Short Term Rentals
It is not an easy task to measure and balance the needs of opposing forces, especially when every one of us are so strongly impacted by the issue. Every single person I have spoken with on this issue has a different opinion on how much and who should be allowed or should not be allowed. How do we write a code that asks everyone to give up a little to get a little? By making compromises that are neutral and still support the most dire of needs. Those needs are: for some people to be able to make supplemental income from a large personal investment in their privately owned homes, and for village life, and neighborhood and community character to be preserved for everyone who lives here. While the adopted version of the code has made some strides towards the middle, it still does not yet provide us with an equal, or fair end product.
I have heard the greatest concerns from people who are aging and retiring here in their homes, who may not have planned properly for exorbitant senior health-care costs, or the skyrocketing prices of goods and services have surpassed their lifetime incomes and savings abilities, or just the rising costs of repairing and maintaining continually aging historic homes. What if they cannot afford to stay here without continuing to earn an income but have become too old to continue professional careers? Do we care if they are forced to move away? It is true, it is not the job of the village or the police department to solve our personal life problems for us. But it is the government’s responsibility to create fair and equal rules and structures that we can all work within and still survive.
In its purpose statement, the code proposal takes the position that neighbors renting out their homes to visitors may potentially be the cause of a loss of volunteerism, community participation, and a lack of residential housing here. What if short-term-rentals, like airbnb, are not the central cause for a loss of the feeling of community connection or affordable housing for community minded residents? I can think of a spectrum of factors that could cause these dynamics to arise for different individuals, my favorite of which is a culture that was raised playing the game Monopoly. Of course, I’m joking, but that is an example of an extremely simple way of looking at a very complicated social issue that is affecting communities across the globe.
Whatever the cause, I believe the greater solution lies in regulation and involves allowing for lifestyle and life choice nuances and even handed regulations that are inclusive, easy to follow and track, and allow for reasonable enforcement. The code proposal has several elements that do not achieve that. These are related to:
Setting a limit on the number for permits that is based on a percentage rather than based on a real evaluation.
Providing permits only through a lottery once a year.
Limiting the number of nights per year a Hosted short-term-rental may operate based on an arbitrarily low number that does not measure current hosted amounts.
Refusing to allow permit holders to live within 300 ft of each other- which is not an element that any host can control.
Extremely-high and punitive fines for anyone who continues to or begins to operate a short-term-rental and does not make the permit lottery deadline or final cut. (I can accept the high fees for anyone who holds a permit, but do not feel this is an appropriate way to enforce a sharp reduction on the number of people allowed to do so).
A requirement that hosts provide guests with off-street parking when many residents in the village do not have driveways (also an element that hosts do not always have control over) especially if guests can be told they must arrive by train.
While these rules greatly reduce non-hosting neighbors from feeling the annoyance or disturbance of seeing, experiencing, or engaging with visitors on their block, they create instability and financial insecurity for those who host out of necessity. Therefore, greater flexibility and nuance in these terms would make the proposal more fair.
The largest compromise given to permit applicants in this proposal is the low setting of the permit fee at $250, which, to someone making that much a night as a host, is of little impact. Does the amount that would be collected by the village from permit holders, roughly $10,000, cover the costs of inspection, paperwork, and enforcement availability? Additionally, does that cover the cost of the highway department staff’s labor and management of public restrooms and emptying public trash cans on Main Street that all visitors add to? Hosts, is paying a low fee for the permit but possibly not being allowed to get a permit a compromise? This looks like a loss on both sides.
It would be my recommendation for the village to create an organized group of hosting and concerned residents tasked to work in partnership on a Village committee to help evaluate and come up with clear solutions to the problems that have arisen, and to come up with a system to field and address neighbor complaints. By participating, the hosting-members of this committee or group would show their sense of accountability and commitment to the community in exchange for their rights to reasonable hosting permits.
The adopted code does, however, have some elements that nearly all members of our community can applaud. That we are limiting this privilege to our residential neighbors, and removing all possibility that real-estate investors will buy homes to turn into unregulated hotels in residential spaces- that is a huge success! This proposal also limits multiple-residence properties, like apartment buildings, to only one short term rental permit per property, which I hope will prevent apartment building owners from taking apartments off of the residential home market. Under this proposal, they can provide market rate apartments and still get an income boost with their one short-term-rental unit, which is an example of a successful compromise.
