Voters in Oak Bluffs could put new regulations on short-term rentals at a special town meeting next month.
The proposed bylaw, one of 12 articles at the Dec. 1 special town meeting at the high school performing arts center, seeks to codify the lucrative rental industry hosted on platforms such as Airbnb and Vrbo in the zoning regulations while also imposing restrictions on owners who rent their properties.
The bylaw says Oak Bluffs will maintain a public registry of all licensed short-term rentals in town and report annually on registration numbers and tax revenue collected. Other provisions include a maximum overnight occupancy, a ban on renting multiple rooms in a house on a short-term basis unless the owner is present, and a way for the town to address health and safety violations at rentals.
Additionally, the bylaw defines “owner” in a way designed to block corporations from buying up properties to rent them and limits rental occupancy to two people per bedroom, plus two additional people.
The draft bylaw is the result of many months of work by a short-term rental subcommittee assembled by the select board. A version of the bylaw was supposed to go before voters at town meeting in April before officials pulled it from the warrant at the last minute, stating that it needed more time to bake.
Select board member Bill Cleary chaired the committee, which was composed of town officials and concerned members of the public.
“What we wanted to really focus on was the registration process … [and] manage whatever expectations and/or parameters the state will eventually put on things, and just move in a positive direction by recognizing them as a legal use,” Mr. Cleary said.
Short-term rentals are not currently prohibited by any Oak Bluffs bylaw, but they are also not explicitly allowed. A similar situation bred legal turmoil on Nantucket, where both the town and property owners ended up in court after short-term rentals showed up without a bylaw expressly permitting them. Nantucket voted last year to approve short-term rentals, and the attorney general upheld the decision in May.
Chris Chambers, a member of the subcommittee and vice chair of the Oak Bluffs planning board, has been pushing to codify short-term rentals in town for years, in part to prevent what happened on Nantucket.
There are over 1,000 vacation rentals in Oak Bluffs registered with the state, and Mr. Chambers described them as a “critical lifeblood” to the town’s economy.
“I think it’s a beautifully written, simple bylaw … I can’t imagine why any of the residents would be opposed to it,” he said.
Mr. Cleary said it was the committee’s goal to balance the town’s economic reliance on short-term rentals, including tax revenue, with the town’s affordable housing needs.
“There may be a feeling out there that [short-term rentals] are overtaking the marketplace,” Mr. Cleary said. “We definitely have a housing issue…. I don’t think we need less [short-term rentals]. I also don’t think that we perhaps need more.”
Several potential short-term rental regulations discussed back in April, such as registration fees and limiting each owner to operating a single short-term rental, did not make it into the bylaw being proposed in December. The bylaw Oak Bluffs voters will consider next month is not as strict as West Tisbury’s version, passed in 2024, which requires owners to occupy their rentals for part of the year and only operate one at a time in addition to registering them.
Select board member Mark Leonard, who was vice chair of the short-term rental subcommittee, said the bylaw is a good regulatory foundation that could lead to further rules down the road, such as mandatory inspections.
“It’s a good starting point,” he said. “As the building code matures, as our registration process matures, it may change.”
There will be several other articles on the warrant. With spring budget season still a way off, voters will exclusively deal with proposed bylaw changes.
Voters will also weigh amendments to the town’s bylaw governing boat storage, designed to codify residents’ right to store one or two of their own marine vessels on their properties depending on their zoning district. It specifies owners may store an unlimited number of non-motorized vessels shorter than 14 feet belonging to them.
“We live in a boating community, and so people need to be able to keep a boat on their property,” Mr. Chambers said. “What we wanted to do was create some structure around that right to store something on your property.”
Voters will also consider strengthening the town’s restrictions on overnight parking for commercial vehicles in multi-family residential sites, formalizing the roads and byways committee and limiting street performances to no more than 90 minutes per 24 hours, while releasing them from needing to list their social security numbers on performance applications.
Other changes proposed by the planning board seek to update or clarify the definitions of “structure,” “equipment,” “footprint” and “building height” in the Oak Bluffs zoning bylaws.
“We’ve added language to create clarity so contractors, architects and homeowners can easily interpret those bylaws,” Mr. Chambers said.
Mr. Leonard is encouraging Oak Bluffs voters to attend town meeting and provide input on the issues presented.
“It’s just the opportunity to vote and have your voice heard,” he said. “[It’s] the cornerstone of democracy.”
Oak Bluffs special town meeting takes place at 7 p.m. on Dec. 1 at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School performing arts center.