To the editor:
A simple question: Can this deep-blue county’s progressive population live its truth, and agree that without multi-family and affordable housing, the service industry that we all rely on is dead? My friends, research is no longer necessary. Who is going to buy property on a lake that is dead?
I read the recent transcription of It’s Not That Simple on The Edge and reports from recent board meetings. Jeez, surprise: Greedy owners vs. burdensome town. The town is being burdensome because (truthfully) Great Barrington has a thriving diverse residential community where people live, and rightfully should not have commercial activity next door. Meanwhile, owners have been buying houses based upon a cap-rate, and want more and more, because, well, it’s pure capitalism.
Is “the lake” thriving, teeming with life, or dying? Who prefers a town where there will be no one to serve you coffee downtown, or serve you at a restaurant, or sell you groceries, or manage your prescriptions, or lifeguard your kids, or teach you skiing, or work at your gyms, or take care of your kids, or administer your kids’ education, or repair your cars, or maintain your property, or fix your pipes, or sell you weed.
Without solid legal rules governing and restricting short-term rentals, the future is completely predictable! Corporate aggregators will come in and do a roll-up of as many single-family homes as possible. It’s inevitable. Everybody in the banking, investment banking, real estate, lodging, and legal fields merely have to lay their mergers-and-acquisition model on top of STRs and soon enough “Marriott Air” and “Ramada Homes” will be the largest owners of Berkshire property. Then expect a subscription model like Vail’s “Epic Pass” and the whole world will stream through the town, the town formerly known as Great Barrington.
STRs? Yeah, sure, but the agreement must preserve community and be the most forward-looking and compelling set of rules and regulations in the country, a model for other communities to follow. Owners will have to accept lower returns and figure out some other way to get value out of their property, maybe even by living there. And please admit, you don’t even want a property on a dead lake.
James W. Manning
Great Barrington
