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Date: 7/5/2022
SOUTH HADLEY – The South Hadley Planning Board opened a public hearing during their June 27 meeting to consider a special permit application filed by homeowners seeking to establish a bed and breakfast at their properties.
The filing of the special permit applications came as a result of cease-and-desist orders from the building commissioner that were sent out in April. The facilities that received these letters were short-term rental options classified as short-term transient lodging facilities. This goes against zoning laws in South Hadley as currently the only allowable way through short-term rental in the town is through an official bed & breakfast facility.
The letter sent out said these homeowners needed to seek special permits for these operations if they are prohibited to under the town’s zoning codes for each district. Not all who received a letter were eligible for a special permit.
Director of Planning and Conservation Anne Capra shared that she has had internal discussions with Building Commissioner David Gardner and other municipalities on this and added that before Airbnb became popular, bed and breakfasts were the short-term rental option without staying in a hotel.
Capra added the Planning Board had a few options starting with they could amend the Bed & Breakfast Facility Bylaw currently on the books for the town. Another option would be the adoption of an entirely new bylaw to address short-term rentals in whole. Capra added she hopes to be in a position later in the year where they have an answer they can bring to a possible Town Meeting in the fall to be voted on.
Gardner added that amending the Bed & Breakfast Facility Bylaw would help resolve the issue and add more specific writing to the bylaw on what is allowed under this type of facility. He added that a big factor in starting these discussions have come after a recent incident on Amherst Road where an Airbnb property was rented out and a party was thrown where the police were eventually called and “disrupted the neighborhood considerably.”
Gardner continued by bringing up the possibilities the board will face in resolving this issue and said most people who received a letter from him had never sought out the town’s input on requirements for using their house as an Airbnb, and that provisions implemented at the town level as well as outreach for this specific issue for towns people would be a great thing.
Planning Board members Nate Therien and Joanna Brown both felt more time was needed to come up with recommendations and things to consider when resolving this issue. Therian added he thought it would be a good idea to loosen up the short-term rentals in town and that he would like to see what other communities have done in similar instances.
Brown said she felt members of the board should reach out to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission for insight on configuring a short-term rental transient housing that works for the town and handling these issues of Airbnbs in a town without specific language around how they are handled.
Both special permit hearings were homeowners who had been renting out their house through Airbnb. Applicant Sheila Moos wrote they had twice asked former Town Administrator Michael Sullivan in the past what was required when renting out their property through Airbnb and that he said at the time there was no requirement, but that there may be one someday.
Moos spoke at the public hearing and spoke highly of her time working with Airbnb and renting out the property she and her husband own but do not live at on Granby Road. She added that Airbnb vets all their clients and helps protect homeowners with insurances when renting out the property. Moos said most of their guests through Airbnb are locals staying there when ongoing renovations are happening in their homes.
She added that they have done everything they were aware of that they needed to do in order to rent the property through Airbnb and that if they could not continue renting the place through the company that she and her husband would consider selling the home.
“I like what I heard tonight and I hope that you can come together as a busy group of people to come up with a way to make this work for us,” said Moos.
Brown responded to Moos’ comments and said the only thing that gave her pause was that the town’s codes for a bed and breakfast clearly states it needs to be owner-occupied but the application says the Mooses live in Northampton. Moos confirmed she does not live in the house in South Hadley and had never had to worry about this specific rule in the past as she has been renting the property out. The owner occupancy requirement is not waivable by the board currently.
This issue highlighted the difficulty in how the town should approach amending the bylaw – with provisions or creating a new bylaw to address these rental issues within town zoning laws.
Moos’ daughter Elizabeth then spoke to the board and asked if this would be something they would consider changing as she felt her parents had struggled with long-term tenets before renting the property out as an Airbnb.
“I would really encourage you to add the non-owner occupied and consider this property as a waiver for that. They’ve gotten beautiful reviews and are a five-star home. The Airbnb platform is no joke,” said Elizabeth. “If they had a tenant in there that destroyed things, Airbnb would go after that tenant. I would encourage you not to get stuck on the owner-occupied piece of it because its absolutely working and if it wasn’t working Airbnb would not allow it to continue.”
The board will meet again in August where Capra hopes they will come with more options and language for a short-term rental bylaw that they can discuss. If they decided there is enough material at that point there would be a public hearing on a draft bylaw being brought forth or an amendment to the current bylaw. Capra said with all this considered, the earliest a public hearing could be on this issue would be late September.