Lea este artículo en español aquí.
The county with the most short-term rentals in Utah is reviving an internal subcommittee to regulate them.
New STR regulations are included among Summit County’s housing goals laid out in the 2026 work plan Summit County councilmembers approved Jan. 7.
Deputy County Manager Janna Young says staff began using new software in 2025 to manage short-term rental licensing.
“We've implemented a software system this [past] year which is giving us really helpful data that we would like to bring to our working group to consider additional regulations for short-term rentals, for council consideration, using that data,” Young said at the Jan. 7 council meeting.
Young told KPCW the first letters to unlicensed nightly rentals went out last fall, encouraging the owners of Airbnbs and VRBOs, for example, to obtain the required business licenses.
The county hired a code enforcement officer specially for STR rules last March, retired police officer Scott Buchanan.
Buchanan says Summit County is launching a hotline to answer resident concerns and property owner questions Jan. 16.
“There's challenges in neighborhoods with nightly rentals at times, and those challenges can be problematic when the only people that are addressing them are local law enforcement,” Buchanan told KPCW. “Just as an example, when there's noise complaints at a particular location, ultimately, if a deputy sheriff or police officer has to respond to that, there's other issues that might be more critical at the time, and so the response time’s a little bit longer.”
He says the hotline going live later this month is (435) 615-3924. The caller ID will show up as “Summit County” on property owners’ and managers’ phones.
A 2025 state law made it easier to crack down on unlicensed STRs, since local governments can’t collect sales taxes from them.
Now, STR regulations are sweeping the Wasatch Back.
In December, Midway began requiring nightly rentals to have the property manager’s contact information posted, and it is increasing the probation period for properties that receive multiple violations.
A couple months before that, Francis capped the number of STRs allowed in town.
And Heber is enforcing an occupancy limit and additional rules for property owners, too.
Last March, Kamas placed a moratorium on new short-term rentals, with some exceptions, while it waits to see what new rules Summit County’s internal working group will draft.
That group includes county staff and councilmembers Roger Armstrong and Tonja Hanson.
Some residents who live next to STRs would welcome more regulation, such as homeowners KPCW spoke with in Summit Park last year.
Real estate industry professionals have vocalized concerns about “complete bans or caps.”
The Western Mountain Resort Alliance, a group of North American ski town boards of REALTORS, says extreme regulation would hurt property values. That’s what the alliance’s housing policy advisor Jack Greacen told the Park City and Summit County councils in August 2024, quoting the Fifth Amendment.
“The regulation winds up having an unintended consequence that doesn't necessarily hurt the STR owner,” Greacen said, discussing the example of a cap on nightly rentals in Palm Springs, California. “It winds up hurting the property owners across communities because there is a taking that occurred without just compensation to cover up those individuals.”
But short-term rentals are often criticized as hollowing out communities or making them less affordable.
As of April 2025, the Summit County Economic Development and Housing Department estimated 38.3% of all homes in the county were “vacant.” That means they’re not occupied by their owner or a long-term tenant, as in the case of nightly rentals.
In Park City, 56.5% of homes were classified as “vacant.” That’s down slightly from a 2021 city estimate that said the number was 67.4%.
Summit County is a financial supporter of KPCW.
