WE THE PEOPLE, as full-time residents in the State of Vermont, in Order to restore the Residential Quality of Life, restore Justice to our current and future Landowners, provide for the Common Man, Woman and Child the Right to own and live in Affordable Housing, promote the general Welfare and the opportunity for future residents to afford safe and secure housing, demand that the elected officials of each Town, as well as elected State Representatives and Our Governor, to STOP the prostitution of RESIDENTAL ZONE and/or DISTRICT PROPERTIES as short-term rental businesses­.

Current Applicable Law: The Zoning Bylaws drafted by the Vermont Planning Commission, and adopted by the Towns, requires a CHANGE OF USE PERMIT be obtained by each RESIDENTAL DISTRICT property owner to conduct business activities. In many cases, the short-term rental occupancy rates, or any such business, do not even qualify in RESIDENTAL ZONES and/or DISTRICTS.

These short-term properties collect state and local sales taxes, they are in fact, businesses.

Furthermore, the rights of the abutting landowners have been denied, as their written permission is required at a Developmental Review Board meetings to grant such permits to short-term rental property owners.

Whereas there is a major affordable housing crisis for Vermont Residents, the sale and use of RESIDENTAL ZONE and/or DISTRICT PROPERTIES has been a major contributing factor in the SHORTAGE OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING, by both absorbing properties for vacation rental use, and, driving the real estate market value to monetary levels that make it financially out of reach for the middle class working families.

In Vermont, property records indicate that many of these short-term rentals are owned by out of state people, and now more recently, owned by larger corporations that have infiltrated the Vermont Real Estate market. These corporations buying properties AND property management businesses to control the operations of each rental on a grand scale, in RESIDENTIAL ZONES and/or DISTRICTS.

Sadly, and more deviant than all of this, recent investigations of property records REVEAL there to be Town Officials, including select board members AND elected State Reps that OWN RESIDENTAL ZONE and/or DISTRICT PROPERTIES, that they in turn run short term rental businesses out of these locations.

Lastly, our sewer districts were designed for these second homeowner properties for occasional seasonal use, they are overloaded with the consistent rental occupation, costing residents millions more in upgrades in most Towns.  Our Police are pushing constant overtime due to the unsupervised misbehavior by short term renters, that turns neighboring properties into what is now a 12 month a year short term rental business, that does not belong in RESIDENTAL ZONES and/or DISTRICTS.  

Vermont Planning Commission draft of Zoning Bylaws, that most Towns have adopted, allow for VACATION and RESORT DISTRICTS, and plenty of allocation for such businesses to exist and thrive.

WE DEMAND THAT THIS BE STOPPED AND THESE ZONING BYLAWS ADHERED TO!