LAKE PLACID — Another person has applied for an exception from the town of North Elba’s short-term vacation rental moratorium, which paused the issuance of new STR permits through mid-December.

The request comes as the town council gets closer to finalizing new STR regulations. The town has scheduled a public hearing for the request today.

New Jersey resident Amber Baranwal is applying for a moratorium variance for his family’s home on Rockledge Lane. They purchased the home in the fall of 2021. Baranwal wrote in his application that he and his family have encountered “significant financial hardships and trying times” over the last year that have been exacerbated by their inability to rent their North Elba home as an STR.

The Baranwals’ now-17-month-old son received a medical diagnosis that requires “intensive” care, and Baranwal’s wife was forced to leave her job to provide full-time care for their son, according to the application. Baranwal wrote that his family paid for his son’s medical treatment out-of-pocket for five months before his son received a diagnosis in September. The couple has cashed in one of their retirement accounts “to make ends meet,” according to their application, and they’re considering cashing in their final retirement account in January. But Baranwal said that money wouldn’t last long.

“If things do not change, we will find ourselves having to sell our dream home at a loss, file for bankruptcy, or give the home back to the bank,” Baranwal wrote.

This is the third variance request the town has received. Neither the town nor the village — which has received four exemption requests — has approved any variance requests.

People can attend the public hearing at 4:45 p.m. today in the first-floor meeting room of the North Elba Town Hall, virtually at gotomeet.me/townofnorthelba/board-meeting, or by calling 571-317-3122 and entering the access code 350-598-109. The town council’s regular board meeting will follow the public hearing at 5:30 p.m.

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The application

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Baranwal wrote in the family’s application that he and his wife are first-time homebuyers. He said they had dreams of raising their son here. He called the Rockledge Lane home their “dream home” throughout their variance application. He said they “gave everything” — including their entire savings — to “redo” the home. They hoped that STR income would help cover the costs of the home until they were financially stable enough to leave their jobs in New York City.

Right now, the Baranwals’ primary residence is in New Jersey, where they’re renting a home. Baranwal wrote that he’s tried renting their Rockledge Lane home as a long-term rental to supplement their income, but he said the monthly rent isn’t enough to cover the home’s mortgage payment. He said that his family’s bills exceed their income by more than $2,000 every month.

The Baranwals submitted multiple financial statements to the town to support their case — including home and renter’s insurance and caretaking expenses for their North Elba home, along with phone, utility and internet bills. They didn’t include receipts for recent medical expenses or renovations at their new home. He wrote that they’ve tried to sell their Rockledge Lane home in recent months after learning they couldn’t rent it as an STR, but they haven’t had any luck. Baranwal wrote that his family wasn’t aware of the STR moratorium when they bought the house “or else we would have never bought the property in the first place.”

The moratorium was imposed in March of this year, a few months after the family purchased the home. Permits for STRs have been required in North Elba since 2020.

Lake Placid Code Enforcement Officer Mike Orticelle said that he fined the Baranwals last month for renting their home out as an STR without a proper permit. The home is in the Moody Pond area and is zoned in the Saranac Lake Central School District, but the home is technically located in the town of North Elba and subject to the town’s land use code. Orticelle said it’s easy to get confused about town and village lines in the Moody Pond area; he said the house next door to the Baranwals is in the village of Saranac Lake, and just a few doors down from that he said there are homes zoned in the town of St. Armand.

The town of North Elba and the village of Lake Placid’s STR moratoriums started in March. Elected officials in the town and village initiated the moratoriums — which were initially supposed to last six months — so that town and village boards could focus on rewriting their STR regulations. The moratoriums have since been extended by three months, with the town’s moratorium now set to end on Dec. 10. North Elba Town Councilor Emily Kilburn Politi said on Monday that she doesn’t think the town will further extend its moratorium.

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New regulations

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The Baranwals’ residence on Rockledge Lane is in North Elba’s town residential zone, where the town is considering eliminating the issuance of new unhosted STR permits altogether. If the town doesn’t grant the Baranwals a variance before the moratorium ends, there’s a chance the family could no longer apply for an unhosted permit in the town. According to the town’s most recent STR regulations draft, the Baranwals could still apply for a hosted permit if they could show proof of local residency — like a driver’s license or voter registration.

Kilburn Politi said that right now, the town is waiting on its lawyer to return the final draft of STR regulations. When the town receives the final draft, she said, the council plans to immediately schedule a public hearing for the new regulations. The town wants to release the draft to the public ahead of the hearing so people can have time to “read and react” to it, Kilburn Politi said. By the end of this week, she hopes the town attorney will have an idea of when he’ll be done with the draft.