County prepares for short-term licensing

Not implementing regulations…for now

By Katherine Nettles

By early summer, short-term rental units (STRs) in unincorporated areas of Gunnison County will likely all need to be licensed through the county’s community development department. Gunnison County commissioners got a first look at a draft plan for the new licensing program in a work session last week and discussed how far to take the program into the realm of potential regulations or even building code requirements, before agreeing to start with licenses alone. The program is intended to support tax collections for the county’s local marketing district (LMD).

Gunnison County planning director Hillary Seminick presented the draft plan, which would require short-term rental licenses among all properties getting rented out for less than 30 days in unincorporated Gunnison County. The move reflects the commissioners’ strategic planning goal to implement STR licenses by the end of 2025.

“It is meant to be centered on licensing, not regulatory,” noted Seminick. She described that the licensing program would create accountability among property owners and managers and ensure through affidavits that STRs are meeting occupancy standards while also helping county officials get a count on how many STRs there are and where they are located.

Owners or property managers could apply for the licenses, which would be effective for three years for a cost of $150. Renewal would be available 60 days prior to expiration.

Seminick advised that the new policy could be effective by June or July while allowing time for outreach and compliance education.

Commissioner Jonathan Houck asked if there had been any input or interest from the municipalities within the county to potentially make the STR policies or inventory comprehensive. 

Seminick agreed that intergovernmental cooperation is important, but she said staff had not yet conducted that sort of outreach. County manager Matthew Birnie said the towns of Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte both have existing regulatory regimes. “We have had those conversations in the past around the data,” he said. He added that their preliminary data from the state will be improved through the new licensing data.

“I think it would be challenging to have a universal, cross-jurisdictional licensing or regulatory regime,” he said.

County attorney Matthew Hoyt agreed that it would be difficult to harmonize regulations between all areas based on legal differences in home rule and county statutes.

Houck said he wanted to understand the overall STR picture across the county. “My curiosity was not in regulation, just in the inventory aspect,” he clarified.

Commissioner Laura Puckett Daniels asked if the licensing program would require more county staff. Seminick said after the initial rollout, she didn’t see there being a need for additional staff. “Because we’re not doing things like the municipalities, such as Mt. CB, do which include pretty exhaustive verification and inspection processes prior to issuing their licenses.”

“The idea is to not create that need,” emphasized Birnie.

How far to take regs?

Puckett Daniels asked about enforcement on the basis of complaints. Seminick said enforcement would be based on complaints or if staff discovered an issue.

“We also anticipate that we will be able to gather some information from our software platform that looks for these ads,” said Birnie of noncompliance.

Puckett Daniels asked if they could track advertisements for occupancy that don’t match onsite wastewater treatment permits.

Commissioners and staff then discussed how these issues may come up and have additional staff costs, but Seminick reviewed that staff can follow up if people are found out of compliance with county codes. “And that gives us this regulatory mechanism. But requiring inspections and other things—staff didn’t feel that was the direction from the board at this time, so this is solely a licensing regime to create accountability and the tracking ability for the county, and the benefits to finance,” she said.

Houck asked if they could use licensing to inform those running STRs upfront what occupancy their homes were built for, especially when they are not attached to a wastewater treatment system. 

“How do we prevent some of the conflict we’ve had before, and more than anything, help people?” asked Houck.

Birnie said that begins to creep into regulations, and the county has only been aware of one such STR violation.

“That doesn’t mean it is the only one, but this is really an attempt to start with information gathering and get some data before we would sink further into regulating these uses,” he said.

“Is it necessarily a bad thing—and does it step into regulation— if we ask people to identify the limit of their [sewer] in the application?” asked Smith.

“You’re then asking them to get a $1,500 inspection. That’s the challenge,” answered Birnie. “We’re not aware of this being a widespread problem.”

Community development staff agreed that most homeowners do not know that information about their homes. Puckett Daniels and Seminick both suggested they provide an educational link on the website to create awareness without regulation. Commissioner Liz Smith said she wanted to set the expectation by giving people tools to self-monitor. She said her preference had always been to add in more regulatory roles to the whole licensing process, but she would accept this as a starting point.

Hoyt recommended that they also offer educational statements about the differences in commercial uses, such as guiding services, that are beyond the purview of STR licenses.

Puckett Daniels asked how to handle emergency contacts being available at all hours and responding to complaints quickly. Assistant county manager for community and economic development Cathie Pagano said the general complaint form on their website could cover that for now, and said she was concerned that adding one specifically for STRs would require significant staff resources.

“We already have STRs operating in the unincorporated county now,” countered Smith. “I would be very surprised to see a huge increase in complaints just because we’re not really inviting a new use of property. We’re just licensing it.”

Seminick agreed that given the rural nature of the area, she would not recommend anticipatory enforcement mechanisms for problems that they don’t know exist yet.

Puckett Daniels agreed that the other possibilities could wait.

She also asked about licensing for housing exchanges or other more casual uses like dog sitting, and Smith expressed interest in including those definitions.

Houck suggested they curtail such inclusions, quipping he wasn’t worried about “the potato exchange.”

“One of the main reasons we want a license is to make sure people are remitting the appropriate fees for the local marketing district,” said Houck. “Trying to have a net so big that it’s capturing these little trades…that’s such a rabbit hole to me that once that presents itself as a big issue in our community then we’ll find a way to dovetail in—if there are issues around health, safety and welfare.”

After some debate with staff, Smith and Puckett Daniels agreed not to address such uses in which money is not exchanged unless they indeed became an issue.

Smith reiterated that she would like to implement regulations, including requiring licenses to advertise on STR platforms, as required in the town of Crested Butte and requiring license holders to have homeowner’s insurance; Staff suggested they would need to research those regulatory requirements more.

Last, Smith asked if they could address wildfire risks by requiring license holders to comply with wildland urban interface (WUI) codes by creating defensible space on their property. She was particularly interested in this application for those buying investment properties in mountain communities to use as STRs. Staff recommended that they wait on such regs as they would require more intense staff work and another big expense for property owners.

Puckett Daniels noted that would be a big philosophical shift as WUI codes do not require existing homeowners to comply unless they do substantial remodels or new building permits. “So this would be something quite different from that…and it’s not cheap. It’s quite expensive work that we’re requiring,” she added.

The next steps will be for staff to take the commissioners’ direction and bring back a final document for adoption.