Photo by Doug Kerr | CCY BY-SA 2.0

Nantucket voters shot down proposals to strictly limit short-term rentals on the island by wide margins at this weekend’s Town Meeting according to local media reports.

Citing the lack of affordable housing on the island and the need to maintain the town’s vibrancy, local activist group ACK Now had proposed to prevent short-term rental units from being let out more than 45 days a year and require a minimum one-week stay on the island.

The proposal would have created a local registry of rentals and also limited the number of people per bedroom a rental could accommodate.

The group set up the debate as one of off-island “investors” versus long-time residents, while opponents, including the owners of short-term rentals, local business owners and the Cape Cod and Islands Association of Realtors argued that the measure would cut the main artery that supplied the island’s commerce and cut off residents from an important source of income that helps some pay for their mortgages. The CCIAOR had also set up a website, nantuckettownmeeting.com, to present its case directly to voters.

Voters present at Town Meeting on June 5 rejected the Ack Now proposal by a 625-297, according to the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror.

The island-wide, year-to-date median sale price for a single-family home was $1.91 million as of April 30, while the same figure for condominium properties was $795,750 according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.