The Village of New Paltz Planning Board will hold a public hearing later this month relating to the iconic Cloud House in the Village of New Paltz, whose owners hope to turn the two-bedroom apartment into a legal short-term rental.
Representing the building owners Inyoung Cho and Seung Yup Kang, Allen Ross, of New Paltz firm Allen Ross Architecture, came before the village planning board on Tuesday, November 21 to ask for a special use permit for the short-term rental. Ross said the roughly 1,700-square-foot two-bedroom second-floor unit could ideally be used as a short-term rental when Cho and Kang were out of town.
“Both Cho and Kang lived in New Paltz for five years,” Ross said. “They met here and went to school here…So they have deep roots…in the village and care about the village and return regularly to recreate and be part of the neighborhood…These aren’t absentee landlords who don’t care about the village or are just trying to make a cash cow out of a building. They’re actually involved and they do care.”
The first floor of the Cloud House, located at 5 Church Street, is occupied by Krishna Kitchen, an Indian restaurant that serves vegan and vegetarian cuisine which has been open for nearly three years. Cho and Kang own the entire property, as well as another property in the village.
“The short-term rental option would allow them to coordinate their visits to New Paltz with those for the tenants where long-term rental option only wouldn’t allow that,” Ross said. “So the way the short-term rental would work is that when the tenants weren’t there, they could come to New Paltz to maintain the property to look in on whatever has to happen…Their other option would be to find some expensive place to stay, which would make keeping the rent for the Krishna Kitchen affordable and make the whole building less financially viable.”
Kang described the short-term rental as working in synergy with Krishna Kitchen, with guests receiving a discount in the restaurant during their stay.
Ross said the owners would like to continue maintaining the spirit of the Cloud House, in spite of it no longer having the exterior artwork from which it derives its name.
“Originally it had clouds on it and way back it had portraits of Beatles in their Yellow Submarine phase,” Ross said. “And then the portraits went away. It was still called the Cloud House with clouds and blue background. And the owners still refer to it as the Cloud House, and it’s still painted blue. It has a lot of presence on the street and I think it’s boxing above its weight in terms of its idiosyncratic presence there. So all that is being respected and being maintained and is sort of part of the owner’s intent.”
Though not currently open as a short-term rental, the Cloud House has previously served that purpose before, with listings on popular websites like Airbnb and VRBO. The property is currently set on those websites with a 30-day minimum, as per Village of New Paltz regulations.
Cloud House was identified by Village of New Paltz Deputy Mayor Alexandria Wojcik in a Spectrum News report from early January as flouting a 2021 law banning short-term rentals when the host is not the primary resident.
“There’s all these different people coming in every couple days, total strangers, tourists; nobody lives there,” Wojcik said while standing in front of Cloud House in the Spectrum clip. “So it just becomes this weird void on a block.”
The Village maintains an annual list of rental properties, including legal short-term units; Cloud House is not currently on that list, but the law allows for property owners to seek a special use permit to operate a short-term rental. During the November 21 meeting, Ross said that would be appropriate.
“In terms of the effect on the neighborhood, I think that a short-term rental in that particular area, which really is kind of the heart of the village in terms of its commercial district and charm, would be an asset,” he said. “For people who are actually living in the village, they have relatives, they don’t have space but would want to put up their relatives, it’s nice to have a short-term rental right there in a walking area.”
Ross added that Cloud House was previously a traditional rental, but that didn’t work out.
“There was a tenant there who was somewhat disruptive with the property and is no longer there,” he said. “But effectively the use would not be different from a long-term residential use. You have the same number of people that could stay there and it would be largely walking to a variety of activities.”
The owners said they were comfortable limiting the number of guests during short-term rental stays.
“We always stick to not too much crowded,” said Kang. “So maybe if they wanted two bedroom, then we’ll stick to the limit of up to four guests. When they want to just rent the one bedroom, then exactly stick to the limit to the two guests.”
Planning board chair Zach Bialecki said he believed the site plan was more than adequate to operate as a short-term rental, and in addition to scheduling a public hearing on Tuesday, December 19, he also asked for a vote on whether to ask the village attorney to draft a resolution of approval for the special use application.
“I don’t anticipate many objections to this,” Bialecki said.
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