Early next year, the Warren Select Board will likely be voting on an ordinance that, if passed, would create a registry for Short Term Rental (STR) properties in the town. The ordinance was initially drafted by the Warren Planning Commission about a year ago.
In its current version, last updated by the select board on Tuesday, December 10, the ordinance will allow the town to collect an annual registration fee of $200 from STR owners. It will also allow the town to collect data for two years, at which point the town will analyze the data to understand whether a growing number of STRs is reducing the availability of longer-term “attainable” housing, according to the ordinance.
The findings from that data could inform policy decisions down the road.
About half of the annual registration fees collected by the town will reimburse the purchase of a software platform that manages housing data from the company Granicus; the other half of fees would be applied toward staffing needs for the permitting process.
Select board members estimated that the town will collect $72,000 if 80% of 450 STR owners complied with registration in the first year. With a lower compliance rate, at 70%, the town would collect an estimated $63,000.
The town does not know exactly how many STRs will be available in Warren next year, or what the compliance rate will look like for owners. A representative from Granicus told town officials that its software, which scrubs vacation rental sites like Airbnb, identified nearly 600 STR listings last February, with 95% of those listings being entire homes.
While the state does not track STRs, the Vermont Housing Finance Agency purchases data from the private vendor AirDNA, which shows that Warren had between 369 and 429 STR listings advertised online throughout 2024, although this data excludes rooms rented out in occupied homes.
On December 10, select board members discussed charging between $100 and $250 for a permit fee, before agreeing to settle on $200. Select board member Andrew Cunnigham said that Granicus previously suggested the town charge $750, but said “that felt like [price] gouging.”
Select board member Devin Corrigan Klein reminded the board that previous discussions regarding the ordinance included the idea of using a portion of registration fees to set up a fund related to affordable housing initiatives.
Select board member Camilla Behn said that in her opinion, doing so right off the bat would be akin to concluding that the town knows that STRs are negatively impacting access to housing, “and I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk at this time about any extra money for anything,” she said.
Cunningham and select board chair Luke Youmell agreed.
According to a draft of the ordinance dated December 10, permit registration will be completed online through the town’s website and the town then has 45 days to review it. The application would include basic information about the STRs being registered, as well as asking owners to attest to complying with several health and fire safety standards.
Fines for violating health and safety requirements are set at $100 for the first violation, $200 for the second and $400 for the third. The fines for advertising an STR online or offline without obtaining a permit are $300 for the first violation, $600 for the second and $900 for the third.
The ordinance gives Warren zoning administrator Ruth Robbins the authority to inspect properties, but the town is still figuring out whether and to what extent it will have the staffing capacity to do so.
At the select board’s Tuesday, December 17, meeting, Youmell said before the year is up, the town is trying to sign a contract with Granicus and spend $27,800 in funds that the town allocated for the software last year.
As for the ordinance, the town is currently awaiting feedback from legal counsel and will likely bring it to a vote early next year, according to Warren town administrator Rebecca Campbell.
