The Ellenville planning board made decisions on short-term rentals (STRS) at their January 21 meeting.

STRs, which include Airbnb and Vrbo properties, are controversial in Ulster County because they’re believed to have contributed to the area housing crisis, although, for some rental property owners, they’re an essential lifeline of profits. The planning board held a public hearing on the very first STR to actually come in and seek a legal permit under a new village law meant to regulate them without harming local rental owners.

The law bans STRs for weddings or events and specifies that each property can rent for no more than 90 nights of the year, allow no more than six adults, and have a managing agent who lives within five miles of the rental. Since then, there hasn’t been much interest from rental owners in the village, and the question has come up of whether the village code is too restrictive.

The hearing produced a window into how STR law is being crafted and reformed bit by bit as the reality of short-term rentals encounters the law as passed.

The public hearing was for 20 Hillcrest Avenue. There were no comments from the public and the application was approved. That was followed by another STR application for 8 Westwood Avenue, and the issue of the managing agent came up. The village law’s mandate that the agent has to live within five miles strikes some as unnecessarily restrictive. Joe Stoeckeler, chair of the board, said “I could see 15 miles. We don’t want to limit the pool of people who could do this too much.”

The board agreed, bumping the limit up ten miles. A motion was passed that called for the planning board to inform the village board of the need to change this requirement to 25 miles distance in any direction from the STR in Ellenville. The application for 8 Westwood Avenue was tabled to take account of possible changes in the law.

Speaking to the Shawangunk Journal later, Village Attorney Ian Morse explained that “The village law as it is rigid, and was meant to be very strict.”

Discussion then touched on the restriction for STRs of only being in operation for 90 days in the year. This poses the problem of identifying rule breakers and then enforcement of the law. It will be hard to know who operates for more than 90 days and it may be hard to prove.

Another difficult aspect of the issue was raised by board member Eric Cafaro. He asked for clarity on the part of the law stipulating that three violations in one calendar year can lead to a license suspension. Morse explained that three violations would lead to suspension, three more would case a revocation of the license.

Cafaro complicated things by adding that it had to be three definite violations, not “three random complaints from neighbors.” The STR might not be popular with neighbors, and what would the procedure be if they filed complaints without any real justification?

If there is a building code violation, anything compromising safety, then a violation can be declared by Code Enforcement Officer Dan Pollan. The grey areas will always be issues concerning proper management of garbage pickup and ensuring that the grass is mowed and kept neat. STR property owners will have to be notified of complaints, the property inspected to see if the complaints are justified and then a violation can be issued.

“The bedrock of due process is notice of what you did wrong and an opportunity to do right,” Morse told us.

There was also a discussion of the age-old issue of noise complaints.

Companies like Airbnb have systems that ban customers who cause such complaints. But legal responses are difficult, since the noise may not continue until the police arrive, if they do. And then there is the issue of measuring it. Decibel meters exist but are rarely available in police cars. In court there may be a request for several readings before there can be a judgement. All that puts the onus on the municipality to come up with a law that somehow threads this needle. Pollan was firm in saying that any noise complaints had to be addressed to the police.

All of this would have to be monitored by the building department, and as Pollan suggested, it sounds like a full-time job. The village law on STRs is likely to change as these discussions continue. In the meantime, two applications wait it out.