## Facts

- Alexander Styller owned a large single-family house in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, in a single-residence zoning district and marketed it for frequent short-term rentals through online platforms.
- The property’s size and amenities made it attractive for large gatherings; Styller often vacated the home during rentals and charged nightly rates typically ranging from about $1,000 to $2,740.
- Over Memorial Day weekend in May 2016, Styller rented the house for a three-day stay to a person who represented the rental would involve five guests.
- The renter instead hosted a party with over 100 attendees; a guest was fatally shot around 3:00 a.m.
- After the incident, the town’s building inspector issued a cease-and-desist order requiring Styller to stop short-term rentals absent a special permit.
- Styller appealed to the Lynnfield Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), which affirmed the cease-and-desist order.
- Styller then appealed to the Massachusetts Land Court under G.L. c. 40A, § 17.
- While the appeal was pending, the town amended its zoning bylaw to prohibit rentals of 30 days or less in single-residence districts.

## Issues

1. Whether short-term, Airbnb-type rentals of a single-family home were “specifically permitted” in a single-residence district under the pre-amendment zoning bylaw.
2. Whether the short-term rental activity qualified as a lawful accessory use to a single-family residential use under the bylaw.
3. Whether, after the zoning amendment banning rentals of 30 days or less, the short-term rental activity was protected as a prior nonconforming use because it had been “lawfully begun,” or otherwise protected by vested rights.

## Decision

- The Land Court ruled for the town and the ZBA and affirmed the cease-and-desist order.
- The court held the pre-amendment bylaw permitted only uses specifically listed; short-term online rentals were not a specifically permitted principal use in the district.
- The court rejected Styller’s claim that the rentals were an accessory use, concluding the activity functioned as a tourist home or lodging-house-type use requiring a special permit and, in practice, converted the premises to a nonpermitted use.
- The court held the short-term rental activity was not “lawfully begun” under the pre-amendment bylaw and therefore could not be grandfathered after the later bylaw amendment.
- The court concluded the town could apply the amendment to bar continued short-term rentals without violating any vested right claimed by Styller.

## Legal Principles

- Where a zoning bylaw provides that uses not “specifically permitted” are prohibited, a landowner must show the challenged use fits within a listed principal use or a permitted accessory use.
- An accessory use must be customary in connection with the principal residential use, clearly incidental to it, and must not effectively convert the premises to a different, nonpermitted use.
- Repeated short-term rentals that displace the resident owner and operate as transient lodging may be treated as a lodging-type commercial use rather than ordinary residential occupancy for zoning purposes.
- A prior nonconforming (grandfathered) use requires that the use was lawful when begun; an unlawful use cannot become protected merely by continuing prior to a later zoning change.
- A municipality may enforce a later-enacted zoning prohibition against short-term rentals when the owner cannot establish that the use was lawful before the amendment.

## Conclusion

The Massachusetts Land Court upheld enforcement against a homeowner’s short-term rental operation in a single-residence district, holding the activity was neither a specifically permitted residential use nor a lawful accessory use and thus was not “lawfully begun” and could not be grandfathered after the town amended its bylaw to ban rentals of 30 days or less.


Styller v. Aylward, No. 16-000757, 2018 WL 4502015 (Mass. Land Ct. Sept. 19, 2018)