Jackson selectboard to require short-term rental logs

JACKSON — The Jackson Selectboard recently decided to require certain short-term rental owners to turn over their logs showing how many times their property has been rented.

STRs are allowed in Jackson with a conditional use permit granted by the selectboard. According to the town, short-term rental units in the rural residential district created after March 12, 2020, are limited by the ordinance to 30 rentals per dwelling unit annually. Those short-term rental units in existence on or before that date and owner-occupied STRs are exempted from the 30 rental per year limit.

On April 11, the selectboard amended the short-term rental permit application to say that STR owners will have to provide a list of their rental occurrences this year on or before Jan. 31, 2024. This was recommended by town counsel Jason Dennis of Hastings Law Office in Fryeburg, Maine.

Letters to STR owners will be drafted to remind them of the 30-rentals limit. A rental is considered per tenant; it could be a day or up to 30 consecutive nights.

Prior to Tuesday, the town had the 30-rentals-per-year limit but no way to verify compliance with that part of the regulation because the application didn’t require owners to keep a log.

“Something has to be done in terms of the enforcement,” said selectboard Chair Frank DiFruscio in a phone interview last Thursday.

“We are working toward getting the right language ... just to remind people that they have a responsibility at the end of January 2024 to let us know how many rentals they have and are they adhering to the 30-rental limit for those who are not grandfathered,” DiFruscio said.

DiFruscio clarified to The Sun on Wednesday via email: “If you were an STR before March 2020, you are grandfathered, no log is necessary. There are 109 approved STRs. Of that number, 13 are limited to 30 rentals per year. In the next few weeks we will be sending notices to the 13 that we need annual tallies of the number of rentals.”

The updated permit application says, “I/we understand and accept that for Short Term Rentals in the Residential District, I/we must provide an annual rental list on or before Jan. 31 for the proceeding calendar year.”

Asked if the requirement to submit rental data to the town was being placed on new permit applicants or on those who already have permits, DiFruscio said at first he wasn’t sure there was a distinction.

“People must realize that at some point, they could be asked, ‘Are you adhering to the 30 [rental] limit?’” said DiFruscio, adding there aren’t that many STRs in town.

However, he said he would bring the reporter’s question to the rest of the board. He added that maybe asking those who hold permits already to submit documentation is a “gray area.”

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“I just want to see if they see it the way I see it, that it’s already in the application originally, [STR owners] should know that and this is really nothing extra,” said DiFruscio.

Town Administrator Julie Atwell said in an email that questions about which STR owners will be required to produce rental information will be tackled at a a future board meeting.

“At this point, the only thing that has happened is the updated application has been approved,” she said.

Paul Mayer of the Mt. Washington Valley Association for Responsible Rentals says STR owners should question the town’s right to ask for their logs.

“The town cannot require or compel speech regarding personal financial information. Even the federal government has trouble with that,” said Mayer.

“If they attempt it, the STR owner could question the town’s right to ask and the town’s right to limit a legal use to a specific number of days,” Mayer said.

In related news, the selectboard sent a warning letter to one property Balsam Drive who had rented short-term in the past for an issue about lack of egress in a sleeping area. The property owner had told the town that they stopped renting in October.

The selectboard meets next on April 25.

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Managing Editor Margaret McKenzie contributed to this article.

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