It is sad to see all the misguided activity to limit short term rentals on Martha’s Vineyard. The fact is there exists one and only one reason to limit short term rentals and that is the fallacious belief that this will provide relief to our affordable housing crisis. This is simply untrue and limiting short term rentals will have no effect whatsoever on generating any affordable housing. In fact, it probably will have the reverse effect by limiting accommodation availability for our tourist/visitor population and therefore hurting our business community and their employees.

Just imagine, a visitor wants to come to the Vineyard for several days and opts to go elsewhere because acceptable accommodations are not available. Limiting short term rentals is akin to shooting ourselves in the foot. Short term rentals do not compete with housing. Rather, they compete with hotels. We are a tourist economy with a strong focus on our summer season. Tourists and visitors need a place to stay and our hotels do not have nearly sufficient capacity. Limiting short term rentals merely makes less supply and makes it harder for tourists and visitors to find accommodations. Every business and their employees depend on that tourist/visitor traffic. Why would anyone want to limit our accommodation resources for tourists/visitors?

The crystal-clear fact is that limiting short term rentals does not in any way make a contribution to our affordable housing problem. The owner of a short-term rental property will never offer that property at an affordable level for working people. If they sell the property, at today’s market values, it becomes financially prohibitive to convert to an affordable housing. Workforce housing is affordable housing and limiting short term rentals will not contribute to more workforce housing.

Now let’s focus on the money. According to a local newspaper, short term rentals brought in over $9,000,000 in revenues to the towns. Reduce these revenues by limiting short term rentals and the towns will seek other sources to replace the lost revenues such as real estate taxes. In the recent case of Tisbury approving a borrowing of $4.8 million for library improvements, the income it receives from short term rentals would more than pay the entire annual cost of this borrowing and cost taxpayers nothing. So, what does Tisbury do? It approves the library funding and reduces short term rental income. Perhaps Tisbury should hire a financial consultant.

In sum, we need short term rentals as they are a vital part of our Vineyard economic base and every business, and their employees, depend upon a large supply of accommodations for our tourists/visitors.

Robert Sawyer, of Vineyard Haven, is the author of two real estate books including Massachusetts Real Estate Principles, Practice and Law, advisor to the Massachusetts Real Estate Board, long-time instructor and a former county commissioner.