On the afternoon of September 14, 2021, the Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a short term rental license moratorium. The moratorium goes into effect at 11:59 PM on Friday September 17th for properties in unincorporated Summit County with a couple of exceptions. The exceptions are both Copper Mountain and Keystone. Owners of properties in those areas of unincorporated Summit County can still apply as usual during the short term rental license moratorium,
Until 11:59 PM on the 17th, they will continue to accept license applications online. Those submitted prior to the start of the moratorium will continue to be processed.
If you miss the deadline, there is a hardship application which can be utilized to make a case for the necessity of a short term rental license. If you meet their criteria for hardship, you should still be able to get a license during the moratorium. Some examples of hardship could include a buyer under contract on a property with the intent to short term rent, a buyer under contract on a property that has short term rentals in place by the current owner and would like them to be honored.
During the moratorium, the county will continue to work on revamping the short term rental regulations. When the moratorium is over, it is unclear what the rules will be. The process will have multiple occasions when the public can listen in on the meetings and voice opinions. If this is important you you, it’s a process you should follow. We will be watching as well and will mention items we feel could have a significant impact on property owners or our community as a whole.
Read the meeting overview from the Summit Daily News.
Read more about the recent short term rental licensing conversations happening in Breckenridge too.
This is an awful and irrational policy decision that will lead to the opposite result to that desired. Short term rentals will become less available and more costly. Future property owners will be more likely to hold usage only for personal, friends, and family use. If more land were available for the free market to develop long term rental units (like the more enlightened Silverthorne government has recently allowed with city owned land) the problem would solve itself.