Woodstock voters to decide fate of new short-term rental ordinance

This story by Liz Sauchelli was first published in the Valley News on July 22.

WOODSTOCK — Voters in both the town and village of Woodstock will consider whether to overturn new identical ordinances governing short-term rentals in each jurisdiction during two separate special town meetings next week.

A “no” vote upholds the ordinances that were approved by the Selectboard and Village Board of Trustees during a joint meeting May 2, while a “yes” vote rescinds the ordinances. The votes were scheduled after residents who disagree with the ordinances started two petitions for Special Town Meetings to overturn them.

The ordinances — which define a short-term rental as a dwelling rented for “fewer than 30 consecutive days and for more than 14 days” each year — put a cap of 55 each on the number of owner-occupied and non-owner-occupied short-term rentals.

In May, both boards also approved a permit fee structure that includes different rates for owner-occupied ($500) and non-owner-occupied ($1,000) short-term rentals, with additional fees of $250 to $2,000, depending on the number of bedrooms. Those who are found to operate a short-term rental without a permit can face first-time fines of $500 to $800.

Selectboard member Laura Powell said in an interview that the primary goal of the regulation is “preserving and protecting housing inventory from speculative investments.”

“I’m seeking to prevent another 20 people from buying properties in Woodstock for the purposes of renting short term,” said Powell, who lives in Woodstock Village. “That would be devastating to our community.”

Powell sees the ordinance as one way of addressing Woodstock’s housing needs and noted that the community is in the process of trying other methods such as its new “Lease to Locals” program , which provides financial incentives to landlords for renting to people who work in the area.

A secondary goal of the new ordinance is to simplify current regulations and make them easier to understand than the separate ones currently in place.

“They were unfair. They allowed people in different zones to behave differently and extract different income for themselves,” Powell said. “Making that fair and making that simple we believe will lead to higher rates of compliance.”

Currently, short-term rental regulations are enforced through the Village and Town’s separate zoning regulations and ordinances. Both the Town and Village have caps on the number of days short-term rentals can be rented out within a year, although residents who have short-term rentals in two town zoning districts — the Forest Reserve and the Residential Five Acre — are exempt from those caps.

Those who live in those two zoning districts who can “prove compliance with all previous regulations before July 31, 2024” while applying for a permit will not have their short-term rental ordinances counted against the cap, according to a fact sheet published to the town’s website earlier this month.

If the votes have split outcomes, then town officials will “spend twice the amount of time enforcing two different ordinances,” Municipal Manager Eric Duffy said.

At Town Meeting in March, voters approved a general fund budget that included $30,000 for software to track short-term rentals in town so that the new ordinances, if they are upheld, can be enforced; the plan is for the short-term rental fees to cover the cost of the software going forward.

The lack of housing in Woodstock has caused strain on area employers, including the town itself, Duffy said. Woodstock has 35 full-time employees and there are around six openings.

“We’ve had people turn down jobs because they can’t afford to live here,” Duffy said. “We’re seeing it across the community. It’s very challenging when you’re offering someone a job and the closest house is $1 million.”

When people buy homes to convert them to short-term rentals “the demand is higher and the price goes higher,” Duffy said, which he said drives prices up because there is less available housing.

Attempts to reach Steven Bauer, Woodstock’s director of planning and zoning, to ask about the number of Woodstock homes that have been converted to short-term rentals in recent years were unsuccessful.

Those who oppose the new ordinance say that the fees are too high and that Town and Village officials are trying to fix a problem that does not exist. They also say their short-term rentals do not contribute to the lack of long-term housing in Woodstock.

“I’m not alone when I say that the fees that are proposed will require an additional five to seven weekends of rentals to cover them and that business simply doesn’t support that level of increase,” Christa Prescott, of South Woodstock, wrote in an email.

Prescott and her husband turned a small workshop space into a studio apartment that they rent out for $149 per night, around 40 nights per year.

The majority of their renters are affiliated with the nearby Green Mountain Horse Association.

“Over and over my renters tell me they appreciate having an affordable place to rent in Woodstock, and I intend to keep it that way,” Prescott wrote. “Woodstock needs a middle class, and some of these visitors are going to end up here one day if we can make it attractive to them.”

When the space is not being used as a short-term rental, the space is reserved for family and friends who come to visit the couple.

“My studio is not fit to be a long-term rental, as are most of the (short-term rentals) that I know of,” Prescott wrote. “There is no storage at all — not for food, clothes, tools, hobby materials — nothing.”

Woodstock Village resident Derek DeMas, who owns and operates two long-term rentals in the Village in addition to a four-bedroom short-term rental in the Town, takes issue with one of the stated goals of the new ordinance which is that it “incentivizes the conversion of short-term housing to long-term housing.”

“I’ve been through the Ordinance many times,” DeMas, who is a member of the Vermont Short-Term Rental Alliance, wrote in an email. “I see zero incentive in this ordinance offered to convert a short-term rental into a long-term rental.”

DeMas charges roughly $500 per night for his short-term rental.

“I cannot stop renting it short-term because I depend on that income to keep my long-term rentals afloat,” he wrote in an email.

Both DeMas and Prescott said that current regulations, with some caveats, are fine the way they are. Prescott would like to see a permit cap for the current regulations. DeMas would like to see the ordinance include fines for unregistered short-term rentals, as well as increasing the number of times a short-term rental owner can rent their property per year.

At times, the discussion about the new ordinances has gotten heated. The Planning Commission began talking about new regulations in February 2023 before bringing their suggestions to the Village Trustees and Selectboard earlier this year. Town officials contend that they made changes to the proposed ordinance based on what they heard from residents.

“I think the heart of the disagreement is there are many short-term operators who believe this is overregulation, that what we’re proposing is over regulation,” Powell said. “What I would counter to that is they have been under-regulated for an incredibly long time.”

All Woodstock voters can vote by Australian ballot from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 30 at Woodstock Town Hall on the Selectboard-approved ordinance. Only those who live in the Village can gather at 7 p.m. that same day at Town Hall to vote on the Trustees-approved ordinance. Village residents can vote on both the town and village ordinances.

An informational meeting will take place Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Woodstock Town Hall and can also be streamed on Zoom via townofwoodstock.org.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Woodstock voters to decide fate of new short-term rental ordinance .