As a dog owner, your number one job is to clean up your dog’s number two.

One of the annoying byproducts of having more and more people on Nantucket is that the number of people who do not clean up after their dogs has grown as well. Some walking trails are so covered with dog poop it’s very likely that some of it will go home on someone else’s shoes. This …

Affordable housing, year-round housing, seasonal workforce housing, and vacation houses are mathematically linked. Let’s do the math.

A lot of communities around the country are struggling with affordable housing and have come up with some very interesting solutions, so far. But because we are an island, a lot of the solutions or changes that work elsewhere need to be modified to work on Nantucket. Adding more affordable and workforce housing is a …

Ten benefits that STRs bring to Nantucket.

Ever wonder why the debate around short-term rentals has been so fierce on Nantucket? Because short-term rentals represent a lot of money changing hands. For some, the benefits of short-term rentals greatly outweigh the problems they cause. In fact, short-term rentals represent the economic engine that keeps many island businesses and individuals afloat. If they …

Ten problems that STRs cause.

I’ve been an avid observer of the short-term rental work group’s progress (or lack thereof) for the past six months. The town was tasked with creating a work group and took several months to make it happen. As a result of this drawn-out process, the workgroup has very little chance of developing something of substance …

A discussion on Facebook this week

I posted an article on Facebook about a proposed measure in Washington DC to heavily tax oversized personal vehicles that take up too much room and have an outsized impact on roads, traffic, and emissions. Interesting and rather defensive responses from many people. One person said that the problem with too many people and too …

Can peer pressure save Nantucket?

I ran a little survey this past week. 60 people responded. The goal was not to find out what people’s opinions are on housing, but instead to understand how people feel about those who sell their homes and the choices they make. Here’s the rather purposefully round-a-bout hypothetical question: Let’s say you have an older …

An Analogy for Nantucket

There comes a time in your life when it hits you. Usually, it’s when your pants are getting tight and you think, the easiest thing is to buy bigger pants. Perhaps you go to Target and they don’t have any pants in your size, or they do, but in the “Big&Tall” section. Embarrassing, right? And …