The Saranac Lake Board of Trustees is taking a look at its short-term rental law and permitting process.
During a meeting in early March, the village board took up amendments to its short-term rental law. The proposal calls for special circumstances caps to be deleted. It would also add clauses allowing exemptions to the cap under certain circumstances, including making owner-occupied short-term rentals exempt from the current permit cap.
The village board spent over two hours discussing the law, permitting, potential changes and how other communities are approaching short-term rentals. Mayor Jimmy Williams characterized the Adirondack community’s law as chaotic and said he hoped the joint work session with the village Development Board would bring clarity.
Consultant Matthew Rogers has worked with other communities and participated virtually. He was asked if he knew of any other community that has changed their residential and commercial definitions of short-term rentals, or STRs, in light of new state tax rules.
“I am not aware of any that have done that, no. And that would certainly cause quite a change in the way that municipalities would regulate them if that change is made,” noted Rogers.
“There are quite a few municipalities in New York that define STR’s as commercial use of property,” interjects a board member.
“Right,” Rogers agrees. “Which would then have all kinds of cascading effects as a commercial use where they would be allowed as opposed to residential neighborhoods.”
Rodgers was asked the implications for municipalities that limit STRs through density regulations.
“The broader topic is limiting them in certain districts and neighborhoods and trying to establish some type of reasonable separation distances between the different short term rentals. Some communities do put in minimum separation distances. But before you get to that, you guys have come up with the caps for 2025. 2026 is going to be here before you know it and you’ve looked at it just at the district level. And I would say the next step now is to dig into the neighborhood level because zoning districts have multiple neighborhoods and they’re not all the same neighborhoods,” Rogers advised.
Mayor Williams asked the members of the two boards if there was consensus that there must be a metric in place to deny or approve STR permits based on density. It led to a discussion highlighting how contentious STRs can be.
“It’s got to be a measurable rule, guideline, guidance for what can be disapproved. What we want is something you can use as a tool so that you’re not just an arbitrator between neighbors,” Williams noted. “This isn’t going to be a neighbor against neighbor fight in Saranac Lake. It shouldn’t be.”
“But it is,” interrupts another board member.
“Well, if we had a density...” Williams begins to counter.
“I don’t think you’ll ever get away from it. Period,” the board member declares.
Rogers told the boards that to have an effective long-term policy on short-term rentals, the village must determine the maximum number they will allow.
“The village really needs to look at the data and say how many of our homes do we want to allow as vacation homes compared to permanent housing when right now there’s not, in my understanding, a long-term policy of where is the village going with these.”
“Are there examples of communities that have actually set that number?” asked a board member.
“Woodstock set a number but the next year they increased that and I’m working in a community next to it. And, again, every community’s going to be different. But I know that there are communities that do set them,” observed Rogers.
Members of the Saranac Lake Board of Trustees and Development Board will continue reviewing potential changes.
