Town Administrator Tony Barletta provided an update on Nahant’s development of short-term rental rules and regulations to the Board of Selectmen at their latest meeting.
The town’s zoning and general bylaws were approved last December, with the general bylaws officially going into effect last week marking 120 days since approval. Barletta said the town has been working to establish the rental guidelines for businesses and residences.
“We’ve been working on the short-term rules and regulations for those that are legal in town, the owner-occupied in residential districts, as well as non-owner occupied with special permit in business districts,” Barletta said.
Barletta expressed his belief that he and his peers are “90%” through the process, with putting together informational and application documents being examples of what remains to be accomplished.
“The challenge we found is that this is still very new to a lot of communities,” Barletta said. “There isn’t a template approach that we could steal from.”
According to Barletta, the town has examined examples of other municipalities, some with stricter policies and others more relaxed when it comes to owner-occupied rentals. Town Counsel Daniel Skrip revealed that He and Barletta are on the fourth draft of the policies.
“What we really tried to do was pull all that information together and see what we thought would best fit for our community,” Barletta said.
Barletta hopes to have the regulations completed and ready for the Board of Selectmen to vote on by the end of the month.
Barletta also debriefed the Board on updates to multiple stormwater projects. He said that the town has made notable progress in connecting homes on Emerald Road to a new water main. The installation of a new bypass device is complete for Fox Hill Road, however it was not yet in operation. Barletta suggested that a proposal could be coming for a stormwater project on Pond Street, as it was found to be in need of repair.
