Each week, we talk with our colleagues at The Colorado Sun about the stories they're following. This time, Health and Environment Reporter Michael Booth joined us to discuss the lawsuit against Summit County over restrictions on short-term rentals.
101 plaintiffs have formed the nonprofit organization Summit County Resort Homes Inc. to fight what they call “misguided and unlawful” regulations.
“It's a very bitter lawsuit that represents a lot of other potential lawsuits. A lot of conflict that's been going on potentially could get worse,” Booth told KUNC.
At the center of the conflict is what Booth calls “class economic warfare” in mountain resort counties. He said it comes down to supply and demand.
“You have homeowners who have bought second homes and use them as rental properties, short-term rentals,” Booth said. “As we know, that market has grown hugely with Airbnb and VRBO, especially in the resort communities. But then you've got locals who are saying, ‘we need to afford a place to live so that we can work here. We're the ones doing all the work. We are the lifties, we are the shopkeepers, we are the people cleaning (and) changing the beds and we need a place to live. And you are pricing us out of the market.’”
The plaintiffs say they are tired of county and local governments increasing taxes and zoning restrictions on short term rentals, Booth said.
“They’ve sued in federal court and are saying that the county has fabricated its justifications for these rules and that they are basically being forced to involuntarily enlist as private homeowners to solve, as they put it, the county's failure on workforce housing.”
Airbnb released a report last year that seemed to downplay the connection between workforce housing and short-term rental issues. Summit County officials called the study flawed. They said it left out several costs that short-term rentals create, from the need for firefighters to trash collection and road maintenance.
“{County officials') main contention is that it's not the same group of people we're talking about — the kinds of people who are going to come up for three days or two weeks in the summer or to ski in the winter are not the same people who would be looking at a place on the slope or in the towns to rent if they were going to live there for a couple of years and be an employee,” Booth said.
