Voters in the coastal town of Kennebunk on Tuesday overwhelmingly opted to regulate short-term rentals, cutting against elections in neighboring towns that have been reluctant to do so.
All short-term rental units will now have to be registered and inspected by the town starting in 2025. The decision was a landslide, with 75 percent of voters backing the initiative, putting Kennebunk among more than a half-dozen Maine towns with regulations on AirBnbs and other short-term rentals on the books.
These have not been easy decisions for other communities. Nearby in York, voters rejected a similar ordinance by a slim margin in May, fearing the requirements were too burdensome for some property owners, Maine Public reported. In Old Orchard Beach, the conversation was quickly snuffed out last fall before it even went to the ballot.
“I wonder why there wasn’t more opposition,” Chris Osterrieder, Kennebunk’s director of community development, said.
He speculated that it was probably a combination of luck for proponents as well that the ordinance is trying to quantify the number of short-term rentals and ensure safety. For example, the Kennebunk plan falls short of more aggressive initiatives in Kittery and Bangor that capped short-term rentals.
“We’re not necessarily trying to fix something,” he said. “We’ll try to quantify to what degree this is or isn’t a problem.”
There was fear in Kennebunk around this vote being a step in capping rentals. During a public hearing on the ordinance in December, select board chair Shiloh Schulte mentioned the town might consider further regulations following the June vote, which spooked property owners.
The problem that Osterrieder is referring to is a prevailing sentiment in many Maine communities that short-term rentals are partially responsible for the state’s housing crisis. However, a landmark state housing report issued last year challenged that idea by concluding that the share of seasonal housing along the coast has been flat since 2000.
Only 1.1 percent of York County’s housing inventory is made up of short-term rentals that would compete with homes on the market as year-round housing, that report found. But in tourism-heavy communities like Kennebunk these rentals pose an easier target for regulation.
That is in large part due to a skyrocketing housing market that is pricing middle-income families out of wealthier communities. In Kennebunk, the typical home value was above $600,000 as of April, a number that has shot up by 120 percent over the past decade, according to Zillow.
“We have seen some of our longer-term rentals be converted to short-term rentals,” Osterrieder said. “Economically, there’s been some real advantages for people to do that. It’s not that we’re trying to restrict that, but we’re trying to gauge how that’s impacting our housing stock.”
