West Windsor and Barnard are the latest towns in our area to tackle the issue of short-term rental (STR) regulations.
West Windsor’s ordinance, which was scheduled to take effect May 1 but has since been extended to July 1, requires that all STR operators in town must register the property and pay a registration fee each year. This fee changes depending on whether the owner resides at the STR. For owner-occupied STRs, the annual registration fee is $150. For STRs where the owner does not live in residence, they must pay $300 per bedroom, per year.
This ordinance does not have a cap on the number of STRs allowed in West Windsor, which selectboard chair Mark Higgins said was an intentional choice, as this selectboard does not want to designate an arbitrary limit. “It creates a lot of problems for town governments, because once you get close to the cap, people get really ornery about losing their spot, especially when there’s money on the line,” Higgins told the Standard. “I’ve dealt with caps, and I don’t like them since I’ve been on the other side of them.”
West Windsor’s ordinance was passed last September with minimal pushback from the community.
Barnard is also working to finalize its own STR ordinance.
Susan Botha, a resident of Barnard and chair of the Barnard Sub-Committee on Short-Term Rentals, said, “In January 2024, we began the process of forming a subcommittee of the planning commission to create regulations for short-term rentals. We worked for about a year to develop this ordinance, comprised of a tremendous amount of research and observing what other towns were passing… Our proposed ordinance contains within it a set of rules that are a part of Vermont law — no parking on the street, sound ordinances, requirement to pay taxes (income and room), liability insurance, and occupancy.”
When the draft ordinance was presented to the planning commission, it was unanimously approved to move ahead and go before the selectboard.
The ordinance was presented to the selectboard on May 21, with further discussion scheduled to take place this week.
For more on this, please see our June 5 edition of the Vermont Standard.
