Lack of bipartisanship, transparency drove STR law

I am here to present you with a petition of rescission of the short-term rental ordinance passed on Feb. 29, 2024.

It didn’t require much effort to collect the over 300 hundred signatures of the Stowe voters who joined me in the effort to rescind this ordinance. I suspect that had there been a truly organized effort and a public education campaign to inform other voters about the truth behind the ordinance and its underlying intent, that 1,000 signatures could have been gathered.

Creating successful public policy is a difficult task even under the best of circumstances. We know the accepted steps to building good public policy: Define the problem, gather evidence, identify causes, review current policies, strategize solutions, consider costs and benefits and, most importantly, in a town of 5,000, build bipartisanship. I’m here submitting this petition because the selectboard failed to use good public policy in this matter and thereby failed to lead us in a positive and effective way.

What I and many others witnessed over this year-long process and resulting outcome was a prime example of how not to make public policy. Today, we find ourselves in the midst of a real affordability crisis, not just here in Stowe, but across all of Vermont. I am extremely worried about the homesteaders that rely on short-term rental income to maintain residency here.

People in town are distressed about the state of our schools and the continued, back-breaking increases in property taxes. During a time when our community needed this elected body to demonstrate leadership and empathy, and to be a positive voice and community advocate, you consciously chose to devote your time to needlessly dividing the community. Now it is up to the voters to fix this mess.

Ordinance proponents have been hoping that taxpayers and voters would either be distracted by the process or not understand that one primary goal of the ordinance is the destruction of our specific right to short term rent our property that has long been codified in our zoning regulations. By reclassifying short-term rental as an “activity” as opposed to a “use,” the goal is to subject us all to the potential whims of any three-person majority’s goal of regulation. Those whims could easily become a cap, a moratorium or a ban.

Fortunately, the Vermont State Supreme Court is with those of us who are working to rescind this ordinance. It has previously ruled that short-term rental is indeed a use of residential property. Those who have led this charge to pass the ordinance already know this, as does our planning commission, town manager and town attorneys. Were the ordinance to stand, there would justifiably be a decade of lawsuits.

A year ago, it could have been as simple as a bipartisan act to create a short-term rental registry to gather data and begin educating ourselves and the community about this increasingly visible and important sector of our economy. Had you done so, we wouldn’t be here today. Indeed, we want to learn more about the prevalence and impact of short-term rentals on our community.

On Feb. 29, the selectboard could have considered seriously the opposing feedback, taken a step back and brokered a bipartisan deal. It chose not to do so. But let’s recap what we all agree on:

• We agree we need to undertake formal data collection to understand short-term rentals in Stowe, and their impacts, both positive and negative.

• We agree in the creation of some form of registry and an accompanying public education campaign.

• We agree that we should be ensuring the health and safety of our visitors, residents and public safety teams not only with short-term rentals but for every structure in Stowe.

• We agree we should be collecting the necessary contact information and making it consistently accessible to first responders as needed. We need to review ordinances and policies that are currently in place and determine if they are being applied and enforced. Let’s face it, short-term rentals don’t have a monopoly on being the source of nuisances, just as they are not the root cause of every other challenge facing our community.

• We agree that we should be standardizing building access for first responders with the lock box program.

So where do we go from here? To a special town meeting where the voters decide. Those coordinated special interests that you dismissed are just groups of residents, voters and taxpayers like me who will work together in a campaign to educate the public on what this ordinance is really about. We will combat the false information that has been disseminated and we will overwhelmingly rescind it. We will then go back to the drawing board, and we will do it right, with the data and tools required to effectively educate Stowe residents and provide a framework for responsible short-term rental ownership and operation.

In closing, Stowe is a community of relationships. It is a place where neighbors help neighbors. In the future, let us work together with good intent and transparency as we navigate the challenges and seize the opportunities that will inevitably come our way.

Courtney Percy lives in Stowe.