Public Hearing Scheduled On Short-term Rental Bylaw

BREWSTER – In the first official move on short-term rental regulation since last fall, town planner Jon Idman presented a draft bylaw at Monday’s select board meeting to set the groundwork for additional management and monitoring of rentals. 

 The purpose of the bylaw is to authorize the town to regulate the operations of short-term rentals (STR) in accordance with state law. Specifics for STR units will come later, once detailed regulations are adopted. 

 Idman said town meeting would vote on a registration system along with inspections. The regulations that follow would not be subject to a town meeting vote and could be adopted by the select board. 

 The board will hold a hearing on the bylaw Monday, March 16 at 6 p.m.

 The bylaw provides a framework for how STRs can be managed. It includes language requiring all STRs to register with the town in order to operate legally, receive timely inspections and mandates that the town develop regulations governing those activities. It also includes a section on penalties and enforcement, which is relatively standard and includes fines ranging from $100 to $300. 

 Idman said the regulations would contain application fees, the substance of the applications and standards for STR premises and operations. Specified fee amounts were not included in the bylaw because they would be subject to change, and any amendments to the bylaw would require town meeting vote. The select board agreed. 

 Although no fee numbers had been confirmed, Idman said he was looking at setting the application fee at around $250 to $300. In comparison to other towns across the Cape, these numbers were determined to be an average. Fees in other towns range from $50 to $750.

 “The legal test is always that your fees actually have to cover the cost of services and not make a profit on those things,” said Idman. Fees would need to cover the costs of extra staffing for registration and inspections. He said towns that have settled on $50 are most likely asking STR owners to submit documentation of their units without any follow up or oversight by the town. 

 Idman also mentioned that the select board should be thinking of how precise they want the policy to be. He said they could establish classes of operators with the intent to establish minimum stays. 

 Starting off with a simple bylaw allows the town to see if changes need to be made in the future, once the registration and inspection system is in place, Idman said. The task force, which was disbanded after completing its STR research, favored a simple approach given that no one in town understands the nuances of STR oversight at this point. 

 The board agreed that a draft version of the regulations should be public before town meeting votes on the general bylaw, given the regulations won’t be subject to a vote. 

 Town Manager Peter Lombardi said discussion of the topics will be held in the coming weeks once the public hearing has concluded. Given residents’ interest in the STR task force’s work, the board understood that receiving feedback at the public hearing was critical to any discussions moving forward.