NORTH ELBA — The North Elba Town Council is planning on revamping the current short-term rental complaint processing system to make it easier for residents to register complaints and receive responses in a more timely manner.

This improvement, which was discussed during a board meeting on Tuesday, would employ a different software called Cloudpermit, which they already use for building permit applications. The town would receive calls from an answering machine and the code enforcement officers would respond to non-emergency complaints within one business day. For emergencies, the answering machine message would direct users to call either the state police or the Lake Placid police.

According to Britt Waite, who works as a clerk and STR compliance monitor for the town of North Elba Building and Planning Department, the office doesn’t have a huge volume of complaint calls. Since June 2021, they have had 85 complaints, with only 25 this year.

“We have plenty of employees up there to handle it,” Supervisor Derek Doty said. “Complaints are infrequent.”

The town currently has a 24-hour hotline hosted by GovOS. The system costs the town around $900 per month. Waite said her department has heard feedback from residents reporting various issues with the hotline, saying they were having a hard time reaching a live person and didn’t hear back when they left messages.

The town council also plans to make it easier to search for information about STRs. Information about registered STRs is already searchable on the Town of North Elba-Village of Lake Placid website, but the board plans to make it more user-friendly and easier to find emergency contact numbers for individual STRs.

Doty said he hopes to have the new system up and running within six weeks. The current STR complaint line will remain in use until the new system is ready.