Skagway’s city hall and museum. (Greta Mart)
Housing can be hard to come by in Skagway. Especially during the summer months, when the population grows with seasonal workers. The municipality has been trying to come up with solutions for the housing crisis. A public hearing on one possible solution will be held this week.
The Skagway Assembly is considering an ordinance that would tax and regulate short-term rentals. The proposal is the second attempt to impose local oversight for rentals of apartments, rooms and houses after an earlier version failed.
According to Skagway’s Planning and Zoning Commission, vacation rentals offered through services such as AirBnB and VRBO affect the availability of seasonal housing for people working in the tourism industry.
The proposed ordinance would put a cap on the number of vacation rentals that are not occupied by the property owner, in hopes that this may alleviate Skagway’s seasonal housing shortage.
Mayor Monica Carlson has advocated strongly for regulations on short-term rentals.
“I believe it’s really necessary that the community is proactive on Airbnbs,” Carlson said. “I worry. I read so many articles about small communities and big cities that have allowed it to just blow up.”
What those regulations would look like has been debated for months.
In May, the assembly rejected a previous version of the short-term rental ordinance in a 5 to 1 vote. Since then, the Civic Affairs Committee and the Planning and Zoning Commission have been reviewing the proposal.
The ordinance defines a short-term rental as a furnished apartment, house, or room that is rented for no more than thirty consecutive days. At a recent Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, Permitting Official Shane Rupprecht said that some of the ordinance’s requirements for these types of rentals were overly restrictive.
“Considering the first draft and all the discussion we had, the multiple meetings we had, the general complaint was a level playing field. We heard that over and over and over again. Everybody just wants a level playing field. Well, there’s a lot of restrictions in this proposal that don’t apply to anything else besides what are deemed short-term rentals now,” Rupprecht said.
For example, the first draft of the ordinance prohibited short-term rentals from hosting commercial and social events as well as posting signs on the property advertising the rental.
At the last assembly meeting, a new version of the ordinance was introduced without some of these restrictions on short-term rentals based on suggestions from the Planning and Zoning Commission.
There are still questions remaining about how to implement some of the new regulations.
The current proposal caps the number of permits for short-term vacation rentals at 15. At a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on July 12th, Skagway resident Denise Caposey wanted to know what it takes to obtain one of those permits. Rupprecht responded that there are no requirements for those permits yet.
“There is no language for this in code right now. At this point, there is no list. There is no requirements for a conditional use. It’s a, for lack of a better term, free-market right now as far as the municipality’s oversight is concerned,” Rupprecht said.
The next public hearing on the ordinance is Thursday at 7 p.m. in assembly chambers. You can listen live through a link on our website, KHNS.org.
