our housing stock is a myth. Nobody has been able to prove any significant amount of housing has been purchased by large scale corporations. An LLC is not a corporation. It’s simply a form of ownership. Hopefully this is the first step towards Tisbury, removing limitations that are contributing to the highest tax rate on Martha’s Vineyard.
Also a myth is that STR hosts are making wads of cash. Do the math. Think about what it really costs keeping up maintenance on this isand and if anything most hosts break even with the overhead required for a STR. Also a myth is that 75 night cap would free up housing. Most hosts would go to a summer 31 day rental which is not considered a STR. Host and Landlords are not the same. And 75 day cap would hurt tourism in the shoulder seasons. People staying 3 nights do not cook. They go into town to the restautrants and they shop. Are we really ready to risk losing that business as well as the reduced tax revenue? I don’t have a vote but the solution to the housing shortage is to build housing or buy exisitng properties to develop.
Is this a conflict of interest? The select board member proposing the change, a “part-time real estate broker,” would have a financial self-interest in extending the short-term rental season, as this would make properties more attractive to investors (who have no intention of living in the community and are solely looking to cash in on properties by turning them into vacation rentals), which would drive up property values (and make them less affordable to residents).
Actually Nantucket did not cart blanche make the STR an as of right issue: although Nantucket eased up on STR’s; they held a ban on commercial ownership and operation; Nantucket STR/Corporate Ownership Ban: A 2024, 2025, and into 2026 restriction remains in place that prohibits STRs in “dwelling units owned by a corporation, partnership, real estate investment trust, or any similar entity”.
When the voters spoke and said NO to unlimited STR’s, the SB tried to modify the warrant twice on town floor and it was rejected both times. To have this now come back (AGAIN) to be revoted… is not listening to the voters. The data is there, it DOES affect the year round rental and winter rental availability. Please show up (AGAIN) on April 28th and vote (AGAIN). They are counting on the voters to not show up.
Unfortunately, renting a house for 75 days still brings in more revenue and less wear and tear on a home than renting year round, which is the circle of doom for affordability of housing.
The laws are tougher when an owner rents year round, the rent is less, and the collection is not as easy….they may not be able to see inside their homes all year. When the pandemic hit, landlords didn’t receive rent, and couldn’t evict tenants.
What is the incentive the town is offering to those who have a home to rent year round to have it make sense? Or should it just be that those who are fortunate enough to have a rental house, need to be charitable and deal with making less, dealing with the phone calls from tenants, and fixing damage on their property they didn’t break continually…which hasn’t worked so far…
The solution to all fixes are usually financially incentivized.
Just how does this make sense? It would be better to place a surcharge tax on those who rent for less than 365 days a year. We need more year round families here, not less. Year round families will shop here, go to school and church here, and be a committed part of the community. Money isn’t everything.
Unfortunately the past behavior of former year round tenants has convinced many of us to either sell as I did, or just rent seasonally. In MA, tenants have more rights than landlords. Can I tell you how my rental became a laundromat for the tenants friends? Or the local party house? Or every tenant had 3 weekend guests? And no pets meant cats, dogs and a rabbit? Stereotypes are not made.. they are EARNED…
The notion that you can’t build your way out of a housing crisis is a self fulfilling prophecy. The island has the power to solve the housing crisis but not the will. There’s lots of “public land” and staggeringly expensive regulation that keeps building costs prohibitively high. Repurpose the land, slash regulation and allow the free market to work. The government will never solve cost of living issues, history has proven this over and over again.
Everyone is commenting on the lifting of the 75-day limits, but nobody is talking about the 9% tax. These taxes on short term rentals was a pure unadulterated money grab by the state and local municipalities. They have absolutely zero incremental costs associated with this revenue and they are opaque about where the tax revenue is applied. It is a slush fund, pure and simple. Another example of why our state is aptly called Taxachusetts!
Don’t Tisbury and West Tisbury already have the highest STR taxes on the island? Why give Edgartown and OB an even bigger advantage when competing against VH for short term renters? Doesn’t that hurt Tisbury’s revenues in the end?