Joyce Healy

I am writing to oppose HR1707. We offer short term rentals through Airbnb on several cabins, down a 1 ½ mile private dirt road we have to maintain and plow, that were built as vacation cabins years ago and that we renovated. We’re well aware and sympathetic to the housing shortage and its effect on especially younger families, but our units and probably many vacation rentals that aren’t suited for permanent housing won’t help solve this problem. And in addition, our properties (which used to be vacant for much of the year) already generate substantial benefits to the state. We pay the hotel tax—it is automatically collected by Airbnb. Two women have started a successful business handling the cleaning. We rent all of our property, including accommodations, for weddings, creating jobs for caterers, florists and other vendors. Each wedding brings lots of guests to the Monadnock region, who rent hotels in Keene and patronize local restaurants and shops (as do our Airbnb guests.) There are better targeted ways of achieving your objective of creating more housing. For example, the town of Stoddard put in a restriction that newly-built ADUs could not be used for rentals under 30 days. The intention of our zoning committee was to make sure the expansive ADU law was used to create permanent housing, not make it easier to create short term rentals. Last year the NH State legislature (House Bill 577 ) overturned this, taking away the right of municipalities to regulate use—and encouraging more speculative short term rentals. Why?? Bring back this concept.