Elected officials from the town of North Elba and the village of Lake Placid listen to comments during a public hearing on the town and village’s proposed STR law at the Lake Placid Conference Center on Tuesday night. (Enterprise photo — Lauren Yates)

LAKE PLACID — More than 130 people attended a public hearing on Tuesday, either virtually or in person at the Lake Placid Conference Center, on the village of Lake Placid and the town of North Elba’s proposed updates to the municipalities’ short-term vacation rental regulations.

Some attendees encouraged town board members to rethink the proposed cap on hosted rental permits in the town’s residential areas, while others theorized that the proposed law could decrease property values and homeowners’ rights in residential areas. Several residents stressed the importance of enforcing any new STR regulations and asked that the STR complaint line be streamlined. A couple of people asked the town and village to consider using revenue from occupancy taxes collected on STR stays to incentivize people to move to the area through grants, or to fund local emergency services. But more than a third of Tuesday night’s 29 speakers expressed concerns about the town’s proposal to rezone Deerwood Hills from a “Rural Countryside” district to a “Town Residential” district.

More than 60 people attended the hearing in person, while more than 70 people tuned in virtually. The town and village boards have not yet adopted the proposed new STR regulations. This hearing was required before the boards could schedule a meeting to vote on the changes. Town Supervisor Derek Doty has said that changes to the regulations could be made based on feedback. The proposed law is available online at tinyurl.com/bdcnbubm.

The town and village will continue to accept public comments about their proposed STR law via email through end of business this Friday, Dec. 2. People with comments about the village’s portion of the proposed changes can email village Clerk Anita Estling at lpclerk@villageoflakeplacid.ny.gov. People who want to comment about the town’s STR changes can email town Clerk Laurie Dudley at ldudley@northelba.org. People who are unsure whether their comment pertains to the town or village can email both clerks.

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Deerwood

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Eleven of the 29 people who spoke at Tuesday’s public hearing said they lived in the Deerwood Hills area. Residents there received an anonymous letter in the mail informing them that the town planned to rezone Deerwood to Town Residential, and the neighbors attended the hearing to voice their opposition to the proposal on Tuesday.

Most of the Deerwood residents said they were concerned that rezoning their neighborhood would allow people to subdivide their lots and build more homes in Deerwood, increasing the density of houses there and potentially straining sewer systems. Rural Countryside and Town Residential zones have different qualifications for minimum lot sizes. While a property in the Town Residential district can have a lot as small as half an acre, a lot in the Rural Countryside district can’t be smaller than one acre.

However, town Councilor Emily Kilburn Politi told residents after the hearing that the Adirondack Park Agency has jurisdiction over Deerwood, and that the APA’s restrictions on the density of lots there would supersede the town’s requirements. She said most of Deerwood is classified for resource management use, with a minimum lot size of 42.7 acres, per APA standards; the rest of the properties are classified for low-intensity use, with a minimum lot size of 3.2 acres. If the town did decide to rezone Deerwood, lot sizes couldn’t be significantly reduced without a variance from the APA, according to Kilburn Politi, which would have to be supported by the town.

Doty promised at the end of the hearing that the town council would address Deerwood residents’ concerns. Doty and Kilburn Politi spoke at length with a group of Deerwood residents that had gathered after the hearing, and Kilburn Politi explained that town officials were trying to protect Deerwood residents from an influx of STRs with the proposal. A few Deerwood residents said they would prefer to know lots couldn’t be further subdivided over protection from STR growth. Meanwhile, some Beech Hill residents wondered why their neighborhood couldn’t be rezoned to Town Residential as a measure of protection.

During the hearing, many of the Deerwood residents didn’t focus on the proposed STR law itself — most of them said there was only a handful of STRs in their neighborhoods, with only one causing “problems.” Some residents said they were glad the town wanted to prohibit unhosted rentals there, but all of the residents were against rezoning Deerwood Hills as a way to accomplish that.

Residents were worried that the character of their neighborhood could change, and several people said they preferred proper enforcement of STR regulations over rezoning. Deerwood resident Suellen McMillen put together a petition for Deerwood residents who wanted to oppose granting additional building rights should Deerwood be rezoned to town residential; some residents wondered whether a developer was behind the push to rezone Deerwood.

Deerwood resident Bronwyn Seal identified herself as the “grandma” of Deerwood. She said she and her ex-husband were the first people to move to Deerwood in 1975. She told the town board that residents “needed communication” about the proposed change ahead of the hearing; Doty said later that the town had opted not to send letters out to residents alerting them about the rezoning because they were told they didn’t legally need to. Seal said there have been a lot of changes in Deerwood over the years, but she’d be “truly devastated” if her neighborhood were rezoned.

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Unhosted changes

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Lake Placid village resident Peter Roland Jr., who’s the chair of the Lake Placid-North Elba Community Development Commission’s Joint Community Housing Committee, supported the village’s proposal to prohibit new unhosted STR permits in village residential districts. As a Hillcrest Avenue resident since 1984, Roland said he’s had a “front-row seat” to the increased STR presence there, which he said has contributed to rising home prices that middle-class locals can no longer afford.

“This is a social issue,” he said. “When shopkeepers, and health care professionals, school teachers and other residents that make up a community can no longer afford to live in that community, that community is in danger of losing its soul.”

Nina Armstrong, another Hillcrest resident and a Lake Placid native, encouraged the village to reconsider its proposal to allow existing unhosted STR owners in residential areas to keep their permits until there’s a change in ownership of their property. A couple of people with unhosted permits in residential areas also asked the boards to allow them to pass their permits on to their children.

In the current proposal, unhosted permit-holders in residential areas wouldn’t be able to pass on permits with a change in ownership, including passing on permits on to children.

A couple of unhosted permit-holders in residential areas asked board members to distinguish between LLCs who run unhosted STRs for profit and second homeowners who run unhosted STRs on their properties to afford a full-time future in Lake Placid.

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Next steps

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The town and village are now faced with either passing the proposed STR law as-is, or with altering the proposal based on public comments as they see fit. Dudley said that if changes to the proposed law are “minor” — like if the town decides not to rezone Deerwood, she said — another public hearing wouldn’t be required. The town held a special meeting to discuss STR regulations further on Wednesday night, and Doty planned to talk about Deerwood with residents at the meeting.

The town and village want to finalize the STR law before their current moratorium on new STR permits end.

The town on Monday extended its moratorium — which was supposed to end on Dec. 10 — through Jan. 31 to give councilors more time to consider public comments and file a new STR law with the county and state. However, town officials are hoping they won’t need the full extension to finalize the new law.

The village’s moratorium is set to end on Dec. 31.

Town and village boards put in hours of work through special meetings, conversations with town and village attorneys, and town hall-style meetings over the last several months to create the current proposed STR regulations presented on Tuesday. And before the village and town initiated a moratorium on new STR permits in March to focus on reworking STR regulations, the North Elba-Lake Placid Land Use Code Committee studied the effect of STRs in the town and village for years. Kilburn Politi on Tuesday called the committee’s work the “backbone” of the town and village’s proposed STR regulations. All of the proposed changes are based on the town and village’s base districts as identified in the 2011 land use code.

Discussions over STR regulations — and the pros and cons of STR growth in the community — have been ongoing for several years. The village and town adopted their first STR law in 2020 after years of discussions, meetings and public hearings.