The village board on Friday, Sept. 9 released its first draft of proposed STR regulations and announced that village board members would hold a joint meeting about STRs with the North Elba Town Council at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 13 — time originally allotted for the village’s regularly-scheduled work session. Immediately following the joint meeting, at 5 p.m. on Sept. 13, the village board plans to hold a public forum to hear public comment on its drafted STR regulations.

The News on Sept. 9 also obtained an updated version of the North Elba Town Council’s proposed STR regulations, now a three-page document that includes previously-discarded categories of “hosted” and “unhosted” rental permits. The town updated its regulations after a public meeting last month where several residents requested that the town include distinctions between “hosted” and “unhosted” rentals.

Both the town and the village’s drafts of STR regulations are only proposals — both municipalities are required to hold a public hearing before any new STR regulations can become law.

The Sept. 13 joint board meeting and public forum will be held in the first-floor meeting room of the North Elba Town Hall. People can attend the village’s public forum virtually at meet.goto.com/lpv.

People can attend the joint town-village meeting virtually at gotomeet.me/townofnorthelba/board-meeting.

The town’s latest draft — and the village’s first draft — of proposed STR regulations come as both municipalities’ boards have moved to extend their moratoriums on the issuance of new STR permits. The town council last week approved a three-month moratorium extension for all districts in the town through Dec. 10. The village board has scheduled a public hearing on a proposed three-month partial moratorium extension that would only apply to areas zoned as village residential, town residential and South Lake districts within the village. The village’s moratorium will lift in the village center, gateway corridor and Old Military corridor districts on Sept. 30. The village’s public hearing on its partial moratorium extension will be at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 19 ahead of the board’s regular meeting at 5 p.m.

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Village draft

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Under the village’s proposed STR regulations, there would be two types of STR permits: one for unhosted properties and one for hosted properties. The current day limits for those permits — 90 days for both unhosted and hosted rentals — wouldn’t change if the proposed regulations are approved.

Hosted permits would be allowed in any zoning district in the village — the village residential, town residential, South Lake, village center, Gateway corridor and Old Military corridor districts. To qualify for a hosted permit, an STR owner would have to live on the property at least 184 days a year, and the property would have to be the legal address of the owner. The owner of a hosted STR would have to be on site when the property is being rented out.

Unhosted permits would only be allowed in the village center, gateway corridor and Old Military corridor districts. The owner of an unhosted STR wouldn’t be required to live on the property for a certain number of days per year or during the rental period, but the owner would need a nearby “authorized agent” in their place — someone who could act on the owner’s behalf and who stays within a 30-minute drive of the STR.

Existing unhosted STR permit-holders in the village residential district — and the town residential district within the village — will be allowed to renew their permits until there is a change of ownership of the property. According to the village’s draft, a change of ownership includes any change — into a trust, life tenancy or new members of an LLC. The permit would not transfer to a new owner.

There are a few exceptions to the village’s general STR regulations as proposed. STRs wouldn’t be allowed on the street level of any Main Street-facing properties from Brewster Park to the North Elba Town Hall; village officials have said that they want to preserve Main Street’s business availability on street level Main Street properties.

STR regulations for people living in existing planned developments, condominiums and town homes would be left to those communities’ homeowners associations, which have the power to implement their own STR regulations in their development.

The town and village are joining forces in an effort to strengthen enforcement of STR regulations by redistributing responsibilities in the Building and Planning Department and creating an “STR compliance monitor,” who would be in charge of checking on STR compliance in the permit system, following up on violations and checking with village police to see if there were calls for noise or parking issues to cross-reference that information with the STR permit system and make sure that any STR-related complaints are documented as violations. The village also wants to increase permit fees and fines and implement regulations that carry civil penalties, according to the village’s draft. The village also wants to ban weddings and “commercial functions” from both hosted and unhosted STRs. Village officials have said in multiple public meetings that STRs themselves aren’t recognized a commercial enterprise by New York state.

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Updated town draft

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The North Elba Town Council released its first draft of proposed STR regulations in August, and the Enterprise obtained an updated version of the town’s proposed regulations on Friday. Town Councilor Emily Kilburn Politi said the town plans to post the new proposal on the town of North Elba website Monday morning.

The main difference between the town’s first draft — available at “http://tinyurl.com/4zhub6rv” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>tinyurl.com/4zhub6rv — and its second draft is the town’s decision to ultimately include a distinction between “hosted” and “unhosted” rentals in their proposed STR regulations. In the first draft, there wasn’t a distinction between unhosted and hosted permits — the proposal instead focused on where permits would and wouldn’t be allowed to be issued, and where they should be capped, according to zoning districts.

In the town’s latest STR regulations draft, STR permits are categorized into three types: lodging permits, hosted permits and unhosted permits. The number of hosted and unhosted permits issued would be capped, and the number of lodging permits would be unlimited.

The new regulations allow for around a 25% increase in hosted permits and a 10% increase in unhosted permits. The town would reevaluate and set the permit caps annually. There wouldn’t be a maximum limit to how many days an STR could be rented per year in the town, but people with unhosted or hosted permits would be required to rent for at least 14 days per year.

Lodging permits were carried over from the town’s first draft of STR regulations. Lodging permits would be reserved for STRs with street-facing lots on Old Military Road in the Old Military Road corridor and street-facing lots in the gateway corridor — lots with road frontage on Cascade Road, Wilmington Road and state Route 86 in Ray Brook. These permits are unlimited both in the total amount of permits that could be issued across those districts and the number of nights that an STR could be rented per year there. STR owners in existing condominiums, town homes or properties in the Whiteface Inn planned development could also get a lodging permit if they’re part of an active homeowners association. There are currently 56 lodging permits in the town, according to the town’s draft.

Hosted permits would be allowed in any district under the town’s proposed STR regulations. Hosted permits would be capped at 48 permits; there are currently 38 hosted permits in the town, according to the draft. To qualify for a hosted permit, property owners would have to verify that they either have a residential basic STAR exemption or receive the STAR credit check. Prospective hosted STR owners would also have to identify their Real Property Tax Code.

Unhosted permits would be capped at 165 permits — up 15 from the current count of 150 unhosted permits — and would only be allowed in the Rural Countryside district (excluding Deerwood Hills), the North Lake and South Lake districts, on lots without road frontage in the Old Military corridor and the gateway corridor. Property owners in condominium, town home and planned developments who aren’t part of an active homeowners association would also qualify for an unhosted permit.

Unhosted permits would no longer be allowed in residential areas, which the town identifies as “non-compatible districts” — the town residential districts, village residential districts within the town and residential planned developments, including Fawn Valley, the Peaks at Lake Placid, MacKenzie Overlook and Fawn Ridge II. Existing unhosted STR permits in these areas could continue to operate and be renewed until there’s any change of ownership of the property. No new unhosted STR permits would be issued in non-compatible districts.

The town would start a wait list for both unhosted and hosted permits, maintained through the Building and Planning Department. Someone is eligible for the wait list only if they are the owner of the property of the proposed STR. The town’s local law implementing the new STR regulations would outline the date and time the wait lists would open up. STR permits would be issued in chronological order of the complete and accurate submission of the owner’s personal information — including their mailing address and property address — along with a copy of the most recent deed of the prospective STR property as proof of ownership.

Another change from the town’s first draft of proposed STR regulations is the deletion of the conditional uses of “rooming and boarding house” and “bed and breakfast” in all town districts.