GREAT BARRINGTON — It remains to be seen whether a proposed bylaw to limit short-term rentals (STRs) will find its way onto the annual town meeting warrant, but few issues in town have prompted as much contentious debate since the possibility of horse racing returning to the Great Barrington fairgrounds was raised nearly three years ago. In both cases, the primary mover-and-shaker was selectboard member Leigh Davis.
Various boards in town have been discussing the concept of regulating STRs since September 2021 after the subcommittee on housing, which included members of the planning and select boards, was created in 2019 to explore strategies on addressing housing affordability in a town where home ownership and affordable rentals are rapidly growing out of reach for middle-income residents.
At issue is a since-revised proposal by Davis, who is now vice chair of the board, for a bylaw that would dramatically lower the number of short-term rentals available in Great Barrington by limiting operators of STRs from renting residential units or rooms not located within the operator’s primary residence or on the same tax parcel as the operator’s primary residence.
The idea is that Great Barrington is in the throes of a housing crisis and that too many housing units are used as short-term rentals through Airbnb or Vrbo. Limiting the number of STRs would therefore make more housing available to people who need it.
In response to complaints from not only her colleague on the board, Ed Abrahams, but from full- and part-time residents alike, Davis has revised her proposal. Click here to see it.
See video below of the February 28 Great Barrington Selectboard meeting. The discussion on short-term rentals begins at 23:30:
In response to what she called “misinformation” on social media, Davis emphasized that her revised proposal does not affect the rights of homeowners to rent their homes on a seasonal or month-to-month basis. Nor was it intended to be a solution to the town’s housing problem.
“The intention of this bylaw was never intended to create affordable housing, nor to be the one-stop solution to the town’s housing crisis,” Davis said.
Instead, the intent and main purpose of Davis’ revised proposal is to “deter commercial interests from buying housing to use primarily as short-term rental businesses,” while still allowing “residents to earn extra money from their properties to afford to better live here, maintain their properties, and contribute to the community.”
The proposal would also require those who offer STRs to register with the town and obtain a license. But it would treat part-time residents differently from those who lived in town full-time, which Davis defines as “Any owner who resides greater than 183 days, in the aggregate, in the Town of Great Barrington.” And she defined STR as “residential accommodations for not more than thirty consecutive days.”
One of Abrahams’ objections to Davis’ proposal centered on the fact that it set different standards for year-round residents and part-time residents — a distinction he thought Davis had abandoned when she went back to the drawing board to revise her proposal.
“So we’re back to differentiating between primary residents and second homeowners?” Abrahams asked.
“Yes,” Davis replied.
“That was sneaky,” Abrahams said. “I would object once again to dividing us into second homeowners … people who live here for 183 days, versus people who live here for 180 days.”
Selectboard chair Steve Bannon, who had previously been inclined to support Davis, seemed surprised to see the distinction as well: “We did say we weren’t going to differentiate between full-time and part-time residents.”
Davis pointed to the purpose of her proposal: “[To] deter commercial interests from buying housing to use primarily as short-term rental businesses.” Furthermore, she added, one of the main elements of her revised proposal, “An entire dwelling unit may be rented up to 90 days per calendar year by right,” does not differentiate between the two types of property owners.
Davis has tangled with Abrahams since the beginning of the year. Davis’ chief ally on the board, Garfield Reed, agreed with her. Reed is a cancer survivor who is passionate about affordable housing and obtained his Castle Hill Avenue home through Construct Inc., a non-profit affordable housing and rental assistance group based in Great Barrington. The fifth selectboard member, Eric Gabriel, has recused himself from any involvement in Davis’ proposal because he is a landlord operating in the town.
“I do think it’s fair and I don’t think it’s limiting at all,” said Reed.
“I feel strongly that we need to limit people coming in solely as investors to purchase properties for short-term rentals, so this is what [the proposal] speaks to,” Davis explained. “This limits someone who is a full-time resident to two properties that they operate as short-term rentals. Someone who is a part-time resident or nonresident may only have one.”
Of the value of her proposal, Davis added, “This directly speaks to the need for housing in Great Barrington and the shortages that we are currently seeing.”
Public opinion among the 15 or so audience members who weighed in on the topic was split. Main Street resident James Manning said he wished Davis’ proposal was even tighter and insisted that short-term rentals were tantamount to running a hotel in a residential zone.
Knob Hill Road resident Dan Ruderman agreed, adding that, “We can all agree that anybody that’s making money on their home is running a commercial enterprise. They’re running a business and making money.
“Leigh did a balancing act and that balance made sense,” Ruderman said. “If there’s a better way to do it, I’m not sure what it is. The idea is that, as a community, we want to keep homes as homes and we want to do everything we can to encourage the homes to be used by people that live here all the time and work here without being discriminatory towards anybody else.”
Town finance committee member Michelle Loubert and Bannon, both Great Barrington natives, reiterated their concerns that Davis’ proposal would, in effect, punish longtime residents who retire and spend more than half the year somewhere else. “These nonresidents may have been our neighbors for the last 40 years,” Bannon said.
Natalya Price, a New Jersey real estate agent with a second home on Monument Valley Road, noted that the shortage of affordable housing is a nationwide problem and that Great Barrington is not a unique location.” Price also cast doubt on whether the proposal would free up units for affordable housing.
“Short-term rentals tend to be improved and nice, and therefore they will be selling on the market for a high price, so for people who need something affordable, those are not those homes,” Price explained. “They will probably be bought by people buying second homes.”
Abrahams and others opposed to Davis’ proposal have suggested, as an alternative, a tax or impact fee on short-term rentals whose proceeds could be spent on creating more affordable housing in Great Barrington.
The board made no decision on whether to recommend the proposal for the annual town meeting in June. Bannon observed that the discussion was “going around in circles” again. The board’s next meeting is on Monday, March 7 and the debate is expected to continue at that time.
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