Last year, Great Barrington, Massachusetts voters approved a new bylaw governing the regulation of short-term rentals.
The vote was accompanied by vocal concerns expressed by residents in the Southern Berkshire community of around 7,000, who worry about the town’s ongoing housing crisis and steep cost of living.
One of the new bylaw’s stipulations dictates that anyone offering a rental for under 30 days must register with the town. That process began Saturday, and the window to pay fees and log rentals as required by law ends after a 30-day period. To find out more about the process, WAMC spoke with Great Barrington selectboard chair Steve Bannon.
BANNON: The town meeting, last year's town meeting in Great Barrington, voted to approve a short-term rental bylaw, which as part of that bylaw was the registration for all short-term rentals in Great Barrington.
WAMC: Take us through this process. As folks who offer their homes up for short-term rentals go about registering with the town, what is that process like? And what does it ask of folks?
The town of Great Barrington has contracted with a company called GovOS, which creates a management and registration payment portal for short-term rentals in Great Barrington. And that's taken quite some time to build that out, and it went live on April 1st, and people just have to go on – it's fairly simple – and register their short-term rental property. And it's $200 a year for the short-term rental host registration.
What kind of oversight does the town have over short-term rentals following last year's vote at town meeting?
Well, GovOS will look at all short-term rentals that are advertised in Great Barrington and make sure that they are single-owner and that they are meeting all the guidelines. What we really have now is the ability to make sure that they are registered with us, that they're meeting all safety and guidelines, and the maximum number of days, which is 150 in Great Barrington.
Who enforces infractions of those bylaws?
We have a someone at town hall whose, part of their job is to oversee this bylaw.
What is the window on this registration process? When do folks have to get fully squared away with Great Barrington at this point?
So, it's 30 days from April 1st.
Do you feel like at this point, you have a good sense of how many short-term rentals are being offered in Great Barrington, or what kind of gray area rentals are going to be brought to the fore with the new restrictions and requirements?
I think we have some idea. I think this registration will flush out exactly how many we have. We thought we had around 225, and we'll see as this goes along if we were close on that.
There was some debate about the need for this process in Great Barrington. You were one of the advocates for this program. Can you break down what you think this is going to bring to the community, having this sense of exactly who's renting what to whom?
Yeah, besides the health and safety issues, in my mind, the biggest thing, which sometimes is overlooked, is the making sure neighborhoods aren't overrun with commercial businesses. You know, we have bylaws that don't allow hotels into neighborhoods without permitting, special permits, or maybe not at all. And this will give us an idea, first of all, to keep our neighborhoods somewhat residential neighborhoods, which, in Great Barrington, they're wonderful neighborhoods, and we want to keep them that way.
Some folks in the community at town meeting, they framed this as the town overstepping in its authority. What's your response to that?
Well, you know, all zoning bylaws, in certain extent tell homeowners and businesses what they can't and can do with their home or with their business, and this is just another example. I don't, clearly I don't look at this as overstepping, but I understand the argument.
What's the next step for Great Barrington with short term rentals? Do you feel like this is the end of the conversation? Or could there be another chapter to this story?
Well, there are a number of citizens petitions for town meeting that will strip some of the power away from the bylaw that was enacted last year. Barring that passing, if that doesn't pass, I think we will just build a database and see what Great Barrington has. I think we're just getting information now.
