Re-ordinance

Santa Fe County officials headed back to the drafting table to hammer out another try at a proposed short-term rental ordinance after hearing from residents during a pair of public meetings last month that their first attempt may have cast too wide a net.

The idea is to regulate short-term rentals such as Airbnbs in unincorporated Santa Fe County as lower- and middle-income residents continue struggling to afford places to live in and around the capital city. The County’s Growth Management Department published the first draft of the ordinance just prior to the meetings with county commissioners on Sept. 13 and 27.

Much of the feedback was consistent: Locals want out-of-towners and speculators regulated, but those who, for example, rent out rooms in their primary residences say county officials should preserve their opportunities for income.

Officials seem to have gotten the message.

A second draft released Oct. 14 heads to the County Commission and for public comment during the 5 pm meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 25.

The new proposal would require business liceneses for all such rentals, but draws at least a temporary line between owner-occupied dwellings and others by imposing a moratorium on permit applications for out-of-town owners who buy property within one year after the March 2023 effective date. The effort, the draft reads, would “avoid growth impact and temporarily stabilize local housing” while officials study the “relevant issues.”

The county’s proposal comes on the heels of the City of Santa Fe’s evolving rules on short-term rentals. A cap of 350 permits was hiked to 1,000 in 2016 and rules were amended again in 2021 in an attempt to address a lack of affordable housing for locals and prevent illegal rentals.

“The city has its own short-term rental ordinance, and I think we wanted to make sure we are likewise taking care of the county,” District 5 Commissioner Hank Hughes tells SFR. “And I think there is a need to know how many short-term rentals we have and what impact they may be having.”

Officially, the ordinance aims to “ensure the safety and welfare of short-term renters, protect the peace and enjoyment of surrounding communities and neighborhoods, protect water resources and the environment and otherwise promote the health and general welfare of the county.”

The county suggests accomplishing this by, among other regulations, setting occupancy limits, requiring renters to register and pay lodger’s tax, enacting quiet hours and restricting parking and water use.

For Airbnb host Talia Pura, certain aspects of the draft ordinance seem unreasonable, especially given her short-term rental situation.

Pura, who retired to the Santa Fe area in 2015 from Canada, runs an Airbnb inside her home, where she lives with her husband and their 4-year-old grandson. Located on over 2 acres between Santa Fe and Madrid, the home was built for a family of six or seven.

Pura rents out some of the additional rooms, and the extra income has been a lifesaver, accounting for more than 60% of their annual income.

“I always say Airbnb has absolutely saved our poor, Canadian asses,” she tells SFR. “I mean, if we couldn’t do Airbnb, we would have to consider moving back to Canada.”

One piece in the draft ordinance particularly irks Pura: the proposed water regulations.

“For us to put a meter on our well and to provide paperwork showing what our water usage has been for the last two years is completely and utterly impossible,” Pura says. “We are sharing our well with the neighbor. So, to even separate our use from the neighbor’s has never been done.”

Similarly, Adam Johnson, director of the Old Santa Fe Association, supports regulations on short-term rentals but testified that a one-size-fits-all ordinance won’t work.

“Short-term rentals are sometimes used to offset costs of homeowners who rent casitas or rooms in their homes and yet still live in and contribute to local communities,” he told commissioners at the Sept. 27 hearing. “We support the right of primary residents to use their properties in such a way.”

“However, we do not support the removal of housing stock by speculators who are not a part of communities in our county,” Johnson added.

A dearth of housing stock in and around Santa Fe came up repeatedly during last month’s hearings.

Santa Fe continues to grapple with an increasingly urgent housing crisis, which has coincided with local tourism bouncing back in the wake of diminishing COVID-19-era restrictions.

In 2019 there was an estimated shortage of just over 7,300 rental units in the Santa Fe area, according to the Santa Fe Association of Realtors’ 2020 housing report, which also noted that average rental prices in Santa Fe County rose from $930 in 2017 to $1,038 in 2019.

Furthermore, a 2019 study published by Homewise, a nonprofit housing development and mortgage provider, found that the widespread conversion of apartments and houses into short-term rentals in recent years has likely been responsible for about 20% of Santa Fe’s housing cost increases.

For District 2 Santa Fe County Commissioner Anna Hansen, the data is disheartening.

“It makes me feel like I want to put limits on the amount of short-term rentals that we can have because I want local people and our workforce to live in our city. I want the police, I want teachers, I want government workers living in Santa Fe,” she says to SFR. “We already have a worker shortage. The short-term rentals raise the price of the house because these investors can come in and bid it up. That hurts the entire community.”

The phenomenon is particularly noticeable in traditional villages such as Tesuque and Madrid as an increase of short-term rentals outpace housing stock.

“The traditional families, longtime resident artists and cultivators who make those villages special are challenged by short-term rentals, which market the very thing the village built and maintains as a community,” Johnson, of the Old Santa Fe Association, said.

For Caitlin Lord, who lives in Los Cerrillos, the need to address this issue is urgent.

“We need housing, not people who claim to love their communities but then look away as they turn people like veterans out on the street,” Lord told commissioners last month. “Twice in the last year, in Madrid, veterans have had to relocate or leave their community entirely due to being evicted for the sake of starting an Airbnb.”