Debate around short-term rentals has divided communities around the region
By Tim Rowland
In the summer of 2008, two San Francisco roommates inflated an air mattress in their living room and called it a bed and breakfast — Airbed and Breakfast, to be exact. Using startup capital earned by selling Barack Obama- and John McCain-themed breakfast cereals at political conventions, they offered lodging online at Airbedandbreakfast.com, later shortened to Airbnb.com.
On the other side of the country, where at that moment housing values were suffering the effects of a collapsed subprime mortgage market, this opening salvo of the Sharing Economy was about to disrupt many lodging markets, including the Adirondack Park’s.
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Within a decade, a new term had entered Adirondack Park lexicon: Short Term Rentals, or STRs.
About this series
Adirondack Explorer is highlighting the region’s housing challenges, with a multi-part series running in our magazine and online. Award-winning Freelance Journalist Tim Rowland investigates causes of the housing shortage, housing’s effects on other aspects of Adirondack life, hacks that people use to get into a home and potential solutions being tried here and elsewhere. His reporting is based on review of real estate data, documents and extensive interviews.
Before they had become a full-fledged thing in the park, John Peck of Wilmington had stumbled upon Airbnb while trying to figure out how to hold onto the land that had been in his family for generations, but was now being taxed at an excess of $15,000 a year.
So he divided the house, half as his family’s residence, half as a short-term rental. Almost immediately, it felt as if a weight had been lifted, Peck said, “Because even a full time job wasn’t enough to sustain this property.”
Short-term rentals, for local people, can be an obvious answer to many embedded Adirondack problems: taxes, medical bills, fuel costs, poor wages. Cobbling multiple jobs is an Adirondack tradition, and Peck sees little difference between having two jobs and having one job plus a short-term rental.
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Across Route 86 his parents did the same, renting out a couple of bedrooms that were particularly attractive to foreign tourists who wanted interaction with a family well-versed in American culture and local history.
“Authenticity” became a buzzword and these small, family-based STRs had plenty of that. “They can hear my kids playing through the wall,” Peck said.
Even before the pandemic, younger travelers liked the idea of the sharing economy and staying in a home instead of an antiseptic motel room.
“Millennials went crazy for them,” said Jamie Konkoski, community development director for the village of Saranac Lake.
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The pandemic turbocharged the industry as travelers sought to minimize the number of fellow tourists they came in contact with. Investors, big and small, noticed and STRs started proliferating and taking a new, darker turn as residences became rentals.
What also changed was the technology — the fantastic ease with which anyone with a spare room could become a well-compensated landlord. “Right this second I can get on my computer and in 10 minutes I can turn my property into an STR,” said Dan Kiefer-Bach, community development director for the nonprofit LivingADK in Old Forge.
STRs democratized the industry. It was no longer necessary to have a big advertising budget or a brand name to get noticed by vacationers.
And, thanks to technology, gone were the arduous, dark days when those intent on an alpine holiday had to conduct multiple lodging searches and call around to find a place with open dates. Rooms no longer needed to be reserved months in advance. And, during the pandemic, as fast as new STRs could be posted online, vacationers with cell phone apps were there to snap them up.
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More to explore
For landlords, Airbnb made STRs a surer bet than renting long-term. It took care of the billing, booking, insurance and taxes. It screened renters. Long-term tenants were more likely to trash the property, miss payments and complain. Eviction, if necessary, was a long and expensive process.
Less enthralled have been STR neighbors, who during public hearings have complained of parties, parking problems and congestion. Town officials, meanwhile, worried about the safety of these rentals and the increased drag on public utilities.
And the effect on affordable housing was palpable. From 2019 to 2022, STR listings in the heart of the Adirondack Park grew by 43%, according to a study by Camoin Associates of Saratoga Springs.
“While the impact of short-term rentals on local housing markets is complex and nuanced, these units are undoubtedly having a negative impact on the communities where they are highly concentrated,” the study’s authors wrote.
Help is on the way
Read about a workforce-housing solution being developed in Wilmington
Communities split down the middle, with those benefiting from the STR gold rush on one side, and those who believe STRs were a cancer on traditional Adirondack communities on the other. STRs have changed long-standing community social stresses. What were once insider vs. outsider conflicts are now pitting resident against resident. Longtime friends are no longer on speaking terms.
That tension has frequently erupted as local officials take steps to regulate the industry.
Tiny towns that had often decried the lack of citizen participation suddenly found a way to attract vocal citizens to their monthly meetings: put STRs on the agenda.
“I’m nervous about a law that will drastically change what we have now, when I don’t know what the effect will be,” said Kristy Deyo, who owns Cedar Run Bakery and had rental property in Keene.
