Changes recommended for Short-Term and Vacation Rental code

The Boulder County Planning Commission voted unanimously Wednesday, Oct. 18, to advance a plan for revising the county’s land use code related to the regulation of Short-Term and Vacation Rentals.

The commissioners agreed on recommending several changes to the County Planning and Permitting (CPP) staff’s draft proposal. It will now fall on to the County Commissioners to put the final touches on any revisions to the code.

CPP staff will incorporate the planning commission’s recommendations into its draft plan and present the results to the County Commissioners at their regularly scheduled meeting on Jan. 9, 2024, at 1 p.m.

The key changes agreed upon at the planning commission meeting, which was attended by all nine commissioners, include:

• allowing Vacation Rentals in subdivisions;

• allowing a limited number of Vacation Rental licenses in the Plains region;

• allowing Vacation Rentals in some Agricultural and Rural-Residential zoning areas;

• striking the proposed requirement for Short-Term licenses that residents occupy the dwelling for nine months during the year to qualify as a primary residence;

• requiring notice of a Short-Term or Vacation Rental license application to all adjacent property owners and owners who share a private access road;

• eliminating a two-night minimum stay requirement;

• and requiring the licensing division to inquire about any complaints or violations filed with the Sheriff's Department as part of the license renewal process.

The planning board also requested that CPP staff draft proposals for a mechanism for revoking unused licenses; a means for triggering the review of Vacation Rental cap levels; and options for maintenance of shared private access roads.

Any code changes would only affect Boulder County’s unincorporated areas, which include the rural, mountain and plains communities, such as Niwot and Gunbarrel, and would not apply to incorporated cities such as Boulder and Longmont.

One proposal that warranted more than its allotted time during the four-hour meeting was the discussion of Vacation Rental cap levels recommended by staff in the draft proposal. In looking for ways to reduce stress on the available housing stock and overall neighborhood impact, the staff proposed limiting the number of Vacation Rental licenses permitted. While there would be no limit set on Short-Term Rental licenses, the Vacation Rental proposed limit would be set at a 12.2 % cap on the total housing units within the Upper St. Vrain Census County Division (CCD), or 169 licenses, and 1.3 % in the Bald Mountain CCD, or 73 licenses.

Several commissioners questioned the process staff used to land on those specific numbers, while others, including chairman Gavin McMillan, questioned the need for any caps.

“There is really no perfect formula,” admitted CPP’s Ethan Abner, a Long Range Planning & Policy Team Planner. “We can always come back and look to adjust (the cap numbers) up or down as needed.”

After lengthy discussion, the final decision was to adopt the caps as proposed in the staff draft and recommend a limited number of Vacation Rental licenses in the plains region, generally the unincorporated areas of the county east of the mountains. Currently, there are six Vacation Rental applications in the plains region in some stage of the licensing process. Commissioners recommended that the “low cap” number provide these applications the opportunity to be absorbed into the new Vacation Rental guidelines. While the commissioners could not agree on a specific number for the cap, the consensus was somewhere between 10 and 20 available licenses.

The current regulations, which were originally created in 2008 and updated in 2020, define three rental types – Primary Dwelling Short-Term Rentals, Secondary Dwelling Short-Term Rentals, and Vacation Rentals. In the proposed changes that number would be reduced to two types – Short-Term Rentals (STRs) and Vacation Rentals (VCs).

Vacation Rentals would be defined as “a single-family dwelling unit that offers transient lodging accommodations to a single booking party at a time within that dwelling unit for a rental duration of fewer than 30 days where the entire unit is solely occupied by the rental party during the duration of the rental period.” Approved Vacation Rentals could be rented for up to 365 days per year.

The new proposed Short-Term Rental definition would eliminate the owner-occupancy guidelines currently in use to differentiate between Primary and Secondary STRs and establish one standard where the dwelling unit is the primary residence of either the owner or tenant (occupies dwelling for more than 30 days) and the owner or tenant is present during the duration of the rental period (fewer than 30 days). By a 6-3 split straw poll vote, the commissioners agreed to retain the draft proposal for an exception of up to 30 nights per year that the owner or tenant would not be required to be present during the rental period. The minority trio had proposed extending the exception to 60 days.

The requirements for proof of primary residence would be eased to the presenting of a Colorado state-issued driver’s license or identification card along with a sworn Statement of Primary Residence. The commissioners agreed to retain the current requirement in which a person must live in the unit for more than six months out of each calendar year.

According to county records, currently there are two houses licensed for short-term rentals in Cottonwood Park West, one in Somerset, one near 95th Street and Highway 52, and one behind the fire station on Niwot Road. One home on Niwot Road west of 63rd Street is also licensed, and two more nearby are under review.

Two homes in Gunbarrel Estates are also licensed, as well as one in Homestead, three in Heatherwood, four in Twin Lakes, one in the Willows, and one in South Meadow Park with an additional home there under review.