A Taos County short-term rental cap is long overdue but must limit loopholes

More than once in the past year Taos County officials have circled the idea of setting a cap on short-term rental permits, which bring in about a million dollars per year in lodgers’ tax revenues but further restrict the county’s already insufficient supply of housing for long-term renters.

At a workshop meeting Tuesday (March 5), the county commission and planning department returned to that discussion and appear to be closing in on a draft ordinance to put to a vote. That’s encouraging as groups like the Taos County Housing Partnership take meaningful strides toward adding more affordable housing to the local market, and the mad dash to buy up housing in Taos County during the pandemic continues to slow.

However, an ordinance setting a cap on rentals of less than 30 days will only be effective if it succeeds in closing off loopholes short-term rental owners have been exploiting since the earliest days of Airbnb, depriving local and county governments of valuable tax revenue.

In setting limits on vacation rentals, commissioners need to be cautious not to add exemptions to the ordinance that undermine its purpose, such as granting a pass to people who have owned their property for more than 10 years or those who live on the same land as their rental. Both exemptions were floated at Tuesday’s meeting, but neither seem germain to the concern driving the ordinance, which is that too many short-term rentals unfairly restricts housing options for full-time residents. And, as any Taos County resident who’s followed a local political race knows, verifying a person’s full-time residence isn’t straightforward, so an exemption for residents who share a property with their rental is likely to be abused.

It also became clear in both the county’s meeting this week and in 2021, when the Town of Taos established its own cap on short-term rentals, that some of our elected officials either own short-term rentals themselves or have relationships with other local residents who do. It seems reasonable for local voters to expect that officials with a conflict of interest would recuse themselves from these discussions.

While an ordinance setting a cap on shortterm rentals is long overdue for the county, we hope our officials proceed cautiously and create regulations that serve the purpose they were intended to by protecting Taos County’s already limited long-term housing supply.

Introducing Daniel Pearson, photojournalist

The Taos News recently hired a new photojournalist: Daniel Pearson, who joins the newsroom by way of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Pearson developed a passion for photography at an early age. As the son of two park rangers, he was born in Tucson, Arizona, and grew up near or in National Parks throughout the West, such as Sequoia National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park. Living in some of the most beautiful protected lands in the country provided him with ample opportunity to practice his craft.

He studied abroad in high school in Viña del Mar, Chile, where he learned to speak Spanish and made a short documentary. At Chapman University in Orange County, California, Pearson was photo editor for the school’s award-winning newspaper, The Panther. While he finished his college courses, he also helped fact check gear guides for Outside Magazine, contributed photography to the Orange County Register and was an editorial assistant at the Orange County Business Journal. In May 2023, he graduated from Chapman with a degree in communication studies and visual journalism.

Before joining the Taos News, Pearson worked as a photo intern at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a 172,000 circulation daily newspaper established in 1909. Over the course of his nine-month internship, he photographed the Formula 1 Grand Prix, the Golden Knights Stanley Cup victory parade, National Finals Rodeo, the opening of the “Sphere,” and Super Bowl LVIII.

Please join us in welcoming him to Taos.