By Sheila Getzinger
The housing shortage is not going to be resolved by prohibiting, limiting, or regulating short-term rentals.
If towns want to adopt regulations requiring all those renting their properties (not just short-term rentals, but all rentals) to provide evidence of compliance with already existing state of Vermont fire safety regulations -- have at it. You could justify that sort of regulation by saying that you're trying to support local hotels, lodges and inns who have to comply with those same regulations and are having to compete with the owner of a house or condominium who, while they are subject to the same regulations, don't have anyone looking over their shoulders to make sure that they do comply. There are costs associated with compliance with fire safety regulations (in my experience between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars) but those costs pale in comparison to the liability owners face in the event someone suffers an injury or death.
If you decide to enact this type of regulation, please consider the practical application of requiring evidence of compliance. The Vermont Public Safety Department does not have the ability to inspect and certify every rental in The Valley all at once or on a continuing basis. Most licensed building inspectors would be capable of making such a certification -- if they were willing to take on that kind of responsibility -- but your regulations would have to be very thoughtfully written in order for even this requirement not to result in a defacto prohibition of most rentals.
Regarding the housing shortage and short-term rentals -- this is a much more complex dance than what it appears at first blush. Tenants (long-term tenants) in Vermont have had very successful lobbyists in Montpelier for a very long time -- resulting in laws that lead me to conclude that I wouldn't be a landlord in this state for any amount of money. In Vermont tenants can fail to pay rent for months and there is little, if anything, a landlord can do to collect or even to get rid of a non-paying tenant. During the months it takes to get through an eviction process the tenants can remove the cabinets from your kitchen, run the water for days so that your leach field fails -- if your well doesn't run dry first -- and totally destroy your property with little, if any, consequence.
All of these things -- and more -- have happened in The Valley and some of the guilty tenants have gone from one property to another doing the same things again and again. You know and even employ some of these people. The reason that short-terms rentals appeal to property owners is not just the money -- it's because by and large the same problems just do not exist with short-term rentals and the same laws regarding eviction do not apply. Essentially the Legislature has condoned bad behavior and for that we have gotten exactly what can be expected -- the availability of fewer and fewer long-term rentals. For these reasons I don't believe that regulating short-term rentals will make more properties available for long-term rental. There will just be fewer rentals available -- period.
Getzinger lives in Moretown.
