The volunteer committee — which includes two residents and representatives from the town board, planning board and Keene Central School Board of Education — released a survey more than 10 days ago to solicit feedback on what issues residents think local officials should prioritize in the coming years.

The responses will be used to build an updated community master plan, which will serve as a guideline for future development and may inform future laws, regulations and budget decisions, according to Keene town Supervisor Joe Pete Wilson Jr. The last community plan of its kind was drafted more than 15 years ago.

“What are the things I should be focusing on? What are the things that really matter to our community? Once we know, we can gather guidance on how to address those things,” Wilson said.

In the survey sent out to residents, the committee outlined 11 different topics and asked residents to rank the top five issues they believe need to be addressed.

Keene Central School is in the hamlet of Keene Valley. (Enterprise photo — Antonio Olivero)

Those topics are as follows:

¯ Broadband internet services

¯ Fire department expenses, finding efficiencies in town government and sharing services

¯ Preparing for disasters and climate resiliency

¯ Keeping Keene Central School viable and expanding Little Peaks Preschool, after school programming and day care services

This graphic shows all the vacation rental units in Keene listed on sites such as Airbnb and HomeAway on Wednesday, according to AirDNA.

¯ Keeping an eye on tax increases and equality

¯ Town branding

¯ Parking for hikers, businesses and residents; trail and tourist overcrowding; and shuttle services within town

¯ Site plan review, land classification and wetland preservation

¯ Making Keene a more environmentally friendly community; dump, transfer station, recycling, town sewer and composting issues

This graphic shows all the vacation rental units in Keene Valley listed on sites such as Airbnb and HomeAway on Wednesday, according to AirDNA.

¯ Support for seniors, low-income residents and preservation of the health center

¯ Making Keene a more welcoming community, including better support for tourists, curating a better community calendar, improving the promotion of cultural and art events, reestablishing the town’s “historic fishing reputation,” and creating or maintaining recreational bicycle and foot trails throughout the town

¯ Affordable housing and the regulation of short-term vacation rentals.

The committee curated those topics from the results of a different survey they released earlier this year, according to Jim Bernard, a retired resident who serves as co-chair of the local planning committee.

In the first round, “I don’t know exactly how many responses we got — maybe 50,” Bernard said. “We’re getting an even higher response rate on this round. We’re estimating between 70 and 75 responses.”

The deadline for residents to reply is this Friday. The committee plans to get together this weekend to compile the responses, according to Bernard. After that, the committee will break out into smaller focus groups that will explore each topic and offer suggestions for potential solutions.

“We want to continue this process and cycle through it,” Wilson said. “We want to continually tackle these things instead of getting stuck trying to play catch-up on larger issues.”

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Short-term rentals

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From the responses the committee has received so far, affordable housing and the regulation of short-term vacation rentals appear to be the top issues residents want the town to address, according to Bernard.

The number of short-term vacation rentals in the town of Keene, particularly the number of rentals that may not be paying occupancy taxes, has become a real concern within the community, according to Wilson.

In the second quarter of 2016, there were 35 active short-term rentals that listed Keene or Keene Valley addresses, according to AirDNA, a platform that aggregates online vacation rental data. That number has more than doubled since. In the second quarter of this year, there were 88 active short-term rentals. That includes both private rooms and entire homes.

This trend isn’t unique to Keene. As the number of short-term rentals in the village of Lake Placid continues to rise — prompting complaints from some residents who feel the rentals are having an impact on their quality of life, the affordability of the area and the availability of housing — the vacation rental industries in neighboring communities such as Jay, Wilmington and Saranac Lake have continued to grow, too.

Saranac Lake has seen significant growth in its short-term vacation rental market. In the second quarter of 2016, the community had 107 active listings. That number that has more than doubled since, prompting the village board to start talking about gathering information for a registry. The number of active short-term rental listings in Wilmington has more than doubled in that same timeframe, from 43 then to 113 now, and the number of listings in the town of Jay has more than tripled, from 26 then to at least 79 now.

“I have to think (the industry) has an impact on the quality of life for residents and the affordability of a home here,” Wilson said.

The potential impact of short-term rentals on neighborhoods in Keene is something that hits home with Wilson, who grew up on Hillcrest Avenue in Lake Placid. In tandem with the rise in popularity of the online short-term rental industry, residents of Hillcrest Avenue now say their home values have skyrocketed, increasing the amount of taxes the people who remain there have to pay. Some have argued that this has pushed out families who can no longer afford to live in the neighborhood.

“I’ve seen the changes short-term rentals have wrought,” Wilson said. “How much do we want to regulate, or give free rein, to short-term rentals?”

Making a determination on that is something he wants to focus on.

“It’s (something) I’ve been anxious to address. We’re looking for the right way to do that for our town,” he said.

“Managing short-term rentals is rising to the top as an issue that everyone we’re hearing feedback from wants the town to address. We’re going to be addressing it.”