William Marvel: Tom vs. Dick and Harry

As our town manager, Tom's most frustrating challenge has probably been the battle to control short-term housing rentals. The Airbnb concept of renting a spare bedroom was long ago adopted by those engaged in the nightly or weekly turnover of entire houses or apartments in which no owner was present to monitor behavior. Therein lies the reason for the opprobrium attached to STRs. Nearly five years ago it became clear that Conway had become the unwelcome target of such disguised commercial operations. The trend had already inundated the town before anyone really noticed, and in 2017 the selectmen started trying to deal with it. 

It's a problem across most of the more desirable portions of New Hampshire. Two bills to address it through the legislature came to naught. The second attempt narrowly failed under heavy lobbying from real estate agents — agents like Paul Mayer, perhaps, who in 2011 urged Conway voters to spend a lot more money on their schools so he could sell more houses. More recently he's been chastising STR opponents for economic myopia, and urging us to give up our zoning standards so agents like him can skim more fees. 

With relief thus blocked at the state level, and some 700 of these mini-motels strewn across town, a committee developed regulations that would have made STRs a permitted use if they were licensed and made subject to certain regulations. It seems to have been an honest attempt at compromise, but for most Conway voters it smacked of accommodating those who found it easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission, and it was soundly rejected. 

Undaunted, Tom acted on the selectmen's direction to pursue a legal resolution, but to the surprise of many our local judge found against the town. At least she didn't linger over the case for a year and a half, as Bill Paine did with a 1990s zoning case, but her decision was as perplexing as his. 

If I recall her comments correctly, the judge remarked that she had to act on the zoning ordinance as it was written, rather than on what the selectmen wish it said, but in looking over that ordinance it's difficult to understand how she could say that. The zoning ordinance defines tourist homes and rooming houses, and the table of permitted uses specifically prohibits them in the Residential-Agricultural District unless they are "owner-occupied." That's the crux of the entire issue. If an owner is on the premises, there's less likelihood of repeatedly raucous behavior. That was the purpose of the requirement. 

One of the winning litigants concluded that the judge also ruled short-term rentals a residential use regardless of the duration of the residency, but by that logic even an actual motel could not be prohibited in the residential district if each unit had a kitchen. For that matter, if the duration of the visit doesn't matter, one could presumably open a house with rooms to rent for an hour or less at a time, so long as there was a hotplate. Such an enterprise might do well in partnership with some of North Conway's bars, and might attract a similar clientele to some of today's worse STRs. 

Appealing the case is admittedly a gamble, but the potential benefits justify the risk. Considering how patiently and persistently Tom has tried to satisfy the townspeople's wishes on this issue (even after we rejected his initial solution), it's pretty provoking to read jaundiced jibes and accusations of malice against him from STR hucksters in Massachusetts and Florida. Such absentee keepers of glorified, overpriced flophouses have no interest in the matter beyond their own pockets. If they're objects of any malice at all, they've earned it by their own arrogance and opportunism.

William Marvel lives in South Conway.