Opinion: Short-term rentals for Sundance, or more?

When the council decided to try to get the Sundance Film Festival to move to Boulder, there were obvious issues. One big one was that Boulder does not have the hotel and other lodging space of a resort community like Park City, Utah, where Sundance was located and grew for almost 50 years. But now we are faced with an ordinance that would allow a potentially massive increase in short-term rentals (STRs) to attempt to accommodate this influx.

Here are the numbers: Per the Web, around 24,000 people attend the Sundance Film Festival from out of state. The staff memo says there are 2,900 hotel rooms in Boulder, with an additional 74,000 rooms within 40 miles. So, for additional STRs to make a difference in the number of people in-commuting to Sundance, we will need thousands more. Is that what you want for Boulder?

The ordinance the council is considering allows many properties to become STRs for “festivals” by being issued special “festival lodging rental licenses.” This ordinance states that such licenses shall be used, “during rental dates only while an event for which the city has issued a Special Festival Event License, plus ten days prior to the beginning of said license commencement date, and nine days following said license conclusion date.”

This is confusing in multiple ways. I searched the Boulder Revised Code, and it appears that “Special Festival Event License” is undefined. So, what events are included? Is it just the Sundance Film Festival? Or does it include the Boulder International Film Festival? What about the Community Roots Arts Festival, the Boulder Jewish Film Festival, the Street Wise Mural Festival, the Festival Del Sol, etc.?

This issue is critical because of the vague language in the ordinance stating, “Under no circumstances shall a festival lodging rental license be utilized for more than twenty-nine consecutive days per year.” Does this mean that a license can be used only once per year for up to 29 days, or multiple times so long as each use is 29 or less days? And can you get multiple licenses?

This lack of clarity is made scarier by the staff memo language for second reading, yesterday, 9/18, “The other primary risk could be purchasers buying homes to only rent during a festival, and keeping them vacant the remainder of the year.“ This seems to indicate that homes can be rented short-term during “a festival,” which, by its lack of specificity, presumably includes many more than just Sundance.

It’s also possible that some property owners could coordinate and do STRs for up to 29 days each for a sequence of self-created “festivals.” And if a renter wanted a STR for longer, simply make the renter pay more for the 29 days and then let them have it for free for the remainder. The owners only need to ensure a gap of at least one day between sequential 29-day rentals.

Worse, the proposed ordinance abandons most of the Code’s limits on short-term rental licenses in Section 10-3-19. For example, these “festival” STR licenses may be issued even to subsidized permanently affordable dwelling units (!?!) and to any ownership type, not just normal human homeowners.

The proposed ordinance also allows multiple licenses to be issued to a single applicant, apparently confirming the ability to do multiple short-term rentals at one property.

Accessory dwelling units can become short term rentals. So much for ADUs housing someone’s aging or disabled relative.

The one good provision seems to be that property owners cannot short-term rent a property that is already long-term rented. But I think this constraint could be easily avoided by simply breaking leases up into segments, with gaps for the short-term rental periods.

All these loopholes create a very strong incentive to convert regular long-term neighborhood rentals into STRs. The only arguable community benefit is that a few attendees would drive less while here. But the long-term damage to neighborhoods and existing rentals could be vast.

The real question is, why did the council pursue Sundance so forcefully without first discussing this STR notion with the citizens who will have to absorb the impacts? In my view, that was completely irresponsible.

As a former council member, I am appalled at this willingness to, once again, just jam more impacts down the throat of the existing residents. I really hope that in this coming election, we get some new council members who put us residents first.

By the way, I raised a number of these questions to the council after I read the first reading materials. But apparently, it made zero difference.

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