Wearing her two hats as a business owner and STR owner, Dayo says she can see both sides. A lack of residential housing has hampered her ability to attract employees, and her local friends were shut out of the market when the pandemic brought waves of new buyers from the cities. “None of the local people could compete with what was coming at us,” she said.
Wilmington Supervisor Roy Holzer, who owns two short-term and four long-term rentals, has led his board toward adopting STR regulations and is in favor of greater oversight.
Still, he said STRs give outlying towns a better chance of competing with Lake Placid and Saranac Lake for tourism dollars. Although Wilmington’s motels have their campy charm, they are aging and lack the luxury amenities that many travelers demand. “But I’ll put Wilmington’s STRs up against any from Lake Placid,” Holzer said.
Nor is it just the STR owners who have been reaping rewards. Home cooks became caterers. Hotel employees left their jobs cleaning rooms and went to work for themselves cleaning STRs. “You can make $15 an hour as a hotel maid, or make $200 spending a couple hours cleaning an STR,” Holzer said. “Which are you going to choose?”
Yet for residents wanting to rent or buy a home there was little doubt that the STR movement was lacerating the available housing stock.
Wilmington has 414 households and more than 100 STRs. Town Councilman Tim Follos, who often spars with Holzer on the STR issue, said it strains credulity to claim that this ratio isn’t making affordable housing difficult to find. It’s no coincidence, he said, that the rise of STRs and Adirondack housing shortages at the same time.
“It is a struggle, and it’s deterring people from living here — not just deterring, preventing,” Follos said. “This hits people who were born and raised in Wilmington and are heavily invested here, whose adult children cannot find housing.”
In some respects, Holzer and Follos aren’t that far apart. Follos would less-heavily regulate owner-occupied properties, while charging “clerkless hotels” higher registration fees and holding them to higher standards. “They’re businesses, and they should be treated like businesses,” Follos said.
Holzer similarly says it’s unfair that hotels must pay sales tax, while STRs don’t (both pay bed taxes). Charging sales tax would mean an extra $1 million in Essex County revenue, which could be used for housing initiatives, he said.
A state STR law might also streamline enforcement, while turning down the temperature on community arguments — but Holzer acknowledges the industry has a powerful lobby that may be tough to fight. Indeed, in the last six months of 2022, Airbnb spent more than $200,000 lobbying New York elected officials, according to the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government.
One other solution seems possible, if for now unlikely: the STR meteor could burn itself out.
Already, rising interest rates have made short-term rentals a less-attractive investment. Especially for amateurs, keeping tabs on the property, dealing with regulatory paperwork, paying fees and competing on prices might have an effect. “I think you will start seeing people say, ‘ah, I’m just not going to bother anymore,’” Holzer said.
The series is funded in part by a grant from the Generous Acts Fund at Adirondack Foundation and by the Annette Merle-Smith Community Reporting Fund at Adirondack Explorer. If you would like to support our community reporting, get started here.
The best single solution is to simply increase the housing supply. But that is not helped when dedicated permanent housing is blocked by NIMBY, often xenophobic, opposition, such as in Webb. And then they wonder why their towns are dying because there’s nobody to staff emergency services or even the jobs that serve the tourists renting the STRs.
This article and the legal “remedies” sweep aside the real issue — continuously rising property taxes. If STRs are prevented, those homes will become second homes to wealthy people from Manhattan and CT, just as many are already.
The housing crisis will actually get worse, as will the economy — part time residents don’t contribute much.
The state’s greed will spell the end of communities here. And gas stations, grocery stores, etc.
The APA and DEC are the Crisis
Part Time residents don’t contribute much ? What world are you inhabiting ? Ask any Adirondack non profit organization where the bulk of their donations come from and they will tell you that it is from part time or seasonal residents. These are the organizations whose mission is encouraging thriving communities for residents, tourists and seasonal residents alike. Ask any county where the tax revenues have increased because of new more expensive housing which has been built. Ask any restaurant owner about his revenues during the summer months as opposed to the winter months. You just don’t like us much but you don’t care to know us or acknowledge the contributions we make. And guess what ? We love this place as much as you do !
Just as much as we do, but not enough to live here full time. There are people who need homes here who actually love, and work, and appreciate the area simultaneously. This has been a problem for generations. Businesses have a high and low season. It’s the nature of the beast. Gentrification is happening with your “expensive home” proliferation. It’s ok. Those homes will need to be maintained, the people whom you depend on to run those not for profits will be diminished. There will be no one to run the seasonal businesses. It’s not always about the almighty dollar or tax revenue, there is a human component. You’re missing it.
