Conway town manager: Inspections not meant to be war on short-term rentals

CONWAY — The newly implemented rental inspection and license program isn’t a plot to get revenge on short-term rental owners but is an effort to address substandard construction, Deputy Town Manager Paul DegliAngeli said in a recent interview with The Conway Daily Sun.

The program to begin licensing and inspecting both long- and short-term rentals in single-family and two-unit dwellings began Sept. 1. DegliAngli said property owners should have their license or have made an application by Jan. 1, 2024.

Property owners will have two choices between now and Dec. 31. One is to fill out a form and pay $375 and have a fire department official inspect their rental property based on a 10-point safety checklist. If they pass, they will get a rental license good for three years. This form would have to be notarized. The second option, available from Sept. 5-Dec. 31, allows owners to fill out a “self affidavit” form confirming the property meets the life safety codes. The form has a $125 fee and is valid for one year. This option will only be available until Dec. 31.

The program began after the selectboard voted to start it Aug. 5 and following public hearings July 18 and Aug. 1.

DegliAngeli said the next round of public hearings — for regulating rentals in buildings with three to 11 units — will start Sept. 26.

The town this year is also inspecting new residential construction.

During the interview, DegliAngeli said up until now, Conway has never inspected new construction for a one- or two-family house.

“Why that bears repeating is that we’ve had a boom, we’ve had a growth spurt off the charts really,” he said. “And we believe it was, you know, fueled by the pandemic.”

He said many new Conway homeowners come from municipalities that do inspections and so they assume properties they bought in Conway had also been inspected, particularly if the home was a decade old or less.

“Well, you can’t make that assumption, because we’ve never inspected, and we’re learning that when we go into properties, even the newer ones, they’re not to code,” said DegliAngeli, adding, “Specifically, this program is concerned with life safety code.”

There are a variety of reasons for this, said DegliAngeli. It could be the builders didn’t keep up with continuing education or perhaps the owner did the work him or herself and then lied on the building permit paperwork to say a tradesman did it.

“The current administration decided now is the time to start inspecting these new constructions and start requiring the licenses for rental properties,” said DegliAngeli, adding town officials have had discussions about this for a decade.

At one of the public hearings, Realtor Josh Brustin asked why the town wasn’t inspecting owner-occupied homes.

In response to that question, DegliAngeli said during his interview short-term rentals are businesses that the selectboard have the authority to license.

“In order to get your license, we say you have to successfully pass the life safety code,” said DegliAngeli. “This is not a wheel we’re inventing.”

Inspections will be done by officials from the town’s fire precincts.

As for enforcement of the licensing program, DegliAngeli said the town could take non-compliant property owners to court. One possible outcome would be fines of up to $500 per day.

Asked about when the town might begin enforcement, DegliAngeli said it would depend on how the program is going.

“I would say that by the end of January, all those folks who got letters between now and Jan. 1, telling them it’s a requirement and that we didn’t hear from them, will be getting a second notice,” said DegliAngeli. “After that, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Asked how many long-term rental properties are in Conway, DegliAngeli said he suspects there may only be a few hundred, whereas there are anywhere from 700-900 STRs in town.

Prior to the pandemic, the town was working on crafting ordinances to allow and regulate short-term rentals. Then COVID-19 happened and complaints to the town “soared” as people saw out-of-state license plates in the driveways next door and grocery stores having empty shelves.

“Out of fear was anger, and they wanted something done,” said DegliAngeli, adding the selectboard felt the pressure and went to court. “We lost.”

The selectboard could have proposed an ordinance rewrite to ban STRs instead of fighting to allow them, but they chose not to.

“They didn’t do that — they did what they originally intended to do before they got all of this pressure from a scared and frustrated populace during the pandemic,” said DegliAngeli.