Help Opposing Zoning Against STR, AirBnBs

[Alecia Loveless]

I attended a town meeting tonight where members of the Planning, Zoning, and Town Council were present. The need was brought up to draft a Zoning Ordinance disallowing AirBnBs and STRs due to 2 reasons.

The first reason is that during the pandemic there have been some, not dozens, we’re a town of 2000, noise complaints from neighbors that the STRs have been partying late or shooting off fireworks after neighbors children have gone to bed.

The second reason is that board members and members of the public felt that affordable housing has become a problem both for the town attempting to place low income and homeless people and for first time home buyers as well as renters being priced out of their rentals. These people mistakenly believe that by ending the STR market the overall real estate market will drop and suddenly housing will become more affordable.

How have other members gone about opposing these types of Zoning changes? Has anyone launched a campaign of opposition in their own town against proposed zoning legislation such as this?

While I don’t personally own any STRs now I don’t believe in zoning them out by regulations.

I feel the tourists are great for our economy as we’re a tourist based town and we should instead work for a more stringent noise ordinance.

Any help I could receive would be terrific whether it's statistics backing up the fact that the market won't fall out without STR or help on the zoning.

Thanks in advance!