The victory over Sunapee trailer rentals could fuel short-term rental fights elsewhere

May 15—A Sunapee couple’s victory in a two-year battle to rent out their trailer could convince other communities to adopt more specific rental ordinances, the city’s attorney said after a Supreme Court ruling this week.

“Yesterday’s decision suggests that if cities want to limit short-term rentals, they will have to express those limits much more clearly in their ordinances than previously thought,” Cordell A. Johnston wrote in an email Wednesday.

The decision means Lisa and Peter Hoekstra can rent out the 20-foot Ameri-Lite trailer parked on their Maple Street property for up to 90 days a year.

“We are encouraged because we think there could be a real positive ripple effect for other short-term rental owners and for property rights owners,” said Lisa Hoekstra.

Cities in New Hampshire have clashed with property owners over whether and under what conditions homes and other housing options can be rented out on a short-term basis.

“On the broader issue, short-term rentals are a big problem in some cities — especially in vacation and tourist areas — and not a problem at all in many others,” said Johnston, a former government affairs adviser at the New Hampshire Municipal Association. .

The Hoekstras rented out their trailer a few times until they received a letter from the city’s zoning administrator in April 2022 stating that the trailer could not be used for rentals. The local zoning board ratified the decision.

The couple lost their case at the State Housing Appeals Board and went to the state Supreme Court.

The city argued that a provision allowing a trailer to be used for temporary sleeping quarters for no more than 90 days in any 12-month period was an additional requirement, but it did not create new categories of permitted uses, the Supreme Court said. Decision of the court.

The court has questioned the city’s position.

“By definition, a permitted use is a use that is permitted in a district as a matter of right under the ordinance,” the court wrote in the unanimous decision released this week.

Lisa Hoekstra said the two-year battle has cost her family an estimated $13,000 in rental income.

The family plans to resume renting caravans.

Since 2018, the Hoekstras have also rented out an efficient 400-square-meter apartment in their home for approximately 225 days a year. There is no limit on the number of days if the tenant lives on the property, she said.

According to a 2023 report from New Hampshire Housing, Sunapee had the fifth-largest change in the state in the percentage of housing units considered seasonal, recreational or occasional use.

About half of Sunapee units were used that way in 2021, up from 37% in 2014.

Johnston said communities don’t all handle short-term rentals the same way.

“The cities involved have taken a number of different approaches, from trying to exclude them completely, to allowing them through a special exception, to allowing them but requiring them to register with the city “, he said.

“These efforts have been met with varying levels of resistance, much more from non-resident property owners than from city residents themselves,” Johnston said. “But there are some cities where local residents have also resisted the restrictions because they believe STRs are good for the local economy.”