Several members of the Warren Select Board said at its Tuesday, September 11, meeting that while they support setting up a registry for Short Term Rentals (STRs) in the town, they do not want to enforce that owners comply with additional requirements until a two-year period of data collection has passed.
The select board was reviewing a draft ordinance written by members of the town’s planning commission. It would require STR owners to register their properties with the town for a fee, allowing the town to purchase software that would house data about STR ownership. Ultimately, the town is seeking to better understand how STRs may be negatively impacting the availability of long-term housing in Warren.
That data could inform policy decisions down the road. For example, some municipalities in Vermont have capped the number of allowable STRs, or limited the number of STRs each owner can rent out. For now, Warren planning commissioners have stressed that the ordinance does not seek to limit STRs.
The ordinance includes several requirements concerning noise, parking and other issues of public safety and nuisance. It lays out maximum occupancy numbers and requires that owners of non-owner-occupied units designate a local host to respond to renters. Owners in violation of these standards could be fined.
Planning commission chair Dan Raddock said that in the process of drafting the ordinance, he learned that the town’s fire department responds to many calls from renters having issues with properties and he wanted to mitigate that for the town.
Raddock said he understands there are differing viewpoints on when to start regulating STRs in the overall process of studying them.
Select board members at Tuesday night’s meeting said that while they support an STR registry and data collection efforts, additional requirements seemed premature.
Select board member Andy Cunningham said that the town’s data on STRs may show the need to regulate them in a few years, but with the current ordinance, “I don’t feel like I’m there.”
Select board member Camilla Behn, who also sits on the town’s planning commission, agreed. She said she was struggling with how the project’s initial intent to collect data had developed into something more complex.
Select board chair Luke Youmell added that it would be too much of a burden on town personnel to be enforcing regulations around safety and nuisance for hundreds of STR properties.
The exact number of current STRs in Warren is unknown -- since the town lacks a registry, but planning commissioner Dan Raddock said that when software company Granicus used its program to search vacation rental websites earlier this year, it found 678 STR listings representing 587 Warren properties.
An STR is defined as a property rented out to guests for less than 30 consecutive days and more than 14 days annually.
Safety and nuisance regulations aside, Behn also said she wanted a clearer understanding of what data on STR ownership the town will be collecting in the coming years. A member of the public echoed that sentiment, wanting more information about the research process.
“I still need to be convinced that we need the registry and it’s worth the money,” Behn said.
The town included $27,500 in its current budget to pay for the first year of a subscription to the software platform from the company Grancius, which can identify local listings on vacation rental websites and extract information from them, automate letters that alert owners about the need to register, track nuisance complaints from neighbors and a host of other features.
Registration fees collected by the town would reimburse the cost, with that fee currently undetermined. Previously, Raddock said he’d like to see excess funds being set aside for efforts around affordable housing.
The select board will continue to discuss the draft ordinance during its September 24 meeting. The ordinance can be found on the town’s website.
