Montgomery officials are looking at how to deal with a boom in short-term rentals in the tourist-heavy town.
There are more than 230 short-term rental units in the town, officials estimate, and their increasing popularity has led to a handful of scraps between residents and renters while sparking discussion about Montgomery’s future.
“This has really grown in the past five, six years, and it presents some questions,” Selectboard Chair Charlie Hancock said. “Is there a role here, on the town’s side, to plan for smart growth around it?”
The board released a draft ordinance Nov. 18 to regulate the rentals. It came in response to “a number of incidents and conflicts between citizens of Montgomery and out-of-town renters of nearby properties,” officials said in an FAQ document.
Board members tabled the idea at a meeting Monday, but the situation in Montgomery still provides a local lens on a statewide issue.
An 11-mile drive from Jay Peak Resort, the Northeast Kingdom town is grappling with a trend seen at other ski havens.
Short-stay spots have become steadily more prevalent in Vermont through services like Airbnb, HomeAway and VRBO. They’ve given property owners another source of revenue but have concerned affordable housing advocates by whittling the number of available long-term rentals and exacerbating shortages.
Data from AirDNA, previously explored by VTDigger, showed that Montgomery had 57 short-term rental homes in August 2019, up from 45 in August 2017. Over the same span, listed rental rooms went from two to eight.
Points of debate in the town have centered on parking woes, insurance for both renters and owners, building safety, noise concerns and questions about Montgomery’s housing stock and the character of neighborhoods.
The incidents have mostly been neighbor-to-neighbor conflicts, particularly noise complaints in the town’s high-density village district, and there have only been a handful, Hancock said.
But those small incidents prompted the Selectboard to look at the big-picture implications short-term rentals can have for a town already focused on expanding — like housing stock.
“We want to make sure that if the town grows, we’ve got plenty of affordable housing for young people, or for seniors, and that folks who want to move into town have the ability to do so,” Hancock said.
Upgrades like streetscaping, more parking spaces and a municipal wastewater system have all been in the works, the chair said, as the town looks to grow. Encouraging more rental options, while balancing out concerns, is another piece of that work.
“If people are coming, and that’s the kind of amenity they’re looking for, we want to make sure it’s available,” Hancock said.
At a Dec. 2 public hearing, residents raised issues with parts of the draft ordinance. Minutes note that they questioned how the ordinance dealt with wastewater and enforceability, among other issues.
Board members ultimately decided to put the ordinance on hold. Hancock said the town wants to use its existing zoning and planning rules to address short-term rentals.
Some gaps in those processes exist, he said, such as how the town calculates occupancy for considering wastewater capacity.
The nuisance complaints are another gray area. Someone with a noise concern would have to contact the town’s zoning administrator, who would send a letter to the owner of the problem building. But if the complaint was about a party one night, the issue would be over by the time that process went through.
Officials think one solution might be facilitating neighbor-to-neighbor communication, Hancock said, maybe by organizing meetings between rental owners and their neighbors or by sharing contact information with adjacent homes when a rental goes through the zoning process.
