SARANAC LAKE — The village board unanimously approved a slate of amendments to its landmark short-term vacation rental law on Monday, creating limits on how close STRs can be to each other, differentiating hosted and unhosted STRs and capping the number of STR permits allowed for hosted and unhosted units, villagewide, instead of capping by village districts.

The initial law was passed last year. After a moratorium on allowing new STR units ended at the end of the year, the first round of new applications before the development board brought around several unforeseen issues. These amendments address some of the concerns the public brought up.

Village board trustees have said when they adopted the law, they knew it would likely need to be tinkered with.

Several development board members had said they’re concerned by the number of bedrooms in the village being used as STRs, but that there was no criteria for them to deny permit applications in the law. They also didn’t have the ability to regulate the clumping of STRs in specific neighborhoods.

Mayor Jimmy Williams said the amendments took a lot of effort from a number of village boards and employees, and he felt they had a good outcome to address the public’s concerns.

It took the village and development boards countless hours of discussion, debate and work to craft the initial law. A similar abundance of work was put into these amendments.

The amendments will now be filed with the state secretary of state to be approved and added to the law.

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The amendments

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The amendments create new classes of STRs — hosted and unhosted — with separate caps for both types. Village officials said it was evident the public prefers STRs with hosts living on-site. These types of STRs are less likely to have issues with loud parties, they believe.

A hosted STR is defined as one that is the owner’s “primary residence.” The host needs to stay at the property overnight during each rental to qualify for this. Hosted STR applicants will need to sign affidavits stating that they meet these qualifications. If the host changes their status and does not live on-site, their permit will be void.

The amendments do away with the district-based maximum caps on STR permits, leaving just two villagewide caps — one for hosted and one for unhosted — with an expected higher cap total for hosted STRs.

The amendments also set density restrictions to reduce clusters of STRs by establishing a 200-foot buffer zone around STR properties.

Districts E1, E2, E3, B1, B2, B3, B4, G, L3 and the cabin colony homeowners association in K2 are excluded from this density requirement. These districts encompass the village downtown, Lake Flower Avenue and AMA Way. This is because board members wanted to encourage STRs downtown, in commercial areas where commercial activity is expected, as opposed to neighborhoods. They said having them in these districts — where there are already businesses, or have historically had STRs — wouldn’t change the character of these neighborhoods.

The amendments eliminate a clause allowing for exemptions to district caps, since the other amendments get rid of caps on individual zoning districts. The law will just have villagewide caps.

Currently, the village sets a cap of new allowable STRs each year. The village currently has around 120 STR units, representing around 255 bedrooms, or slightly more than 600 occupants. This year, the village board set its villagewide cap for new permits at 10.

A village report last year found that STRs make up around 5.3% of the village residential housing stock — which is made of 1,527 properties.

The full slate of proposed amendments, annotated into the existing law, can be found at tinyurl.com/57rszf25 starting on page 26. Changes to the law are highlighted in red text.

To read more about the creation of the amendments, go to tinyurl.com/53v6ns8h.

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Public comments

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At a public comment session on the amendments earlier this month, community members said they broadly support the changes to the law, but requested more changes to fix other issues they see.

Village resident Tamara Van Ryan said the board needs objective criteria in the law on how to establish caps, to be transparent and consistent. Right now, no one knows how the caps on hosted and unhosted STRs will be set.

Williams said the village will continue doling out the remaining five of the 10 new permits allowed under the cap they set in January. Next January, the village and development boards will determine how to set the caps for hosted and unhosted units, he said.

Village resident Deb Story thanked the board for responding to community feedback and said the amendments had positive changes, but that she had a couple more suggestions.

She felt the renewal process needs to ensure that STR hosts are being good neighbors, to provide incentive for them to ensure their unit is good.

“Personally, I’ve never had any issues with my multiple STR neighbors,” Story said. “But if I were to have problems in the future — and more specifically, recurring problems — that should be a consideration when an STR owner is renewing a permit.”

Van Ryan and Story both said there’s currently no criteria for denying a permit renewal. Williams felt that if a neighbor files a complaint about a unit to the village, and it is not solved when its renewal comes around, that would be taken into consideration by the board.

“If they don’t remedy, then I think that would be grounds for not receiving a renewal,” Williams said. “Permits do not have to be renewed if there are issues outstanding.”

To date, Williams said the village does not have neighbor complaints about any STRs filed with the police or code enforcement departments. Noise complaints go to the police and operations complaints go to the code enforcement department.

Story asked for a more concrete mechanism for neighbors to lodge complaints, saying she felt it’s not realistic to have the police respond to every complaint.

Village resident Trevor Sussy suggested a provision limiting the distance from an STR to a residence, to keep STRs from being too close to homes. His house is 12 feet away from his neighbor’s. If that one was an STR, he felt it would change his quality of life dramatically.

Van Ryan recommended a variety of wording and punctuation changes to the amendments — including commas she felt were important to interpretation of the law, removing leftover references to “district caps,” describing the 200-foot density boundary as a “buffer” instead of a “radius” and defining a primary residence as a place for domestic life “and” a voting and tax address instead of “or.”

Williams believes the intent of the law is clear, and since it’s been reviewed by the village attorney, he feels that the language works. He feels the law has already been fulfilling its purpose.

The rule that only village residents or people with LLCs with at least 25% local ownership can apply for STR permits has quelled the swell of land speculation of properties as investment STR properties that was increasing before the law.