SARANAC LAKE — The village of Saranac Lake is preparing to resume discussion about nuances of its short-term vacation rental law with the public as it enters the next phase of implementing the landmark legislation.

Last month, the Development Board finished issuing permits to all 84 pre-existing STR properties in the village, grandfathering them in before stricter residency requirements and maximum permit caps take effect under the new law.

On Monday, board members agreed to schedule a working session and public hearing in mid-September and invite development board members to discuss the future implementation of the law.

The village has had a moratorium on new STR permits since last year. It is set to expire in December.

The moratorium could last until its scheduled expiration. It could also be extended or ended early. This is one of the many decisions the village will need to make on its STR law coming up.

It’s been around a year since the village had a major discussion of STRs and its regulations. After months of long public meetings, discussion died down after the law passed in June 2023.

The conversation will resume sooner than expected after the grandfathering in of preexisting STRs went faster than expected, shaving months off of the anticipated timeline.

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Data

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Village Community Development Director Katrina Glynn shared some new statistics on the number of STRs in the village, putting hard numbers to data which for a long time were estimates at best.

She said the village processed 84 applications for pre-existing STR properties.

A property can have more than one unit on it. Glynn said there are 116 pre-existing STR units and that the village issued 116 pre-existing permits.

Of these 116 units, she said 42 are owner-occupied, meaning the property owner lives on the property they are renting out full-time. The 72 non-owner-occupied units could be second homes or investment properties owned by either locals or people living elsewhere.

In 2021, the village had 2,913 residential units. Though this number has likely changed in the years since, using it shows STRs currently make up around 4% of the housing stock.

An STR unit can have more than one bedroom. Glynn said there are 254 pre-existing STR bedrooms in the village. She calculated that these bedrooms can house 644 occupants. She also said there is a total of 321 hotel rooms within the village.

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Past and future

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The pre-existing permits were all guaranteed to be approved, as the village wanted to them in before the stricter rules for new STRs take effect as a measure to protect people who currently use them as a revenue stream.

Currently, anyone renting out a property as an STR without one of those preexisting permits would be in violation of the village law and subject to fines — $500 per day of violation.

Glynn said she hasn’t tried to personally track down any new illegal STRs. She said neighbors have been vigilant, so flying under the radar would be hard to do. Neighbors tend to know where the existing STRs are, and if one were to pop up, she hopes someone would notice and tell the village about it.

There will be fees for obtaining an STR permit, with sharply increasing rates for larger and larger operations — ranging from $25 to $1,600.

Glynn said that since all pre-existing permits are to be renewed on Jan. 31, 2025, she’d ideally like any new permits to be issued by then, to get everyone on same renewal

Any caps on new STR permits will be set by each zoning district in the village, according to village law. These caps are to be reevaluated annually.

The metric used for setting caps in each zoning district is still to be determined. On Monday, Trustee Kelly Brunette suggested creating caps for each zoning district based on the percentage of STRs among the total number of housing units in that district — basically, basing it on density.

But that is just one of the options they have for determining how these caps are set.

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Changes since passage

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Glynn said one of the big differences between pre-existing permits and new permits is the residency requirement. Applicants for new permits will need to be village residents, or at least have an LLC with 25% local ownership.

Last month, she told the Enterprise she’s noticed this clause has caused a chilling effect on the speculation of land for STRs in the village. Glynn said when she gets calls from realtors with clients looking to buy homes in Saranac Lake to rent as STRs, after she tells them about the residency requirement, they tell her their clients aren’t interested anymore.

The passage of the village law in June 2023 came just a couple of months after the vacation rental and management company Evolve named Saranac Lake the best place in the nation to buy a lakefront investment property in 2023.

This concerned village leaders, especially in light of the shortage of affordable housing in the region.

Another thing the STR permitting process has done is ensure every STR is registered with Franklin and Essex counties so they can collect occupancy taxes. Every STR in these counties is required to be registered with the county, so it can collect a 5% occupancy tax on each rental stay. Franklin County officials said last month they’d seen a in revenue from STR registrations in Saranac Lake since the process began.