Great Barrington — By a close vote, residents approved an amendment to the town’s Short-Term Rental Bylaw at the annual town meeting on Monday, May 1.
Back at last year’s annual town meeting, residents passed the heavily debated bylaw. The bylaw read, in part, “An owner shall not register or offer a rental unit subject to a long-term lease as a short-term rental, nor shall a tenant offer his/her/their rental unit as a short-term rental.”
Article 39 on the 2023 town meeting warrant proposed via citizen’s petition that the line “nor shall a tenant offer his/her/their rental unit as a short-term rental,” be deleted, with the addition of the following line: “A long term tenant, for whom it is a primary residence may if allowed by the property owner, do short-Term Rental subject to the same rules and regulations as a resident owner.”
Resident Jonathan Hankin, who is a member of the Planning Board and a Broker at Berkshire Property Agents, spoke in favor of the citizen’s petition. “Let me be perfectly clear, I am a real estate broker and I own two rental properties,” Hankin told the audience. “Both are rented at well below market rate to full-time, long-term residents. Never in my 77 years have I ever done a short-term rental.” According to the town’s property database, Hankin owns a property on 213 Highland Street, and on 41 West Plain Rd. He also co-owns a property on 43 West Plain Rd. with Barbara Zheutlin.
“This article is not against regulating short-term rentals,” Hankin said. “It is trying to ensure that the playing field is level for everyone in our community. The bylaw passed last year, unfortunately, discriminates against the most vulnerable third of our population, who are renters. They are those who cannot afford to buy a home in our town, but they still need a place to live. The bylaw, as it was written, takes away the rights of important, often struggling members of our community for no valid reason.”
Hankin went on to say that “renters with permission of their landlords should have the same rights to use their homes that owners do.” He explained, “We have a zero percent vacancy rate for long-term rentals. The bylaw, as it was written, takes away the rights of important, often struggling members of our community for no valid reason. Tonight, you have an opportunity to show that Great Barrington cares about all our residents, not just the wealthy ones.”
“Yes, we can level the playing field,” resident Sharon Gregory said in response. “We should give equal rights to all the asset managers who want to buy up all of our properties and do STRs.” Gregory said that if Articles 39, 40, and 41 were passed by residents at this year’s town meeting, it would reverse the short-term rental bylaw that was put into place at last year’s town meeting.
Article 40 was an article placed on the warrant via citizen’s petition that would have, if passed, amended the Short-Term Rental bylaw by adding a section regarding inspections. Article 41, which was also added to the town meeting warrant via citizen’s petition, would have deleted several sections under the “regulations” section.
“Unfortunately, we are here late in the evening to possibly protect what we had passed last year,” Gregory said.
The discussion and vote on the three citizen’s petition articles took place past 10 p.m., over four hours into the meeting.
“There are people who need to do some short-term rentals and so forth,” Gregory said. “But leveling the playing field really means letting everybody buy up the properties to do STRs. As you all know, we can’t outbid the big money. So that is why we passed [the STR bylaw].”
Selectboard Vice Chair Leigh Davis spoke out against Article 39. “Article 39 is not about leveling the playing field, it is about creating more short-term rentals,” Davis said. “It is about taking a long-term rental and turning it into a short-term rental. We are not going to solve the housing crisis by creating more short-term rentals. What we need to do is to stabilize our neighborhoods and give ourselves an opportunity to avoid becoming an Aspen or a Nantucket, where our businesses are struggling to find staff because their neighborhoods are not full of neighbors.”
Davis said that the STR bylaw was created because “we have a zero percent vacancy rate in Great Barrington.” Davis explained, “When [a landlord] heard that [Article 39] was on the warrant, they called me and said ‘One of the first things I would do as a landlord [if this passed] is raise my rent,’” Davis said. “They told me ‘If my renter was making more money per month than I charged them, I’m going to raise my rent.’ This [article] is going to increase rents across the board for those people that Jonathan Hankin, who is a landlord…”
Town Moderator Michael Wise interrupted Davis and told her not to involve personalities in her discussion of the article. Davis apologized to Wise and proceeded to speak. “[Passing the article] will cause landlords that are offering their properties as a long-term rental to want to raise their rents,” Davis said. “The last thing we want to do is to force people to struggle even more in order to pay their rent.”
However, Planning Board member Pedro Pachano expressed his support of Article 39. “It’s often said that, in politics and policy, the truth doesn’t matter,” Pachano said. “It’s who tells the better story that matters. I believe that’s the case with this bylaw. We’ve been given a lot of fear that things are happening, that can happen, and that will happen. I think that Jonathan’s points are valid, and I don’t know how anybody can read this section of the bylaw and not think that it is somewhat discriminatory towards a certain vulnerable population.”
Eventually, after a lengthy debate, Article 39 passed by a counted vote of 78 to 76.
Subsequently, Articles 40 and 41 both failed to be approved by a tallied vote from the audience.
