MANCHESTER — City planners began giving an update Monday evening on Manchester’s housing crisis and how it’s being affected by short-term rentals, like Airbnb.
The Planning Commission discussed whether city land use laws or other municipal by-laws could address unwanted side effects, such as diminishing rental stock for residents and disrupted neighborhoods. by an influx of short-term residents.
Commission member Leon Ward suggested finding a way to limit the number of days that landlords can rent their homes short-term. He said a family friend who rented in Manchester – and who has a child at Burr and Burton Academy – is at risk of eviction because the landlord wants to convert the unit into a year-round short-term rental .
“I see this as a serious thing,” Ward said.
If there’s a change to be made, it will likely have to come from a city ordinance, rather than the land use ordinance, said Janet Hurley, zoning administrator and director of planning.
Member Greg Boshart said that to fix the problem, the commission needs to better understand how much housing is rented out short-term, what the negative effects are, and how the city could mitigate those effects.
“We need a way to know what’s going on. We need a way to mitigate it. And we need a quantifiable way to monitor and judge it,” Boshart said.
Ward suggested that state tax data could show how many days a given home is rented out short-term. But Hurley said state tax data is provided by city, not by property, short-circuiting that effort.
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