CHESTER, Vt. – Chester, along with many other towns in Vermont, is in the process of addressing housing issues in their town by looking at Short-Term Rentals (STRs) and the potential adoption of a rental registry. At the selectboard meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022, the Chester Planning Commission brought forward an ordinance that would require STR owners to register their property with the town, a registry that would allow for the accumulation and collation of data on STRs for the purpose of better understanding the housing market in the Town of Chester. While the selectboard did not make a final decision on the ordinance at the Oct. 5 meeting, many citizens stepped forward with opinions about the registry and town housing issues as a whole, and the selectboard came close to passing the ordinance then and there, before electing to postpone the decision until the ordinance was reviewed by an attorney.
Over two hours of the two-and-a-half hour meeting was dedicated to discussion surrounding the housing ordinance. Preston Bristow, Zoning Administrator for the Town of Chester, reviewed the ordinance section by section, taking questions and comments as he went. Several of the questions posed by citizens present at the meeting regarded what defined a “hosted” or “unhosted” STR. Bristow explained that, according to the bylaws, a STR is defined as a dwelling that is “rented for less than 30 days at a time and more than 14 days in any year.” A hosted STR is one that is located at the owner’s primary residence, whereas an unhosted STR is not. Several conversations branched out from this one, as to how the town might determine whether a homeowner is renting short-term, if the town might pass regulation limiting the number of STRs in Chester, and what right a town has to regulate what a homeowner does with their dwelling in the first place. Two years ago, the State of Vermont almost passed a law requiring a statewide rental registry, but it was vetoed by Gov. Scott. The decision on whether or not to adopt an ordinance was then passed down to the town level. To this point, Bristow pointed out that the registry is merely a collection of data and that, through the ordinance, “We’re just requiring that people do the things they’re supposed to be doing anyway.”
Chester, which has a total of 81 STRs in the town, has been subject to many of the same housing issues that are affecting towns all over Vermont. When it comes to adopting a registry, Bristow said that he is “not fearful that this [registry] is going to be a big problem for the Town of Chester.” Bristow noted that Killington, of which Bristow was formally the zoning administrator, has over 700 STRs, and has since adopted a rental registry to address safety concerns, among other things.
While the ordinance came close to passing at the end of the meeting, the selectboard, after some deliberation, decided to postpone the decision to pass the ordinance until it was reviewed by an attorney.
Also on the agenda was whether to adopt the Amendment to Unified Development Bylaws, which was presented to the board at the Sept. 21 meeting, which passed unanimously.
The next Chester Selectboard meeting will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 6 p.m. in the Chester Town Hall.