Summit County Board of County Commissioners Meeting Recap
Yesterday, the Summit County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) discussed a moratorium on new STR license applications for the unincorporated areas of Summit County. Following public comment, the BOCC voted unanimously to implement a 90-day moratorium on short term rental licenses in unincorporated Summit County beginning at 11:59 pm on Friday, September 17, 2021. This does not impact existing short term rental license holders.
Note: This meeting is in addition to the Breckenridge’s Town Council meeting and Frisco’s Town Council meeting. Recaps from those meetings will be sent separately.
Keep reading for a full recap of today's meeting.
Full Recap:
At the request of the BOCC, staff today recommended a 3-month temporary and targeted moratorium in order to give Commission staff time to conduct an analysis of data and policy options.
Data Highlights:
Commission Discussion:
Commissioners agreed to exempt the following areas from the moratorium:
Following public comment, the BOCC voted unanimously to implement a 90-day moratorium on short term rental licenses in unincorporated Summit County beginning at 11:59 pm on Friday, September 17, 2021.
The moratorium includes an exemption clause, allowing property under contract for sale or building prior to the effective date to apply for a license during the 90-day period. Summit County Planning staff will take the 90-days to focus on a strategic data dive and planning period to propose targeted neighborhood by neighborhood solutions to address the workforce housing crisis.
The Commission stressed that they are not anti-STR nor is the moratorium a punitive measure on the STR industry. Rather, the BOCC’s stated goals are to pause the growth of new applications to have dedicated time to hear from the public, investigate all available data and other information, and create solutions with surgical precision for specific neighborhoods within unincorporated Summit County. As soon as more details on the public engagement process become available, we will share them with you.
Helpful Links:
Detailed Meeting Notes:
Comm. Lawrence asks for clarification on the 1,000 new license – are those new owners, new addresses etc? They discuss whether these properties were sold and are new owner applicants. They’ve looked through all of them, as of today there are 4,300 and in Dec. 2020 there were 3,300. If you average all these permits in 2020 there were 3,600. Comm. Lawrence asks what active means and Ms. Potter responds that we consider them active if they have a license – it’s not based on their rental night numbers. Comm. Lawrence asks for clarification on if the approx. 700 new permits are properties that have never been STRs before and staff confirms that is correct. Comm. Pogue notes that the neighborhood STR license is an increase. Staff shares that the trend is moving that way and right now 40% of the STR base is in neighborhoods right now, but that percentage has been growing outside of Keystone and Copper.
Staff is proposing a targeted short-term rental moratorium for targeted neighborhoods. Comm. Pogue would like to talk about the resort boundaries and explore how to mitigate the realtors concerns who are currently under contract etc to ensure they are giving their clients the most accurate information and have time to do that. The moratorium details of the staff memo are on the last page of the full agenda meeting here.
Staff is recommending a 3-month temporary moratorium, the reason behind that is to address and target local neighborhoods but that requires some in depth analysis and data collection. Changes would require going through the county wide planning commission and therefore we recommended 120 days as the county wide planning commission is a mandatory advisory board that would bring back recommendations to the Summit County BOCC for changes and a final vote. Comm. Blanchard asks if we need 120 days or 17-weeks not the 12-weeks that we originally discussed. They agreed to move forward with 12-weeks or 90 days. We will put the moratorium on the acceptance of new short term rental licenses. We do have areas in resort communities that we have exempted which include Keystone, Breckenridge, and Copper resort areas. We do want to be limited in areas we do exempt because the specific neighborhood by neighborhood analysis hasn’t been done yet. If you had additional neighborhoods, it would be challenging to navigate.
This is the Copper PUD boundary. It encompasses all properties in Copper Mountain Resort.
Keystone excludes Loveland pass village which has historically been workforce housing but there are currently only 5 short term rentals and some of them are owned by locals. We got all the Keystone PUD and the Loveland Pass Village isn’t in the PUD. The exemption doesn’t include Summit Cove, however it does include all subdivisions around the golf course meaning they would be exempt. Elk run is exempted.
Comm. Lawrence requests that Loveland Pass Village be included in the exempted area, and everyone agrees.
Keystone Farms, with no direct access to Keystone, right next to Summit Cove would not be in the exempted area.
