The Snowmass Village Town Council discussed what, if anything, the town should do to regulate short-term rental properties during its regular meeting Monday.
And, while council members themselves had plenty of opinions related to the rental properties of less than 30 days, coming up with actual policy to regulate STRs proved difficult.
“I don’t know that we have a problem here, but I read about it in every other mountain community that it’s a problem,” Councilor Tom Fridstein said of STRs. “But we should be looking at it, making sure that we are adequately protected from abuse. … I can’t tell you anything more than that cause I don’t understand the problem.”
Whether it be Pitkin County, the city of Aspen or the town of Snowmass Village, the need to preserve “community character” comes up during most official discussions related to short-term rental regulations.
No official vote was taken by the Snowmass Village Town Council related to STRs on Monday. Instead, the council directed staff to identify specific issues related to STRs and to craft possible regulations to address those concerns.
“When we lived in Aspen, before we made the smart choice to come to Snowmass, we owned our half of our duplex and the people next to us rented, and it was awful. I mean, they terrorized us,” Councilor Alyssa Shenk said. “I will also say, though, I do appreciate people that want to be able to get their little slice of heaven and come here. And the only way they can do it is if they rent their property some of the time.”
Snowmass Village Police Chief Brian Olson said he had more anecdotal information than data as it related to the police department’s involvement with STRs.
“It doesn’t impact our call volume significantly enough that I think we’re going to get pulled into the conversation,” Olson said prior to Monday’s town council meeting. “I don’t have a lot to offer. I don’t have a lot to add.”
Snowmass Village completes a transient inventory study every three years and according to its most recent one, conducted in 2018, the town has 1,699 short-term rental units including 880 through hotel rooms, 735 in condos and 84 in private homes.
“That private home number is the one we think is low,” Clint Kinney, Snowmass Village town manager, said. “We’re not confident that [84] number is right.”
In total, the town has approximately 4,768 housing and lodging units.
A property owner who utilizes sites like Airbnb or VRBO to rent out their short-term rental in Snowmass Village does not need a business license through the town. Instead, companies like Airbnb or VRBO hold a business license and remit sales and lodging taxes to the town on a short-term rental property owner’s behalf.
Short-term rental owners who manage their own property must hold an individual business license.
Of the 10.4% sales tax imposed on purchases in Snowmass Village, 3.5% goes to the town itself. The rest of the sales tax revenue collected in Snowmass Village goes to the state (2.9%), Pitkin County (3.6%) and the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority (0.4%).
In addition to sales tax, the town itself also has a 2.4% lodging tax, which it collects on short-term stays of less than 30 days.
Kinney was confident companies like Airbnb and VRBO were remitting sufficient sales and lodging taxes to the town.
“We were one of the first municipalities in the state to enter into these contracts with these guys, and so we think it's really improved upon the [tax] collection,” Kinney said. “All we’ve focused on is the tax collection up until now.”
A few residents spoke up during Monday’s town council meeting, including Gary Doehling, who wanted to see more STR regulations in place to protect property owners like himself. Doehling brought up concerns about his neighbors using their property as a short-term rental.
“We’ve seen a lot of cars there. We’ve seen a lot of groups come in. They have a hot tub that’s outside; groups go to the hot tub. They drink, they have noise,” Doehling said. “This is not a neighbor; this is a hotel. This is a business going on next to us.”
However, others like Mike George believed council should not regulate STRs as a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that it did not fully understand.
“It’s real estate prices that are the driving issue … pushing the workforce farther away. I’m going to tell you, just anecdotally, I don’t think that people are going to rent their multi-million dollar homes to our workforce,” George said. “Capping STRs isn’t going to magically produce a large base of housing for our workforce. The property values are too high.”
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January 04, 2022 at 05:00PM
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Snowmass Village Town Council chimes in on short-term rentals discussion - Aspen Daily News
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