At their meeting Tuesday night, June 20, the Board of Commissioners debated taking more stringent measures to combat short-term vacation rentals in town.
They also heard an update on the 2024-25 budget, passed some zoning changes and voted on funding a new playground construction next year.
The short-term rental discussion continued from the board’s previous meeting, at which they’d contemplated using amortization to legally bar people from using their residential property as short-term rentals. Amortization refers to the process of eliminating a land-use.
Several commissioners were curious as to what that would look like, so at Thursday’s meeting a draft of new rules was presented. The proposed rule says as of September 15, 2027, no short-term rentals will be allowed in the town limits and those operating them would have to stop renting them out in that manner.
According to Mayor Patrick Taylor, the proposed change will have more hearings before being signed into town law, and Thursday’s agenda item was only intended to send it to the Planning Board for discussion.
Attorney Bob Hagemann chimed in to say that while September 15, 2027 wasn’t a “magic” number for anything, it would be five years after the last change the town made to the short-term rental policy in 2022, when they ruled that new vacation rentals could not open in the R-1 and R-2 zoning districts. Hagemann said this would give the courts three years to hash out any legal cases from vacation rental owners or companies.
The issue brought the only public comment, which came from resident Keven Gabbard, who said he owns a short-term rental unit. Gabbard, who said he was a long-time resident of the area himself, didn’t understand the commissioners’ vitriol toward vacation rentals.
“I run a short-term rental, it’s my livelihood,” he said. “I thought we’d gotten grandfathered in. I bought my rental in late 2020. At this point, I guess grandfathered is not what some of you want. I thought I’d be OK, that’s my livelihood. Now obviously this is a major topic you’re bringing up. I’d had no issues with mine, from the reports I’ve heard in town, as we stated two years ago, crime, police reports, I don’t know the issues of why this is still a major topic.”
He questioned “why we’re going down this road” and wondered if it was “really that big of a problem” so as to justify the action. He defended the practice of running a short-term rental by saying it brings more money into town.
“Some of you don’t want any income in the town, you don’t want this town to prosper,” he said. “That’s OK. We have a noise ordinance, we have police, we know who we are. Fine me $500 if there’s a problem. Next time, fine me $1,000. There must be some kind of problem that this keeps coming up.”
He said he felt he was “being singled out” by the ruling proposal changes.
Later in the meeting, the commissioners discussed short-term rentals again. Commissioner Amy Patterson said she thought short-term rentals didn’t belong in residential areas since they were essentially miniature hotels. She added that Highlands has no neighborhoods without at least one short-term rental, which troubled her.
“People should have the right to have quiet enjoyment of their homes,” she said. “If they become part of a community, they ought to have the right to live somewhere that does not have a business next door. No one wants to live next to a miniature hotel.”
Patterson said Highlands boasts a quality of life that “you can’t get anywhere else,” with its “natural beauty and the calm and quiet.” But she said too many vacation rentals and tourists will “degrade” those qualities and eventually ruin the reasons people enjoy the area so much.
Commissioner Jeff Weller was again the only commissioner who disagreed with amortization. He said that while Highlands was “overrun” with short-term rentals during the 2020 pandemic, the problem had largely subsided since the town implemented stricter zoning rules in 2022.
“A lot of people have a problem with short-term rentals. I never did,” he said, before adding, facetiously: “I had a problem with some of the people who lived near me full-time. They played loud music, they complained if anything happened. I wish I could amortize them.”
Positing that Highlands is fundamentally a tourist town, Weller added that he thought letting vacation rentals come to town could also inspire vacationers to move to town full-time. He brought up his own situation as well, saying the home he’s moving into was once a short-term rental and would now be off the market.
Commissioner Brian Stiehler disagreed with Weller on the point that the short-term rentals weren’t obtrusive. “My experience with [rentals on] Mirror Lake is not what yours is. I wish it was.”
He said there were “multiple problem houses” acting as vacation rentals around his own residence.
Patterson compared the need for limits to how speed limits for cars had to be introduced once problems became apparent when that technology was brand new. Weller countered by saying he didn’t think they should fully ban rentals: “I don’t think we should put a regulator on the car so it can never go over 40 miles per hour again,” he said, continuing the metaphor.
Patterson said she didn’t think it was good for the local economy to have so many houses taken up as short-term rentals, saying it was keeping people from moving here longer-term, but Weller brought up the fact that many residents are out of town for up to half the year for various seasonal reasons anyway.
Unable to find common ground, the board voted 4-1 to send the new proposed rule to the Planning and Zoning Boards, where discussion will continue.
Other business
There was some talk regarding things covered at the Planning Board’s last meeting, where they voted to change the terms of board members from one year to three years. The commissioners raised objections over a change saying that two out of five board members could just own a business or rental in town without actually living here.
Commissioner John Dotson said people who only rent or own a business in town “are not affected by any zoning,” so they should change the rules for Planning Board members to include only those who live in town.
“I don’t think we need to lower our standards because we’re having problems finding people to be on the board,” he said.
Weller disagreed, saying renters are still affected by zoning rules and would have enough of a personal stake to be on the board.
Hagemann said just because the new rules said Planning Board and Zoning Board applicants could live outside town, doesn’t mean the commissioners have to accept any of those applicants.
They ended up agreeing to cut the part of the new policy stating that someone who is only a business owner could be part of the Zoning Board. The vote to adopt the new policy was unanimous.
They also set a public hearing for July 18 for a zoning change to the Pine Holdings property, following discussion at the previous Planning Board meeting in May.
In other news, Town Manager Josh Ward said the budget had been changed from $44 million to $45 million to accommodate several carry-over capital projects. They included $27,000 for the Caustic Tank replacement, $51,000 for sidewalk work, $82,000 for the community building project, and $25,000 for a new snow plow.