Dear Editor,
Lisa Ford is missing the point in her VTDigger commentary. Folks are not against all short-term rentals when they operate responsibly and are a supplement to resident and part-time resident income from their residential property.
The issue is short-term rentals acquired and developed by investors as a business enterprise. Those do impact available housing stock for local residents and increase the price of homes that might otherwise be available for purchase or long-term rental by locals.
READ MORE
Without limits on investment short-term rentals, harm is done to local businesses that cannot find staff because they have to live 20 miles away, and harm is done to neighbors when the character and beauty of a neighborhood is damaged.
Would Ford support a short-term rental investor-owner who has acquired property and turned a beautiful quiet neighborhood into a short-term rental farm with 11 units in a single location? She wouldn’t if this happened next door to her.
So she should modify her views, be supportive of homeowners and distinguish from them those Investors intent on profiting without regard to the community in which they operate. Limits and regulation are indeed very much needed.
William Sinsigalli
Windham County
Read the story on VTDigger here: William Sinsigalli: Some short-term rentals are more harmful than others.