This story by Aaron Calvin and Patrick Bilow was first published in the Stowe Reporter on June 26.
Data from Stowe’s new short-term rental registry, which went live at the beginning of May, shows that most of those properties’ owners don’t live in town full-time.
Of the 891 registrants who provided the town of Stowe with information about their rental properties as of late May, just 196, or 22 percent, listed their “owner mailing address” in Stowe.
Another 86 registrants have mailing addresses listed in Vermont. Nearly as many properties — 260 — are registered to Massachusetts mailing addresses.
According to assistant town manager Will Fricke, about 90 short-term rental owners have failed to respond to mailed requests that they participate in the registry.
The registry requirement was codified last year, after a 3-2 majority of the Stowe Selectboard voted to pass an ordinance that would establish a short-term rental regulation. That ordinance requires property owners to share information about themselves and their property managers with the town and adhere to certain regulations for public safety purposes.
The ordinance was opposed tooth and nail by a class of rental owners and property managers who were able to petition for a public referendum on the law. A town meeting held in May 2024 saw Stowe residents overwhelmingly support — in a 435-240 vote — the establishment of a town registry.
The data collected in the registry reveals what many advocates for the proposal suspected: there are many short-term rentals in Stowe and most of them are owned by non-residents. What implications this has for Stowe’s housing access needs, an ongoing subject of analysis and public discussion from the formation of the new town plan to the town’s nascent housing task force, remains to be determined.
Selectboard reactions
Stowe selectboard members said it’s too early to draw conclusions about the registry, but next month’s highly-anticipated report from the housing task force — after a year-long charge to study housing in Stowe — could spark selectboard discussions about short-term rentals and other housing topics.
According to emails between town manager Charles Safford and Jeff Sauser of CommunityScale, a housing consultant who outlined a timeline for Stowe’s registry and other housing goals, the selectboard wants to wait until next year to discuss the results of the registry, after gathering a year’s worth of data.
Short-term rental property owners in Stowe aren’t required to register with the town until their property becomes active, so a year’s worth of data would give the town a full picture of how many properties there are in Stowe. But with a good chunk of properties already registered, selectboard chair Paco Aumand said the board might want to discuss the registry sooner than a year.
“Creating the registry has accomplished what it was set out to do, and that is provide valuable data around how many short-term rentals we really have in Stowe,” Aumand, who initially voted against the registry, said. “Now it’s time to take a hard look at what that means in terms of action.”
For Aumand, the ultimate goal is to boost Stowe’s full-time population, which aligns with the town plan and stated public opinion. But targeting short-term rentals is just one tool in the toolbox, according to McKee Macdonald, chair of the housing task force. He pointed to other tools like deed restrictions, new housing development, or establishing a housing reserve fund.
Sauser agreed.
“Short-term rentals have been a popular topic in Stowe for years, but there are many more housing ideas that frankly haven’t been baked through,” he said. “We don’t want the conversation to start and end with short-term rentals.”
Rep. Jed Lipsky, I-Stowe, is in favor of short-term rentals for homesteaders, but not for out-of-staters or “private equity types looking to build a portfolio,” and he agreed with Sauser.
Lipsky advised against “scapegoating” short-term rentals for Stowe’s housing crisis. He admits they play a role, but they’re also an important revenue source for some working-class families in Stowe.
“We could take every short-term rental off the market tomorrow, but then who in Vermont could afford to buy those properties?” Lipsky said. “The solution must be multifaceted.”
Next month’s housing task force report will offer a slate of options for the selectboard — including how the board might deal with short-term rentals in Stowe — rather than specific recommendations, McKee said. From there, it’s up to the selectboard to decide on a path.
Selectboard member Ethan Carlson said that while the registry validates some of the assumptions around short-term rentals and their impact on Stowe’s housing market, the board still needs to take its time rolling out potential policy changes.
Carlson, echoing some of Lipsky’s comments, is sensitive to property rights of short-term rental owner and the 196 properties that are registered with Stowe addresses, some of which might be operated by longtime Stowe residents looking to bump up their income.
“I’d like to see the process play out,” Carlson said, referencing the task force’s upcoming report, “I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that short-term rentals would be the first action or the most logical until we kind of look at the situation holistically.”
Few big owners
Of the 891 property owners currently registered as part of the Stowe registry, 64 of them own two or more of those properties, but few own more than five.
Chuck and Jann Perkins — former “ski bums,” original owners of the Alpine Shop in South Burlington and inductees to the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame, to which they made a million-dollar donation in 2023 — are technically Stowe’s largest short-term rental owners by volume.
The Perkinses, whose primary residence is in Burlington, have registered 10 short-term rentals with the town of Stowe. All of them are condominiums located in a single building at The Lodge at Spruce Peak, the mountainside complex that features a mix of seasonal lodging, traditional hospitality and other amenities.
The couple began acquiring condos at Spruce Peak as it was being built at the turn of the century, and each time they sold a property elsewhere in town and didn’t know what to acquire next, they would pick up another and, over time, they have accumulated, Jann Perkins said.
They own 19 different properties in town, according to the Stowe grand list. She said they primarily rent those residences out on a long-term basis, and the tenants have lived in them for years. She added they may be primarily Burlington residents, but they spend most weekends in Stowe, where they are devoted members of the Stowe Community Church.
Sam Gaines, Spruce Peak Realty president, declined to say how many properties are managed as short-term rentals by the company, but a property manager with Stowe Mountain Rentals told Fricke in an email related to the short-term rental registry that the company manages more than 45 properties at The Lodge at Spruce Peak.
Gaines argued that the Spruce Peak condos, like the ones the Perkinses own, shouldn’t be considered housing units in the traditional sense, but are essentially hotel rooms. With hoteliers in Stowe managing rooms or condominiums on sites like Airbnb and VRBO, the line is increasingly a blurred one.
“Practically, we do not believe they are ‘short-term rental’ units. However, the town adopted a very unusual definition of (short-term rentals) to include hotel rooms that are owned through a condominium governance structure,” Gaines said. “We believe this is bad policy and inconsistent with most similar municipal regulations around the country.”
Another one of Stowe’s larger short-term rental owners, Ryan Rabidou, who owns five, also uses them as part of his hospitality business, Om Home Residences.
Colin Moffatt, a Stowe resident and coach at Mt. Mansfield Academy, is also among the town’s largest short-term rental owners, with six residential units in two different buildings in the heart of Stowe village.
Jose Saavedra, one of Stowe’s largest short-term rental owners and who is primarily based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, operates five short-term rentals across three separate properties. Saavedra owns nine properties through his limited-liability company in Stowe, a downsizing from the 17 residential units he owned in 2022.
Saavedra became an illustrative example of the ways in which the short-term rental market could affect housing access in the resort town after a 93-year-old was forced to leave his residence after Saavedra decided to convert the rental from long to short-term.
