Woodstock may or may not be the most famous small town in America, but it sure is a popular place for visitation by all kinds of people, from the well-heeled from all over the world to those who have to scrape together the money for a ticket on the Trailways bus. Woodstock can boast both the highest real-estate prices in Ulster County and a chronic problem with homelessness.
Unsurprisingly, the issues raised by short-term rentals (STRs) have become one of the centers of attention of town discussion. How much money do the visitors spend? How much does it cost the town to host them? Do the housing units that the short-term renters occupy deprive less privileged Woodstockers of a roof over their heads?
Woodstock’s town board faced a second week of pleas from short-term rental owners to lower the recently raised town permit fees.
Councilmember Bennet Ratcliff, who largely agreed with the operators’ premise that STRs contribute strongly to the local economy, found inadequate support for his position from the other members of the town board.
“I think that the $400 amount [for the annual permit fee] was arbitrary and completely out of whack, and I think that people have come forward and really given quite moving and persuasive testimonials about how this is money that keeps them in Woodstock and keeps them as members of the Woodstock community,” Ratcliff said. “These are not corporations and LLCs that are making money off of people coming up for the weekend. These are people who are getting their houses filled with people who come to enjoy themselves. And then those people are able to pay their medical bills, pay their tax bills, pay their mortgage, buy their groceries.”
While seconded by councilmember Maria-Elena Conte, Ratcliff’s proposal to lower the permit fee to a flat $75 failed to pass. Ratcliff and Conte were in favor, supervisor Bill McKenna and council members Laura Ricci and Anula Courtis against.
The previous week, Ratcliff had offered a similar resolution for a flat $100, which had also failed.
“I would think that this is really a great way to say to them, What you’re doing is you’re keeping Woodstock and its community the way that we like Woodstock and its community,” Ratcliff argued. “People helping one another, people being friendly to other people. I don’t think that we should gouge people and ask them to pay $400 without having any reason or rationale to do that. So I’ve put the number at $75, which is an increase from the $50.”
Until January, the fee in Woodstock had been $50, plus $25 for each additional bedroom, and $250 for non-owner-occupied STRs. Now it’s $400 for the fee plus $50 for each bedroom.
What neighboring towns do
Affordable-housing advocates have defended the Woodstock fees. McKenna termed the Woodstock STR $450 cost in line with the charges in neighboring communities.
The City of Kingston charges $650 for full-time STRs, though the fee is only $125 if the owner occupies the same building or rents for fewer than 30 days per year. The cap for the full-time permit has been reached in Kingston.
Shandaken has imposed a moratorium on STR license applications until September. Its fees vary from $350 up.
Hurley, which recently adopted an STR law, charges $250 and does not allow non-owner-occupied short-term rentals.
In Olive, the fee varies for owner- and non-owner-occupied STRs. For owner-occupied, it’s $150 plus $50 for additional bedrooms. STR owners who have attended recent meetings to protest fee increases insist they are not contributing to the lack of affordable housing, STRs make up a significant portion of the Olive housing stock.
Housing-cost data
According to 2022 data from Granicus, a data-driven enforcement company, Ulster County has 85,853 housing units, of which three percent (2584) are short-term rentals. Woodstock had by far the highest share of STRs in the county. Granicus and Census data show 383 Woodstock STRs, or seven percent of the housing stock, out of 4250 housing units.
More than 90 percent of STRs were entire homes.
The cost of housing has become out-of-reach for many, a complaint restaurant and shopowners who have said they can’t retain employees have made. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Ulster County was $1069 in 2022, the last time a survey was conducted.
The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development considers anyone paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing to be cost-burdened.
The long-term rental vacancy rate in Woodstock has been less than one percent for many years.
Paying the town’s costs
The Woodstock town housing committee had urged the fee increases to pay Granicus, thereby lessening the building department workload, increasing compliance, and reducing the number of illegal STRs.
“What I would say is that we have talked for about three and a half years,” offered town supervisor Bill McKenna. “With regard to raising the rate, we’ve talked about the expense to the building department in manpower. We’ve talked about the necessity to buy different modules from Granicus, which will be in the neighborhood of $20,000 to $25,000, in an effort to reduce the number of hours.”
Granicus computers scour online STR listings, comparing them to tax records. The company can even send out violation letters and prosecute them in court. It touts a near-100 percent conviction rate.
McKenna noted other costs due to the increase in tourism, such as garbage pickup and greater police presence on weekends. The $450 charge wasn’t meant to be punitive, McKenna said. The owners could pass the increase onto the renters.
The installment plan
Councilmember Anula Courtis offered a resolution to establish a quarterly payment plan, with the first payment equal to the old fee and the remainder due in three separate quarters.
“This is something that will offer owners the opportunity to pass these fees on to their renters, like one gentleman said last week,” Courtis said, “rather than facing a hefty payment all at once, and it allows the discussion to continue.”