Unincorporated Breckenridge would include Four o’clock subdivision and Ski Watch Condo which should also be exempt because they were built really for STR use. Commissioners comment that they are fine as those are really vacation home areas. The Ski Area Admin building is at the end of the county road right there, it is Peak 8.
There was a request for more information on Juniata but there are no STRs because the neighborhood HOA doesn’t allow it.
These are all the areas proposed for exemption. All Commissioners give the greenlight on the above additions.
Comm. Lawrence asks when we are going to talk about the neighborhoods we are targetting that have growing STR that we don’t believe they are approporate neighborhoods. Staff comments that the point of the STR moritorium would allow them to do that analysis.
The next point of discussion is a safety valve for current purchases or building right now who would be jeopardized by the moritorium for folks who believe they have relied on the STR license. They would need to prove that are incurring fiancial harm during this 90 day period. Comm. Lawrence asks why it is drafted as an appeal process, staff responds that based on their limitations the appeal process through staff is the best way forward. They aren’t exempt until they go through this process and prove financial hardship. Comm. Pogue asks why we can’t just automatically exempt them before 11:59 tonight or something. Staff comments that there isnt a way to automate this and therefore staff must manually add them into the exempt area or not. Comm. Pogue shares an example that she is under contract at noon today and come in tomorrow with an application for a permit tomorrow you would get denied and have to appeal. Staff would process this and allow you to submit. Exemption Review process is more appropriate language. How does someone prove intent for reliance on STR income, staff and commissioners discuss how long this exemption would last and what the review standards would be. This is a proceedural exemption, since the moritorium is only 3 months there will be something that comes forward after this. If there are code amendment changes then those proporties would fall under that. These exemptions would be for folks
Comm. Lawrence comments that she’s getting a lot of emails from folks who are purchasing homes sharing that if they can’t rent STR then they can’t afford it. She shares that this makes her incredibly uncomfortable and that this body isn’t about making financial decisions for people. If you can’t afford a $4M property that isn’t my jurisdiction, we know that you likely won’t turn a $4M home into a longterm rental for workforce but we don’t want to be muddied in the hardship. Comm. Pogue notes she doesn’t want to be involved in that either, however she understands that people who have signed a legal contract and purchasing a home right now that they are changing the rules in the middle of the contract. Comm. Lawrence pushes back.
Comm. Blanchard asks about the required information, with exibit b would there be specific documentation that each applicant submits? Yes and once approved the parcel would be manually added as exempt in the platform. Comm. Blanchard asks if they would need to create new documentation requirements for this. Staff notes they can talk about it in Exec. Session. Comm. Blanchard asks about the 10 day timeline for hardship exemption application. Staff notes that it simply requires 10 days deadline internally for hardship determination so that the property owner/manager could go through the licensing application after that. The applicant is the owner, property manager, etc. If the transaction happens a week from now, we will not have to approve them because this will have already gone into effect. Comm. Lawrence asks what standard contract or form we will be looking for and staff notes that there are a number of scenarios that could come up and this is for a limited about of time. He thinks that many people have heard we are considering this and have already applied. Comm. Lawrence would like more standardization, she knows the large realtors have standard forms and she’s concerned about the smaller one off awkward situations.
Comm. Pogue clarifies that if you have a signed standard purchase property form with a signed affidavit that they intend to get an STR license within the 90 days that would be acceptable. Comm. Lawrence pushed back on building new property and staff notes that we are only looking at 90 days right now. If we move forward after this 90 day moritorium, we will include new safe guards into the updated process after we do all of our research. Staff notes that we cannot determine this without the 90 days for data collection and analysis to understand what the circumstances really are.
Comm. Lawrence asks if we can remove the word hardship and keep appeal. “Exemption petition” was suggested by staff as the new language. A landowner, developer, or person under real estate contract will be considered. This is step 1 right now, as we get to the 90 day timeframe we can address the need for further action as we move into next year. There will be a next step to this.
Staff notes that this is a kinder gentler moratorium.
