To the editor:
This letter responds to Jonathan Hankin’s May 4th letter.
While Article 39’s passage cannot currently be undone, Mr. Hankin’s arguments in favor of Article 39 should not go unchallenged.
Mr. Hankin argues that by permitting tenants to short-term rent their homes, Article 39 is community-minded. He suggests enabling rent-challenged tenants to lease their homes for up to 150 days will allow them to stay here. Actually, Article 39 creates a community of nomads staying in town for as few as 215 days a year, which is community-destroying rather than community and neighborhood building.
Mr. Hankin has not considered that something that may be community building in theory may not be so in practice. Article 39 will destabilize our rental market by creating economic friction between landlords and tenants. We already face a constrained rental housing market, and now landlords will assuredly consider raising rents in return for allowing tenants to short-term rent their homes, essentially sharing their tenants’ income earned from up to 150 days of short-term rentals. Would you feel it is equitable to loan your friend a car if your friend turns around and leases it? No, and you would expect to share the proceeds. The same will be true in the post-Article 39 landlord-tenant dynamic.
The STR Bylaw is predicated on the belief that housing is a human right. Mr. Hankin views housing as an income opportunity, burdening tenants to operate short-term rentals to afford to live here. The STR Bylaw sought to reduce the tension that comes from our constrained housing stock. Mr. Hankin’s Article 39 subverts this intent with a “rob Peter to pay Paul” tension – creating a vicious cycle of renting one’s home to meet the landlord’s rental demands.
Mr. Hankin’s Article 39 will undermine one of the STR Bylaw’s other goals – strengthening our neighborhoods with actual neighbors. In addition to preventing the depletion of housing stock, we sought through the STR Bylaw to enable more families to live here. Article 39 undoes this by returning us to revolving door short-term tenancies.
Administratively, Article 39 will be a burden for the Town, which will now need to review rental agreements to determine whether a tenant is running their STR as “a primary residence.” It is not “community-minded” to cause the community to incur the expense of additional bureaucratic tasks. Without careful inspection, a landlord could lease their property to a friendly party to circumvent the bylaw’s restriction allowing owners “to operate only one dwelling unit as a Short-Term Rental.” Nefarious, to be sure, and just the kind of activity we hoped to avoid. Town staff already has much on their plate. Now the Town will need to police rental agreements too.
Watch this space. Article 39 cannot stand. It passed by two votes on May 1, 2023. This debate, sadly, is not over. With your help, Mr. Hankin’s Article 39 will be repealed. And it won’t be by merely two votes.
Leigh Davis
Great Barrington
Author’s note: The opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Town.
