Shannon Jordan studies Health Science at St. Michael’s College. The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.
Cities across the state have been implementing laws to protect residents that rent their homes. Websites like Airbnb and Vrbo have grown in popularity and can yield large profits for people who offer up their homes for short stays. To shield long-term renters, Winooski recently placed regulations and fees on short-term ones.
Winooski’s population is roughly 60% renters, meaning the regulations could impact a significant number of residents. The city’s landlord survey for the 2024 fiscal year found that within the past year, 48% of landlords who had vacancies for long term rentals received 10 or more applications for the unit.
Thomas Renner, who’s served as deputy mayor of Winooski for the past two years, sat down on a recent afternoon to share some insight into the new rules and regulations.
For readers who don’t know what a short-term rental is, could you briefly explain?
A short-term rental is essentially what most folks would know as an Airbnb or Vrbo. It’s a residence, whether that is a full house or maybe just a room, that somebody is renting to folks mostly who come into town on vacation, similar to renting a hotel.
What led to the decision to introduce regulations for short-term rentals in Winooski?
We have a housing crisis in Vermont, which we are experiencing here in Winooski. We are hearing from folks who are trying to come to Winooski to live and can’t find properties here. We are hearing from people who currently live in Winooski who are either looking for something better or just a different condition from what they are currently living in and they are unable to find a place. We know that we have these short-term rentals that are occupying the space that could be long-term rentals. We’ve been trying to tackle the housing crisis as much as we can as a small municipality. We looked at short-term rentals as a way to help fix this issue. We try to incentivize folks to turn their short-term rentals into long-term rentals.
How do the proposed fees for short-term rental licenses aim to balance the needs of residents and support affordable housing initiatives?
Our end goal and hope are that these fees might encourage folks to switch over to being long-term rental landlords.
So, when you think about a mini hotel in the middle of the city that comes with different things, you got folks who don’t know the area, they may be using more trash than a regular household would, or noise complaints. These things all happen in a regular home but increase with short-term rentals and there is a cost to that at the end of the day. The fees are going to help our staff to manage short-term rentals.
Can you provide more details on the difference between owner-occupied and non-owner-occupied short-term rental licenses?
The owner-occupied rental is when somebody has a two-bedroom house and they are renting out one of those bedrooms as a short-term rental. Or someone may have built a small property on their land that they are renting out in their backyard. To qualify for an owner-occupied short-term rental license the owner has to be on the premises for the duration of the time that somebody is renting that short-term rental.
The non-owner-occupied is a regular home that somebody does not live in at all. They could be a resident of Winooski and this could be another property that they own and are renting to folks. Or it could be somebody who lives in Nevada and has purchased some properties in Winooski.
How was the decision made to charge different annual fees for owner-occupied ($250) vs. non-owner-occupied ($1400)?
We spoke to some people who own owner-occupied units and for the most part, those people are trying to use those units to supplement their own income. We didn’t want to be penalizing these Winooski residents but we did want to make sure they are participating in the program.
How will the City Council’s ability to restrict the number of non-owner-occupied licenses address the transformation of long-term housing into short-term?
We just don’t want any more of these businesses coming online. We don’t want more people looking at homes on the market saying, “Hm I’m going to turn this thing into a short-term rental” and take it off of the housing market.
How do you expect these short-term rental regulations to be monitored over time, and is the City Council open to adjusting these regulations if necessary?
Yes, we 100% expect to revisit these maybe even within half of the first year to just touch base and see how everything is going and make sure that the program is working.