McKenna said the resolution will memorialize the payment schedule the town already offers.
Courtis reported that the many STR owners to whom she had spoken were excited about the changes. But those owners in the audience balked at them.
Her resolution passed 4-1, with Maria-Elena Conte voting against it.
Conte often votes with Ratcliff on many issues, but not this time. “I don’t always vote the same way Bennet votes,” Conte explained. “So I’m not in favor of this new resolution.”
Councilmember Laura Ricci called the new fee “rightsized” for the town, but agreed that the STR owners had been blindsided by the increase.
“Having a payment plan is a smoother way to go about it. I do think that we’ve picked a rate that’s fair, based on what’s going on,” Ricci said.
Various recommendations
The discussion is a work in progress. Ricci said the zoning revision committee (ZRC), which she chairs, is discussing a tiered classification for STRs that differentiate between those renting a room in their home for extra income to pay bills and those who make it a full-time business. Other tiers would separate non-owner-occupied STRs. The ZRC may recommend different fees based on the type of STR, she said.
“So far about 30 [owners] have raised issues,” Bill McKenna disclosed about the new fees. “A number have said it’s fair and have paid it. Now, granted, they all have different situations. So I’m not necessarily comparing one to the other. But the fact remains a number of people thought this was more than fair. And by the way, before we adopted the law to permit Airbnbs they were illegal. They weren’t permitted to do them.”
Councilmember Conte was on the original committee which had recommended a gradual fee increase.
“For folks to get this huge bill all at once, I don’t think that’s fair,” Conte said. “And I think that there are a lot of people who are struggling to stay here to pay their taxes. They’ve got medical bills. I’m in full agreement that not everybody can afford to stay here. We’ve lost a lot of people here.”
Conte claimed the original committee had submitted many reports and minutes. McKenna said he never received any.
Owners object to fees
Owners Brent Robison, Maureen Brady, Mernie Buchanan and Daniel Blumenfeld presented the Woodstock STR situation from their perspectives. The impact on their businesses of the increase in fees differed markedly from what had been presented in the discussion.
What they said largely aligned with what Ratcliff had articulated.
Robison, a member of FairBnB, a group opposed to the increases, said his group had filed a freedom of information request for documents supporting the fee hikes, and had been told that none existed.
“This means that ‘no documents exist’ is simply an insufficient answer to our FOIL request. This is analogous to the federal laws against junk fees by banks and corporations which get passed on to citizens with no explanation and no related value,” Robison said. “The new fees far surpassed standard charges for fire inspections or business licenses. So we’re left to assume that they pay for STR impacts on the community.”
The levying of fees by a municipality without proper procedure and transparent budgetary documentation, the New York State Bar Association’s guiding principle states, creates an impermissible tax disguised as an impact fee. Robison wanted the Woodstock tax revoked until proper procedures were followed.
“We’re your neighbors”
STR owner Maureen Brady said she had experienced a decrease in rentals.
“This year, B&B rentals have decreased,” she said, “and we’ve earned only $440 from ours for the first quarter of 2024. To think of having to simply hand that over sparked outrage. If we were renting multiple rooms at high prices, perhaps it could be justified. But why did the town board not consider making it proportional or offering at least a senior discount at the very least? Our average intake per year ranges from $3000 to $5000 during the pandemic, and this definitely decreased last year and this year.”
Mernie Buchanan said she despises junk fees.
“I don’t imagine you like junk fees,” she said. “Let’s say we all hate junk fees. And yet, my wonderful town of Woodstock wants me to join the practice of corporate malfeasance, to pass them on to my guests. I would have to charge an additional 15 percent. And that doesn’t include the recent tax hike [from two percent of revenues to four percent] by the county.”
Buchanan said her comfortable place without a kitchen renting for $90 per night appealed to the budget traveler. Her renters go out to eat at the local restaurants.
Daniel Blumenfeld said there was a feeling in the air that seemed accepted by the general population that STRs were bad, that they “were sucking up all of the affordable housing.” He conceded that sometimes indeed did happen.
“But even as you, Bill, said yesterday, we know that this is a small percentage,” continued Blumenfeld. “There’s there’s also this feeling that the people doing this are making boatloads of money, and just sitting back, and smoking fat cigars and collecting the money.”
Not true, he argued.
“I think if you look at the people in this room, like we’re not the enemy, you know, we’re your neighbors,” Blumenfeld said. “And I can guarantee you that anyone, certainly myself, who was making boatloads of money would not be here, time and again, to try to save a couple of hundred dollars – like, this has an impact on us.”
Blumenfeld said the fee represented ten percent of his annual take, and passing it on to the renter was not possible.
“You can believe that we have pushed our fee as high as it could go. And we haven’t had a booking in three months,” he said. “I’m just saying that this line of reasoning is not actually reflected by reality on the ground.”
Discussion about the fees continues. “I think it’s fair to say we’ve been thinking about it a lot,” McKenna said.
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