Ordinance Committee closes hearing on short-term rental draft and directs refile to meet state/timing requirements

The Ordinance Committee took up a Planning Board–recommended draft short-term rental (STR) zoning ordinance that would create license categories, caps and a licensing regime intended to limit short-term, nightly rentals and preserve long-term housing stock.

Planning Board members said they had formed a working group and produced a complex legal draft after months of research. Mimi, a Planning Board representative, said the board consulted building and permitting staff and thought the draft was ready for ordinance committee review, but new state guidance and pending legislation required additional changes.

Building department staff and the Planning Board chair raised timing concerns tied to Massachusetts General Law chapter 40A: the committee had received the Planning Board recommendation but, given elapsed time and procedural referrals, the legal advice indicated the matter may require refiling and a new public hearing sequence. Attorney Bissonette advised preparing specific amendments and distributing them ahead of the committee's next meeting so the committee could act with a clean document; if statutory referral timing has lapsed, the order should be refiled to restart the public-notice and planning-board referral process.

Committee members agreed to ask the Planning Board and building staff to reconcile the suggested edits and to return with a clean draft. The committee voted to close the public hearing for the current filing and to refer the item back to full City Council so it can be refiled and proceed through the required Planning Board and public hearing steps.

Next steps: the Planning Board and building department will prepare revised draft language and a list of specific edits; the committee set a date-certain for further consideration at the next ordinance meeting (December 3) and expects a refiled order if statutory timing requires restarting the zoning amendment process.