Joni Wirts’ Summit Park home sits next to two short term rental properties — and she’s not too happy about it. One advertises “a movie theater, an arcade, two fire pits, a hot tub, and a sauna," residents said.
“They're all single family homes. So all of these rentals are renting to large groups of people, and so the nightly rentals there tend to be like events," Wirts said. "So there ends up being a lot of noise, a lot of trash being thrown around. I've had people park in front of our driveway, obstructing our vehicles.”
And Wirts isn’t the only frustrated homeowner. In January, she and 25 other residents cosigned a letter to the Summit County Council asking for tougher restrictions.
They count at least three nightly rentals on their block alone. They say they've had to call sheriff's office because of rowdiness and firefighters because of reckless fire pit use during a red flag warning. According to Wirts, Summit Park has an opt-in homeowners association that can't enforce CC&Rs on every property.
Regulation debate
The residents' recommendations include licensing all nightly rentals in Summit County, making them subject to renewal, limiting occupancy and tax them more heavily. In Summit Park specifically, they want short-term rental sites to note the need for AWD/4WD or chains during the winter, and they want fire pits banned vacation properties.
Park City-area Realtors have warned against an outright ban on short-term rentals. They claim restricting STRs hurts property values.
“I feel like a lot of people want to just rent a room in their house and make a little extra money, especially during Sundance or something, and maybe that shouldn't be outright banned," Wirts agreed. "But to have an entire home that's nightly rental for large events and have it like a different large group of people every weekend is pretty egregious.”
Other basin residents sometimes raise similar concerns about even long-term home rentals. Wirts told KPCW those tenants party too, but longer-term is still better.
“One of the homes next to us rented to seasonal workers, and I was relieved that it wasn't a different group of people every single week,” she said.
County regulations
In an email reply, Deputy County Manager Janna Young let Summit Park residents know the county is working to address their concerns. She said the residents’ recommendations will help an internal subcommittee draft new regulations.
In the meantime, the county is working on software to organize short-term rental business licenses and identify who doesn’t have the required license.
The county estimates only about 1,200 out of 5,000 or 6,000 short-term rentals are licensed.
State law does not allow officials to use online listings on Airbnb or VRBO as evidence, though. A proposed House bill would change that, and it raises the transient room tax too.
That would make county code enforcement officers’ jobs easier. In December, the county council funded an extra enforcement officer position to focus specifically on STRs.
According to Summit County Solid Waste Superintendent Tim Loveday, 70% of the homes in the Snyderville Basin get listed on Airbnb, VRBO or similar sites. And he shares Wirt’s garbage-related concerns.
“They want to be able to empty those garbage cans — that doesn't fit into the Summit County residential schedule,” he said at one of Recycle Utah’s January public meetings. “We collect garbage once a week, and we collect recycling every other week.”
So, Loveday said, property managers end up illegally dumping.
