Letter from Chip Northrup

Transient Rental Code Needs More Work

The Village of Cooperstown will meet on June 26th to consider a much needed rewording on one part of the Transient Rental code, to wit: ”Proposed Local Law No. 3 of 2023—Amend Section 300.17.1 (B)(5)—Transient Rental—Incidental Use Definition: In residential districts, short-term rental use of any parcel shall be incidental to residential use of that parcel.”

That’s a good start.

The other, more pressing, revisions should address the length of the residency requirement, which, as worded, would enable an absentee landlord to have a dozen short-term rental houses in the village, one for each 30-day residency requirement. I could not find another example of a 30-day residency requirement; most are at the statutory limit to become a resident of a state, e.g., approximately 180 days. A survey of similar residency laws will show that the burden of proof of residency is entirely on the applicant, not the zoning enforcement officer.

Absent limiting an STR to a maximum number of four (4) STR occupants, the property would become a multi-family rooming house under state code.

As written, no STR applicant is required to demonstrate a community need to change a long-term rental or a single family occupied house into an STR. This assumes that an STR meets a community need in any village single-family district, which is simply not the case.

The Riparian Residential Protection District, by design and definition, is intended to protect single-family residences from conversion to multi-family. Four or more transients in multi-family, under state statutes. An STR applicant in that district, which already contains both of the village’s major hotels, should be required to demonstrate the community purpose for an STR in their application.

Chip Northrup
Cooperstown