Pittsfield Board Advances Short-Term Rental Ordinance
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The city has established an accessory dwelling unit ordinance and now, will tackle short-term rentals.
On Tuesday, the Community Development Board supported a zoning amendment that allows short-term rentals and provides operational regulations. It will advance to the City Council with the board as petitioner.
"The fact that we don't have any legislation in the city regarding short-term rentals, it makes it very difficult for the building inspector to act on something that doesn't legally exist," Chair Sheila Irvin explained.
Proposed draft language was continued last month and a working group then ironed out the details. Changes were made to cap occupancies and allow the local contact to live in wider Berkshire County.
Vice Chair Gary Levante was happy about some of the changes that came out of the working group and thanked members for the extra effort.
"I think this is a good first step and I'm pleased with where we're ending up," he said.
The ordinance has a 12-person occupancy cap that requires 250 square feet of gross floor area per renter, increased from 200 square feet per renter. City Planner Kevin Rayner said this should lower occupancies "a little bit."
"We can't have 18 people in a house," he said.
"We kind of thought that a family unit would be four people on average so wanted to say three families on a summer vacation or something could have one house but we didn't want to raise it above that."
At the last meeting, several people who live on Onota Lake voiced concern about neighborhoods being taken over by rowdy short-term rentals, citing a Lakeway Drive home reportedly advertising for 16-plus occupants and causing a ruckus.
Neighbor Gary Moynihan reported seeing underage people drinking and groups occupying the property for party weekends.
"Yelling across the lake, making it just very intrusive to the residents who live there and enjoy the property," he said.
The proposed ordinance also requires the short-term rental operator to designate a local contact who lives in Pittsfield or Berkshire County to make decisions regarding the property in place of the owner or operator. Previous language required a local contact in an abutting municipality Rayner noted this is more accessible for people who live in the county who may want to operate a short-term rental.
He pointed out that this is only half of the proposed city regulation, as the other half is code change that details licensing and enforcement. This has to go through the Ordinances and Rules subcommittee before the full council.
"We intend for these two ordinances to go to City Council on the same day so that councilors can talk about both of them and make a decision on both of them at the same time," he said.
The ordinance's purpose is to "Allow residents to earn supplemental income from short-term rental properties while also minimizing the risks to health and safety, provide for the orderly operation of short-term rental properties in residential neighborhoods, and to deter commercial interests from purchasing housing units with the intention of primarily using these units for short-term housing."
A short-term rental is defined as any rental of legal units or bedrooms for less than 30 consecutive days but not at a bed-and-breakfast, hotel, motel, lodging house, or timeshare. The ordinance also bars the rental to have stays more than 150 days out of a calendar year.
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