NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council is looking to cap the number of short-term rentals that one person or entity can operate in the city. 

 

The General Government Committee last week reviewed the amendments to the zoning ordinance that would also set out inspection regulations and deadlines for long-term rentals, and set fines that would be directed to the new Affordable Housing Trust. 

 

"I met with the administration in advance, who originally requested that we update the ordinance regarding long-term rentals, and the fact about the process of having apartments inspected within the city," said committee member Ashley Shade. "The important thing that it does is it allows us to actually put on paper the process for requesting an inspection for a new apartment that is being put out on the market for people to rent; the old process was very not detailed, and it was very hard to enforce."

 

The existing ordinance allows a landlord to rent an apartment without an inspection of the Inspection Services does not respond within five days of notification by email or phone.  

 

The amended ordinance lists the information required for an inspection request and gives the inspector 10 days to review the unit. It also designates a new title of "housing code inspector" and requires any vacant unit to be inspected before being occupied, regardless of when the last inspection was done. 

 

"There's no point of having safety standards like that if we're not actually using them, right?" Shade said.

 

Chair Keith Bona later said his push for inspections years ago had been over safety concerns. He told how he'd delivered furniture to a short-term rental that "was a disaster."

 

"The person who was managing the property said at the time, well, I couldn't get a certificate of compliance to have this be a long-term apartment, so I'm going to have it be Airbnb," he said. 

 

"It made me think, like, so it's not safe enough for someone to live here as an apartment, but we're allowing short-term housing because at the time we had no inspections, we had nothing."

 

The city already has rules for short-term rentals and new language in that ordinance will make them enforceable, she said, noting that fewer than 30 AirBnBs have been registered with the city but the booking platform lists more than 100. 

 

All short-term rentals must be registered, go before the Planning Board and receive a certificate of compliance through Inspection Services. 

 

"The one other thing that it does is it prevents a monopoly of short-term rentals, so one group or an ownership can't create a bunch of LLCs and own and run a bunch of short-term rentals, we don't want that," Shade said. "If you're in that business, buy a hotel, buy a motel."

 

The city approved its initial STR ordinance in 2022 after nearly three years of debate. A major concern was out-of-town investors running rentals through online platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo with no oversight. The state passed legislation to tax short-term rentals through their respective platforms but has left municipalities to figure out how to regulate them. 

 

Councilors — and a number of local residents — were worried at the time about forcing family homes to be subject to commercial building codes. They compromised by allowing STRs by right in residential zones when the owner lived in the building. Professionally managed units had to abide by special permit conditions. 

 

All units were required to be registered and inspected. 

 

"The entire point of short-term rentals was to allow more occupied units to freely rent out their units, which the rules do not restrict those really at all," said Shade. "The updates are mostly aimed for the non-owner occupied, the people who buy these buildings, fix them up, which is great, and we want them to continue doing that, but they decide to leave it on the short-term rental market instead of the long-term rental market. 

 

"They have different rules because they're operating a business rather than operating something on the property that they're actually in the city for, so that is the point."

 

The ordinance would limit individuals operating no more than four properties or a total of 12 units that are professionally managed. In response to questions of how that would be determined, Shade explained it would include any single person connected to limited liability corporations. They could not create multiple LLCs which could each have 12 units. 

 

Virginia Riehl, a member of the North Adams Community Housing Organization, asked if the committee had considered a general cap on all short-term rentals.

 

"We have an 800-unit deficit [in long-term rentals], most of that burden falls on our less wealthy residents," she said. "Every short-term rental potentially could be a long-term rental."

 

Riehl said she wasn't suggesting to outlaw short-term rentals, or take away anyone who has one now, but a set point where there can be no more. If someone gives up an STR, that permit could be available for the next in line. 

 

Shade said the city wasn't to that point yet because there was no data — in terms of taxes, or how many — to determine where a cap would fall.

 

"This is a living, breathing document that continuously needs updating, because short-term rentals are new to our community, and they have a new effect, and we need to be monitoring that, we need more data," she said. 

 

She did agree with Riehl about putting in language to have the certificate of compliance and possibly other safety information was posted so occupants could see it. Shade said she would confer with the administration and Inspection Services first. 

 

The committee voted to send the updated language to the city solicitor and to the Planning Board for review. The changes can be seen in the agenda documents for the Tuesday meeting of the City Council.