Village moves toward short-term rental rules

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. » A tenants’ advocacy group supports the village’s effort to use zoning designations to balance the need for short-term rental locations and affordable housing in the community.

Possible regulations were discussed by the Village Board during a meeting last week. Members reviewed a letter from the Kingston Tenants Union stating that requiring the owners of rental properties to live on the premises will help prevent longterm rental properties from being taken off the market.

“By banning nonowner-occupied STRs (short-term rentals), we can get back to using houses to house local families rather than using houses to extract money from tourists,” the letter stated.

“After compiling publicly available countyby-county information about Airbnb rentals last year, we found that Ulster County has three times the Airbnb rental activity of any county north of New York City,” the letter added.

The tenants’ group also said it is “concerned by recent examples of Airbnb’s lobbying arm injecting money into local political races.”

Under the village of New Paltz proposal, homes could be rented for less than 30 days only if occupied by the property owner.

“The prohibition on short-term rentals shall not apply ... if the shortterm rental is a primary residence and operation of a short-term rental is secondary and incidental to the use of the property as a primary residence,” the proposal states.

A property owner would be required to provide evidence to the village that they live in the house at least nine months per year.

Short-term rentals would be allowed without owner occupancy in the village commercially district and on properties that already have been approved for bed-and-breakfast operations.

Local real estate agent Michael Henry has said any village law governing short-term rentals should include fines for noise violations.

But Henry opposes an owner-occupancy rule.

“Trying to enforce owner occupancy and/ or imposing a number of days a host is able to rent is an unfair limitation of property rights and will impact the many individuals and families that count on rental income,” he said last month.

Village Mayor Tim Rogers said regulations for short-term rentals could be the subject of a public hearing as soon as Jan. 28.