I absolutely love visiting the Adirondacks from WNY. I hope these towns can find a suitable solution. I think more units are needed everywhere. Perhaps some of the older closed/outdated motels sprinkled throughout the region could be converted into condos or made into more desirable rentals by making improvements (such as larger rooms and having kitchenettes) to take some pressure off of SFH. I’d definitely consider a quiet, family friendly motel (ideally with its own small kitchen, as we enjoy being able to make some of our own meals) as an alternative to the typical Airbnb.
I’m with Laura.
Mike Lambert
Falmouth MA
More $$ for local budgets come from more expensive housing! Ask your assessor
how much more $$ comes in from these higher price’s for homes that are selling which the assessors are using these high selling prices to increase all the folks homes taxes cause that is the market value and that is how property is accessed.
So you have a double hit because of STR higher prices and higher taxes even for local owners.
And do not even mention ” work force housing” which is just socialist spin word for subsidized housing IMHO
I purchased a dilapidated property on Upper Saranac Lake in 2014. The real estate announcement stated it needed TLC. It did, it looked like a dump and sat vacant for over five years. Where were the locals that can’t find a property to buy?
I didn’t know until I bought the property that it was ready to go up for sale for back taxes–they hadn’t been paid for years. I realized I had paid many times what the house would have sold for at the tax auction. The town of Santa Clara got their back taxes and had a new waterfront property owner who would now pay his taxes like clockwork. I also removed a neighborhood eye sore and turned an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan.
I pay the Central Saranac School District three times the taxes I pay to my school district in PA, but I never had nor will I ever have a child attending that school.
My wife and I spent three years while we lived in Saranac Lake rebuilding the house. I was on a first name basis at Aubuchon’s, Curtiss Lumber, Tupper Lake Supply, the electrical supplier in Saranac Lake and with the five contractors I employed for almost three years. We pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into the local economy. We took on a considerable debt load with NBT bank in Saranac Lake, and a real estate agent suggested STR s as a way to assist with mortgage and tax payments.
I hope this magazine takes the time to interview the business owners and contractors who depend on the population swelling by multiples each summer with visitors who stay in STRs. It’s very hard to believe that they want to bite the hands that feed them.
The locals couldn’t afford the renovations. We don’t have the expendable income to buy second vacation homes in need of extensive repair. You apparently have too much. Don’t confuse your privilege with year round residents reality.
Huh? You could not! They did! They contributed to your local economy then, right? A thank you would be sufficient!!
I live in Saratoga Springs and we have the same problem with STRs..they have deteriorated our standard of living by allowing full time airbnbs in our neighborhoods.we have no neighbors..and what is being allowed( that is illegal) is hotels which should be in commercial zones.There is no one to evict the loud parties and barking dogs that renters leave behind for a concert or dinner. It has damaged our sense of community and I would like to see it banned here. If you want a hotel …open one up with the proper zoning !!
Yes yes yes!
Full time, part time ? Some folks are just not into winter ! Last time I looked we were all humans here, shopping in Shaheens, gassing up at the Stewarts, and going to the Farmer’s market.We pay our share of the taxes needed to keep this place going when we are not here. And the vital services you need when we are gone. What could be more equitable ?
All these STRs do is push out the local people that have lived here their whole life… and it makes it unaffordable for local people stay and raise families…
The towns need to revamp and raise requirements for these STR. my safety and quality of life has been put to the test time
again and, again. A one lane, dead end, private roads that can not accommodate emergency vehicles should not approve STR.
Tim, you did a great job in illuminating the wide range of issues and perspectives on STRs. Now please dig deeper. There are many facts behind the factors you raise. Now tell us what is real. follow the money. How many STRs can actually be LTRs? How many units are really removed from our supply? How much new town revenue from increased property values if any, does a town generate? Does a ban on STRs prevent noise? Or does a noise ordinance? Do property assessments on second homes actually increase the tax bill for full-time residents? Keep digging, don’t let your research stop here.
My husband inherited property that sold for back taxes on Lake George. A home across from us sold for 3 mil, was razed, along with beautiful old trees, rebuilt, and our taxes go up. We have rented before, but now, it seems necessary just to pay the taxes. This issue is unbelievably complicated, and from where I stand, charging more money just puts the homesteaders out of their inheritances and into the hands of the wealthy who will do the same as we are.
At least some towns have the discussion going. Town of Jay and its particularly STR saturated Ausable Acres is more and more being owned by LLCs running STRs with litter consideration for the neighborhood. The only people who are pro STR are making money from them. Tax the “S” out of “STR” and maybe they go away and the motels return.