Washington and Millbrook take action on short- term rentals

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, Jan. 10, and Thursday, Jan. 11, the Town of Washington unanimously passed its first resolution to govern the permitting of the town’s short-term rentals.

STRs have been at the forefront of board meetings for both the Village of Millbrook and the Town of Washington for the last few years, an issue resulting in part by the influx of new residents brought to the area by the pandemic.

While STRs need to be registered with Dutchess County before they can be listed, and are subject to a county Hotel Occupancy Tax, until now, neither the Town nor the Village have issued permits or collected any funds pertaining to these rentals.

That will change following the Town of Washington’s passage of its STR resolution on Thursday.

The 13-page resolution is the product of three years of work and research, meetings with different constituencies, polls and surveys, public hearings, the hiring of a consulting firm, and three drafts.

It defines an STR as a rental of not more than 31 days, and caps the number of STRs operating in the town at 40.

The permit for operating an STR is non-transferrable, and can only be obtained after a code enforcement officer has inspected the premises. A myriad of safety measures and precautions as well, with instructions for outdoor pools, fireplaces, signage and reapplying for permits. STR owners may not have had a STR permit revoked within a previous year.

A $1050 fee to offset time and effort put in by the Building Inspector will be paid to the town.

The Town of Washington, like most of the towns and villages in the area, will use Granicus, a service that helps municipalities maintain records and in other ways oversee STRs. Their charge of $4,700 will be reimbursed to the municipalities by Dutchess County.

Councilman Michael Murphy, who has been working on the STR item since 2021, introduced the Thursday night vote with a discussion of Robert Frost’s “The Mending Wall,” in which two neighbors rebuild a stone fence dividing their properties — one doesn’t see the need for the wall, the other says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Some want everything to stay as it is; rural, quaint, charming. Others see a need for more places for people to stay, so that local businesses can thrive and the community can move forward.

Murphy then called for a vote, was seconded by Councilman Robert Audia, passed unanimously.

Village of Millbrook

For the last two years, STRs have also been at the forefront of Village of Millbrook.

The draft of the legislation currently up for debate stipulates that the Village will sell a total of 15 two-year permits (an earlier version of the legislation had capped permits at 20) for a nonrefundable $1,000 fee.

The proposed resolution is the third iteration in a series prepared by village Trustee Peter Doro in the last two years.

On Wednesday, Jan. 10, the village had scheduled a public hearing followed by a vote on adopting the resolution in its current form. However, the hearing was extended to and the vote delayed until Feb. 14, following a complaint from bed and breakfast proprietor Tanya Jackson that there hadn’t been enough time for interested parties to read the documentation pertinent to the hearing.

Nevertheless, the hearing began on Wednesday night as planned; three residents spoke, taking on issues that have been consistent sticking points in Village debates.

One is that the current draft of the legislation doesn’t allow for “grandfathering in,” meaning that current STR proprietors will not have any precedence over newcomers. Some feel that the number of permits allowed, having gone from the original 20 to 15, is not enough, though 15 permits are expected by the Board to cover all of the registered STRs already operating in Millbrook.

Lastly, some residents are contesting a stipulation that an owner needs to be on the premises, arguing that a manager could be in place when the owner is not there.

It is possible that the public hearing and subsequent vote on Wednesday, Feb. 14, will be the final chapter in the Millbrook STR saga. Maybe.