LAKE PLACID — The Lake Placid Village Board of Trustees decided in an executive session on Monday to join the town of North Elba in considering a six-month moratorium on issuing new vacation rental permits.

The town and village are in the process of reworking their short-term rental regulations, now that a 2020 lawsuit against the municipalities — which kept them from making any major changes to their STR regulations — has been dismissed. The town board scheduled a public hearing on its proposed moratorium on new STR permits earlier this month. The village has now decided to follow suit.

Village Mayor Art Devlin and North Elba town Supervisor Derek Doty have said that they want to use the six-month moratorium to work together on possible changes to the current STR regulations. Devlin said he believes the town and village are interested in protecting neighborhoods, and that the municipalities want to hold public meetings to let the public provide feedback on STRs. Then, he said, when the village has a better idea of what the majority wants, the board will make laws accordingly.

The six-month moratorium wouldn’t affect any vacation rentals with existing permits, nor renewals for any of those permits, but it would put a hold on vacation rental permits that are currently pending or that have lapsed.

The complete text of the proposed moratorium can be seen on the town website at http://www.northelba.org/files/str-moratorium-2.9.22.pdf.

The village expects to join the town’s public hearing for the moratorium at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 23. People can join the meeting online at https://www.gotomeet.me/townofnorthelba/north-elba-str-moratorium or by calling 312-757-3121 and entering the access code 563-556-653.

Devlin said the town and village will open and close their own portions of the moratorium hearing, even though it’s a joint hearing, because the town-village joint land use code was amended to enable the municipalities to take separate actions when it comes to STR regulations. Devlin said the town and village plan to take separate votes on the moratorium.

The town and village are also proposing administrative edits to the town-village joint land use code, which include some additions regulating the use of solar panels. The full list of those amendments can be seen on the town website at http://www.northelba.org/files/locallaw-2.8.22.pdf.

The village and town will jointly hold a second public hearing that night at 6:30 p.m. for administrative edits to the town-village joint land use code. People can join that meeting online at https://meet.goto.com/townofnorthelba/luc-amendments-public-hearing or by calling 872-240-3212 and entering the access code 178-196-957.

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Executive session

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Devlin said Wednesday that the village’s decision to consider an STR moratorium was finalized with a “straw vote” during the board’s executive session during its regular meeting on Monday night. Then, he said, the details for the hearing were “worked out” on Tuesday morning.

The moratorium was brought up a few times in the public part of the board meeting as the board attempted to schedule a public hearing for the town-village joint land use code amendments, and Devlin repeatedly cut off the moratorium conversation by saying that the board would discuss the topic in its executive session that night.

Executive sessions aren’t open to the public. A public body can enter into an executive session for a specific set of reasons, according to the state Open Meetings Law, as long as the board makes a motion identifying a valid reason for entering into the executive session before taking a majority vote to enter it.

The board’s agenda for that night said the board planned to discuss “contracts” and “litigation” in its executive session, though a motion for the board to enter an executive session on Monday was made without board members giving a reason for the motion.

According to the assistant director of the state Committee on Open Government, Kristin O’Neill, a discussion about a short-term rental moratorium is not a sufficient reason for entering into an executive session.

“It does not sound to me, based on the description, that it was an appropriate reason for entering into an executive session,” O’Neill said, when asked if discussing STR moratoriums in an executive session is permissible in the state Open Meetings Law. “It seems to me that that conversation should have occurred in open session.”

O’Neill also said that “contracts” is not one of the reasons a public body can enter into an executive session, saying, “the word ‘contract’ isn’t used in that list.”