Ever since the onset of COVID, refugees from pandemic conditions in New York City have been flooding into the mid-Hudson, driving up housing costs by buying up residential properties, either to live in themselves or to rent out to fellow Big Apple expats. Ulster County towns have been forced to develop coping strategies for the overheated market as residents protest that they can no longer afford to live in their own hometowns. One of the municipalities most strongly affected is the Town of Gardiner.
For more than two years now, the Gardiner Town Board has been struggling to draft legislation that would regulate short-term rental (STR) housing in the township, only to encounter vociferous opposition to whatever updated version it submits for scrutiny. Like Goldilocks in the cottage of the Three Bears, supervisor Marybeth Majestic and the rest of the board members have found themselves wrestling with proposals that keep turning out to be “too hot” or “too cold,” in search of the version that is “just right.”
At the public hearing on the most recent iteration of Gardiner’s proposed Short-Term Rental Law, held at the September 14 board meeting, the usual arguments against regulation were made by the usual opponents – largely members of the ad hoc advocacy organization known as the Short-Term Renters’ Association of Gardiner (STRAG). Some of the previous opposition appeared to be cooling down, in response to the board’s attempts to defuse some of the more controversial provisions in earlier proposed versions of the law. A provision prohibiting operation of a STR that is not the owner’s primary residence had been removed, effectively permitting rental of more than one unit per owner, at the insistence of residents who claim that they can only afford to keep their houses in Gardiner if they are able to live elsewhere for part of the year and use the rental income to pay their taxes.
The most concerning provision in the latest version, for many STR proprietors who attended the hearing either virtually or in person, was the proposed annual limit of 100 licenses awarded. Town Board members arrived at this figure based on the number of STRs registered with Ulster County in 2019; councilman David Dukler called the 100 cap as “a reflection of what’s here now.” But it is widely believed that many STRs are being operated under the table, their owners seeking to avoid paying a County tax on the income from these properties. Supervisor Majestic didn’t evince much sympathy for those STR owners who brought up the likelihood of underreporting to the County, saying, “The opportunity [to register your property] has been there – shame on you.”
Several STR operators, especially newcomers, expressed anxiety about the perceived arbitrariness of the 100-license limit and wondered aloud what would become of rental income of the 101st applicant for a license in a given year. “Not having a number is also arbitrary,” councilman Franco Carucci responded.
Other residents questioned how efficiently the applications could be processed by the town clerk’s staff. Some worried that people opposed to STRs might buy up as many of the licenses as possible and just sit on them, echoing STRAG’s attorney, Brandon McKenzie, who had raised the specter of a “run on licenses” with “no fail-safes.” STRAG president Todd Baker called the cap “unnecessary,” asking, “Why can’t we just do registration and inspection?”
All these quibbles aside, the “cooler” redrafting of the law seemed to be edging closer to a version that would satisfy most residents reasonably well – until the Ulster County Planning Board (UCPB) weighed in. That regulatory agency had strongly favored a “hotter” early version of the law, even going so far as to hail it as “a model statute to other County communities seeking to enact their short-term rental laws.” At the meeting, a clearly exasperated Supervisor Majestic read aloud a recent letter from the UCPB summarizing its review of the newer proposed law and recommending the adoption of the more stringent earlier draft, which it called “well-crafted.”
These recommendations are not legally binding, and Gardiner could still overrule the County by a supermajority vote. But in order to tighten up language in the newer version that the UCPB had flagged as overly vague, particularly regarding enforcement provisions, the Town Board would have had to decide immediately on the revisions, due to time constraints on the posting of legal notices for continuation of the public hearing at the October meeting. Worn out by the lengthy discussion, the board was not prepared to decide instantly, and ended up voting to close the public hearing. A new one will need to be scheduled once yet another “final” draft has been adopted.
Majestic agreed to distribute a redlined version of the proposed law to the board, addressing the latest concerns of residents expressed at the hearing as well as the specific objections raised by UCPB. With the Town Board shifting its primary focus onto the 2022 town budget in October, it now appears unlikely that the STR law will be adopted before the year’s end.
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