The property at the center of a legal dispute over short-term rentals on Nantucket was sold earlier this month, leading to the dismissal of the case in Massachusetts Land Court.
In what had been described as a first-of-its-kind case for Nantucket, the ACK Now group and a handful of island residents asserted that a short-term rental home at 14 New Mill Street owned and operated by The Copley Group was in violation of the town’s zoning bylaw because it is a commercial use in a residential district.
The zoning enforcement request by ACK Now and abutters was initially dismissed by both the Nantucket Building Commissioner and the Nantucket Zoning Board of Appeals before it was filed as a complaint with the Land Court by the Dammin and Riesenbach families, with financial support from ACK Now.
The New Mill Street case was being closely watched after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) recently ruled on a similar matter involving a short-term rental in Lynnfield and decided that it was inconsistent with the residential zoning district where it was located.
But on Oct. 12, the property at 14 New Mill Street was sold by The Copley Group for $3.2 million, and the Land Court case was dismissed earlier this week.
“In the end, the neighbors got what they wanted – people buying a home in their residential neighborhood to live there,” ACK Now’s Julia Lindner said in a statement released yesterday.
The Copley Group founder Norman Levenson did not return a phone call seeking comment, nor did attorney Nina Pickering-Cook, who was representing Dammins and Riesenbachs.
