The following is information from The Falmouth Enterprise article published on 2/13/26, page 6, entitled, “Boards Weigh Wastewater Cost Equity, Short-Term Rental Enforcement, Woods Hole Traffic Concerns”. To read the full article*, click here.
Here is the section on Short-Term Rental Enforcement:
The boards also discussed the proposed short-term rental bylaw, which will go before voters at April Town Meeting. The discussion on Monday focused largely on who would be responsible for inspecting properties and ensuring operators comply with housing codes and local regulations.
Heufelder said house inspections are “the bane of every board of health.”
He said housing complaints tie up health department resources and are time-consuming to sort out.
“In order to do it [a short-term rental bylaw] properly, the board would have to commit to having an inspection before you bless it or give it a permit; without that, it’s really meaningless, it’s collecting a fee,” he said. Heufelder said it may open the town up to liability.
Staff is not available in the health department to focus on short-term rental housing inspections, Health Agent Scott McGann said.
Currently, Brown, chairman of the short-term rental committee, said some sort of inspection will be completed, but it is not known at this time how the program will be implemented. Short-term rental operators will need to self-certify that they are in compliance with the housing code in order to be registered, Brown said. He added that a safety inspection could be completed by the fire department.
McGann said that at this time, the bylaw will function more as a registration process, which he said current health department staff can manage. The current health inspector is interdisciplinary, McGann said, and focuses mainly on food safety and restaurants in addition to housing safety.
Mascali said he has raised questions regarding the Board of Health’s ability to make changes to the bylaw’s rules and regulations. He said he hoped that the bylaw may be amended to ensure that any policy changes on the short-term rental bylaw written by the Board of Health would be subject to the approval of the Select Board.
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