Kortright Asked to Draft STR Law

BLOOMVILLE  – There was a light turnout of board members for the town of Kortright on Monday with two members absent, one due to illness, and the other due to a conflict. The agenda was also light as they were asked to consider short-term rental regulations and approved hiring a dog control officer.

A second homeowner, concerned about the safety of short-term rental properties, appealed to board members to adopt regulations, in the interest of safety.

Lawrence Taylor has owned a second home in the town of Kortright for 35 years and lives on Alameda Road. He told the story of a tragic incident that did not occur here, but somewhere else, that conveys the reason for his concern. A family of a terminally ill cancer patient wanted one last vacation together with his family and they rented a beautiful home on a lake. There were no working fire detectors and a man and his daughter died in a fire. Had there been working smoke detectors the tragedy could have been prevented. It destroyed the lives of two families, he said, the family who was renting as well as the family who rented the home.

Alameda Lake is surrounded by homes and he said there are four currently being listed as Airbnbs.

"The town I live in has regulations on short-term rentals," said Taylor. "It protects both the renter and tenant. Here we are starting to get Airbnbs, with people coming to stay one or two days and have no cares about the neighbors.  They are starting to cause problems at the lake."

Although he does not live close to the lake, he said there is the potential for it to happen to him, to have property rented to someone who doesn't care about the neighbors. "There has to be some way to start controlling short-term rentals," he said. "I think we will see this more and more and we need a way to protect people on both sides of the fence."

Supervisor George Haynes said the town board had been working to draft proposed regulations, however, the town code enforcement officer had asked them to hold up as the county was researching the issue and was considering using a portion of the bed tax to help enforce regulations.

"We had been trying to follow the town of Hamden's law on short-term rentals and to address the safety issues," said Haynes. "Then, we took it off the front burner."

Haynes said he would forward the Hamden law to Taylor to review and Taylor said it didn't have to be on the front burner, but asked town officials if they could at least put it on the middle burner.

Don Beacon, a resident in the hamlet of Bloomville, asked town officials if they had received money to make infrastructure improvements. Haynes said the town received the American Rescue Plan money which they used to purchase a mowing tractor for the highway department.

Beacon then asked if there is any plan in place to get more of the town's back roads paved. Councilman Mike Pietrantoni, a member of the highway committee, explained it is a difficult process to gain any mileage on road paving, due to the cost. "We have enough to pave one to one and half miles of roadway per year," said Pietrantoni.  The town budget pays for the salaries of the crew members, said Haynes, but adding enough to the budget to make substantial progress on paving, would mean a large increase in property taxes.

The funding stream through the state is never guaranteed, said Haynes, and the amount isn't always known, plus the rules change. The state is proposing to move to a 10-year time frame before a road can be redone, which will mean roads already repaved will deteriorate before they can be resurfaced.

Beacon thanked them for explaining the issue of trying to pave more roadways.

On that issue, there is no paving schedule yet for the town of Kortright, said Haynes. He said Highway Superintendent Bill Burdick is hoping to get it scheduled in by the end of the month as it is getting late in the season. Crews have been helping with paving and road work with the other towns and the weather has been a factor in causing delays in the paving schedule.

Haynes said he would be presenting budget figures next month and he asked the highway committee to meet and discuss highway needs. He is hoping to remain within the tax cap on this year's budget, but he needs to know what to get in the budget for highway equipment.

The board approved spending an additional amount to hire Chris Bodo as dog control officer. Bodo holds the same position in two other towns and agreed to do the job for the increase of about $400 per year over the current $2,975 per year. The town has been seeking a dog control officer for a considerable length of time and Bodo had to be called recently to handle a stray dog situation in the town.