Draft ordinance would create a rental registry

A draft ordinance beginning to circulate in South Burlington would set regulations on short-term rentals like AirBnb and VRBO and would create a rental registry for the city’s more than 3,000 rental units.

The ordinance was written as part of a “cross-departmental effort” by members with the city’s planning, finance and fire departments, as well as the city’s legal team and its IT director.

“This is the big policy discussion for you; there’s a whole gamut of what different communities have done to meet the needs of their community,” said Paul Connor, the city’s planning and zoning director. “This draft is at one end of that spectrum, that prioritizes housing to be long-term housing, first and foremost.”

While still months out from becoming city code, the ordinance marks the first step by the state’s second-largest city to begin regulating its rental housing stock.

The city projects that more than 50 percent of its housing stock will soon be rental, multi-family housing, “a pretty substantial milestone,” Connor said, for a city that for decades has been composed primarily of single-family housing.

“We’re in the midst of a big transition in terms of the types of housing” in the city, Connor said at a recent affordable housing committee meeting. “Twenty years ago, two thirds of all the homes in South Burlington were single-family homes. Now, as of 2023, 50 percent are single-family homes, and that reflects in 20 years a pretty substantial change.”

“Year over year, the overwhelming majority of the housing that’s getting built in South Burlington is multi-family housing,” Connor said.

Currently, 60 percent of South Burlington homes are owned, and 40 percent are rentals.

“As we tip into 50 percent of rental properties — that’s half of our population that we want to make sure have access to quality housing ... and this allows us to build a system that we can document,” said city manager Jessie Baker. “Right now, we have no way of knowing if our rental housing stock is of quality.”

The ordinance, which was discussed by the city council at its April 3 meeting, would set regulations on short term rentals, and mandate that short-term rentals be allowed in owner-occupied housing only — or housing where the owner resides for at least six months and one day.

There is not an overabundance of housing used as short-term rentals in the city: there are about 73 active short-term rentals currently, the majority of which are single-family homes, according to data from AirDNA. The number of available short-term rentals has increased by nearly 25 percent over a three-year period.

Perhaps the more salient part of the ordinance would be its rental registry, which would give the city the ability to enforce zoning codes across a wide swath of its housing stock.

The city’s fire department is responsible for inspection of rental housing properties, but only do that when a tenant sends them a complaint. The department has only received 55 complaints over the last two years.

“Most people aren’t calling in to complain about their housing situation,” said Steven Locke, chief of the city’s fire department. “Some of our occupancies people should not be living in. Those types of occupancies we need to be in, but those people aren’t calling us to complain.”

“Because they’re worried about losing it,” city councilor Andrew Chalnick said.

An inspection cycle, like Burlington’s, would be created for rental properties should the ordinance be approved by the council. Inspectors would oversee building and zoning codes, state building energy codes and local heating and hot water inspections.

“The inspection cycle is really set similar to how Burlington reconfigured theirs, where if you have no violations on your inspection, you don’t see us for five years unless there’s a complaint,” Locke said. “But if you have several violations, and the more violations you have, the quicker we come back, and this is a good way to reward those property owners and managers that take good care of their property.”

Through inspection fees — $100 annually for registrants of a long- and short-term rental — the city would be able to fund two to three inspectors and administrative support, Locke said.

“Back of the napkin math says it’s going to pay for itself,” Locke said. A more detailed cost analysis will be conducted, officials said, and will then be presented to the council sometime in May.