Staff will make the changes before this afternoon, if staff signs it this afternoon when would it go into effect? It is up to the Commissioners. Comm. Lawrence would like to understand what will be presented tonight. It is the staff report in the agenda packet and the proposed (and now updated) moritorium langauge. She notes that it isn’t explained enough publically the intentions of why we are doing this and staff responds that they will spend time on the whereas section and highlight the statistics in the staff memo. This is an opportunity now for all the folks on the phone now to preemptively answer these questions.
Staff notes that if you already have an STR license, you are not affected. If you are currently under contract or building you would be included in the safety valve. Finally, this doesn’t include the resort communities we’ve gone over. Staff notes that you can add your address to the GIS public site to see if you live in unincorporated Summit County or if you are in an exempt area.
Comm. Pogue shares that she is worried about the misconception that we already know what we are planning to do after the 90 day moritorium and we haven’t decided that yet. We’ve made strategies outside of STR caps like rolling out an incentive program in a month and coming out with others but those havent been brought forward yet. She wants all of the conversation from today to be highlighted.
All attachments will be made available that we’ve discussed today. Including the analysis process with neighborhoods vs resort communities and the impact. The first potential zoning way you could look at this is overlay districts that would include resort zones, neighborhood zones, and maybe transitional neighborhood zones that have different code requirements in each zone. None of this has been confirmed, it is an example of what we may be looking at when we take the 90 day analysis period. Ms. Potter gives an example of Boulder County where they limit in specific neighborhoods but in resort communities, it is fully unlimited in resort areas. We could have occupancy standards, currently our occupancy standards are aligned with resort areas, we could also look at number of nights availble in a specific neighborhood zone, we could differentiate licenses that limit these folks. One more strategy would be similar to Denver, allowing only STR in your primary residence if you are in Summit Cove for example. Support efforts with HOAs so that it isn’t always a governemnt mandate, lastly working on code amendments to incentivize workforce housing.
The 90 day period will include lots of public comment and community engagement. Comm. Lawrence comments that she doesn’t want to forget about the guest experience. What makes a good vacation that keeps tourists coming back. There are some areas of the county that would be a horrible vacation experience and others that would make for an excellent experience. Staff notes that we are planning to bring these recommendations back during a few work sessions and to planning commission in the county mid October so we can adopt a new process at the end of December before we enter the new year.
Comm. Pogue notes that she wants surgical grade data to make these deicisions. She wants data on nights per property, where are all these properties. Comm. Lawrence gives an example that she assumed 100 STR licenses in Peak 7 neighborhood but really there are only 12. She wants to know who are the owners, are they local or out of state, night stays etc. Staff notes that they do not have night stay information but have sent out the surveys which will be helpful anecdotal information. Comm. Blanchard notes that this point in time will be excellent but also wants the community to understand what tools the county is actually able to use under their jurisdiction. Staff comments that HOAs need to have the tools to make good decisions, how can we partner with them to make sure we are all rowing in the same direction. It is apart of the materials as a proposed strategy.
They discussed someone who is currently in the market and going under contract in a few days or a few weeks, who want to STR for the holidays. Staff notes that these folks would know that they are under a moritorium and if they cannot make the payments without the STR revenue they should not purchase the house. Comm. Lawrence asks about realtor disclosure requirements staff responds that it isn’t in our purview. Staff shares that the moritorium could go into effect today when we vote but that the “hardship” or appeal process could go into effect at a later date.
After discussion they determined the moritorium going into effect today and then the safety valve going into affect at a different time. Potter shares we have received 173 new applications since last Tuesday’s meeting, a 6 fold increase. The Commissioners decided to mull it over but were thinking of 24-72 hours with concerns about staff time on Friday evening. This would only apply to contracts, not back up offers.
Comm. Lawrence notes that Friday at noon should be the deadline for the safety valve. They go back into discussion on what makes most sense for staff, Ms. Potter comments that she will talk to Randy about the software and if the deadline should consider that timetime. Staff will do that and come back with a proposal.
Comm. Lawrence says that public comment will open first to people in person, prioritize people for agenda items. We would adjourn at 2:55 and reconvene at 4:30 and everything will need to be closed at 5:55. All three commissioners have kids and pick-up duty and Comm. Lawrence has a meeting at 6 with a potential opportunity zone. They will focus on in-person testimony first and then move to virtual testimony.
