This image shows the first page of the online housing survey sponsored by the North Elba-Lake Placid Community Development Commission’s Joint Community Housing Committee. (Photo provided)

LAKE PLACID — A survey designed to gather more input from locals on Lake Placid’s housing crunch is now online.

The North Elba-Lake Placid Development Commission’s Joint Community Housing Committee, or JCHC, is sponsoring the survey.

Locals are invited to take the survey at https://tinyurl.com/lakeplacidhousingsurvey. The deadline to weigh in is Jan. 2.

The 28-question survey asks if the town and village have too many or too few short-term vacation rentals, and how lawmakers should approach regulating them. It asks what the biggest housing challenges facing the town and village are, what the survey-taker’s ideal housing type is, and what they like and don’t like about their current living situation.

“The goal of this survey is to understand the community perspective on housing and identify how much and what type of housing is needed now and in the future,” the JCHC said in a news release. “It should take about 10 minutes to complete, and your individual responses will be kept confidential.”

This survey is one piece of an ongoing housing study undertaken by Camoin 310, a Saratoga-based consulting firm, at the request of the JCHC. The study will assess Lake Placid’s existing housing stock, identify gaps in the market, look for ways to improve the availability of affordable and workforce housing and examine the impact of short-term rentals on the housing market. Camoin 310 and the JCHC hosted an informal meeting at the Olympic Center last month to gather in-person input. Between 50 and 70 people turned out, and the general consensus was that more housing and short-term regulations are needed, and residential neighborhoods need to be preserved.

JCHC Chair Emily Politi has said the study will serve as a foundation upon which solutions to the area’s housing shortage can be built.

“You need this data to write grants,” Politi said at a JCHC meeting last month. “There’s going to have to be public-private partnerships. If you can identify these gaps, if you can identify that there’s this strong market for people who are trying to rent homes at $800 per month, and it’s one bedroom — with all of those things, we can hopefully entice a private developer.

“We’re not just doing this to do it,” she added. “The goal is to have some end results that matter, so we have data that directs our policy but also brings other people in, brings grants in and brings private developers in.”

The full results of Camoin 310’s housing study are expected to be made public by mid-January.