Photo by Tim Rowland
About 200 residents turned out at a public hearing last week to voice complaints or defenses of short-term rental properties.
LAKE PLACID | Long-time Lake Placid residents turned out at a public hearing last week in defense of traditional neighborhoods and a small-town way of life that they said are being swallowed up and destroyed by short-term rental properties with their noisy parties an overflow of cars.
At the same time, an equal number of people defended the rental properties, saying that it’s the way people want to travel these days, and to restrict them would be tantamount to driving away the lucrative tourist trade.
The boards of Lake Placid and North Elba have recognized the problem, and drawn up regulations that, depending on who was speaking, was either too tight or not tight enough. The mood of the meeting — which attracted nearly 200 people — was civil, but with a discernible edge. At times it appeared that a consensus could be reached, and at times it didn’t.
It’s an issue with almost too many angles and exceptions to count. At one end of the short-term rentals are companies that rent massive houses to as many as 22 people at a time. At the other was a woman who said that, when she hit a rough patch, she would have lost her home had she not been able to rent out a room.
In answer to a complaint of loud noise, one short-term-rental caretaker said he arrived in the middle of the night to find a room full of strippers and a gaggle of drunken, beefy guys who did not look as if they would take kindly to an interruption in the entertainment.
But at others, the guests are in bed by 9:30, and consider chatting with the neighbors to be a good way to learn about the area. “Our neighbors tell us that they love our guests,” said Debbie Josephson. “It’s worked for us.”
Many governments across the country have struggled with similar problems and have had mixed success at trying to regulate so many disparate business models under one law. And even as Lake Placid moves forward with regulations, it is being watched by other Essex County locales that are experiencing similar problems, although not on as large a scale.
Short-term rentals are not new, but they caught fire with the emergence of Airbnb and other online brokerages that handle the details for people wishing to rent out their homes on a nightly basis, generally to tourists. At least that’s how it started. Now, the movement has gone corporate, with houses being purchased and fixed up en masse specifically as alternatives to hotels.
Residents said these “predatory” companies have driven up housing values to the point they are no longer affordable to middle-class families. And they questioned how these businesses could be legally located in neighborhoods zoned residential. The companies counter that, largely because of taxes, the homes weren’t affordable to middle-class families to begin with. And by fixing up the properties they are actually saving big homes from potential abandonment and decay.
Lake Placid is also a victim of its success in attracting major events of national appeal, such as its horse show and Ironman competitions. These have bumped up the number of people seeking lodging, and they are of a demographic, short-term renters say, that prefers homes to hotels.
One point all were in agreement on is that Lake Placid is changing, and does not have the same feel that it did 20 or 30 years ago. “When we would walk down Main Street we used to know everyone,” said resident Don Scammell. “Now we know no one.”
