Short-Term Rentals
Dear Editor: I am writing on the proposed moratorium on short-term rentals, narrowly defeated at the Assembly meeting a week ago. My wife had the opportunity to speak, while I remained home with the kiddos – she’s a better speaker than me, so that’s just fine.
I first came to Sitka in 1997 as a Volunteer at Sheldon Jackson College. After receiving room and board in exchange for work at the salmon hatchery, where the Sitka Sound Science Center now resides, I took a job at this newspaper. To save money for college, I moved into the woods, first at the base of Gavan Hill, then up Indian River.
Fifteen years later I met Rachel, who had come to town to work as a law clerk, living in a rental for $800 a month in a house we now own. Since then, we have created the Stowaway Group LLC, along with the local LaRose family. Last year we purchased the First Presbyterian Church.
For the past year we have been working with architects and PND Engineers in Juneau to design 21 rental spaces (16 long-term and five short-term rentals), as well as to create a brick-and-mortar home for the Sitka Food Co-op. After significant community input, the Church, as it has come to be called, is going back to its roots as a community gathering space, while simultaneously developing into an outward-looking sustainable EV bike and car-share, greenspace, kayak storage, a library, gym, and dog run. We hope to break ground in winter of this year.
Critical to our success are five short-term rental permits.
I commend the Assembly, along with Kevin Knox and Kevin Mosher, for tackling this issue head-on. It’s a tough nut to crack, as so many tourist destinations across the globe are discovering. It’s also clear from the deliberate discussion among Assembly members that folks desire the best possible outcome.
Amidst all the handwringing, we need to recognize that this is a good problem to have. As Dave Miller pointed out, it seems like just yesterday when folks were worried about a decline in land prices and school attendance, when I was covering planning and school board meetings for the Sentinel. Suddenly, we have too many people wanting to come here, even when it’s not sunny!
Speaking as a young family, we can only afford to live in a town that otherwise would be out of our reach thanks to Airbnb. As part of our business, we contract with ten local businesses, while also sending our girls to school, silks, karate, ballet, and so on. Quite simply, were it not for STRs, we would not be able to afford the maintenance our house requires, or to live in Sitka.
Along with taking this livelihood off the table, the moratorium would have had the consequence of killing our church project. Despite living downtown, and wanting what is best for Sitka, we would have resorted to our nuclear option, which would have been selling condominiums to the highest bidder – most likely vacation-home seekers from California who could afford to leave the living spaces vacant for nine months of the year. We crunched the numbers, and the money would be good. We would front-load our income with pre-sales, instead of working for three years before seeing a paycheck.
Instead, we’re taking a long-term approach because this is the town where we’re raising our children, and where we would like our children to raise their own. We want the space across Baranof Elementary to be a community hub, and not just an empty vacation-rental building looming over the playground.
Sitka is about to experience an unprecedented influx of money. The touted increase in cruise ship passengers is but the leading edge. A quick look at housing tells the story: the Texans, the Californians, flush with COVID money, are arriving. The problem Rebecca Poulson points to – of out-of-town folks buying up property to only STR – is a real one.
There’s a way to continue to create affordable long-term rentals – and home ownership models, as Randy Hughey and Mim McConnell at the Sitka Community Land Trust are proving – with considered, deliberate approaches. Instead of “freezing” all movement, which would be akin to insisting a shoal of herring, just stop for a minute to think about things before spawning, we need to come up with a considered approach while remaining fluid. This would allow folks already pushed to the edge by electric and heating and trash bills to continue to grow and evolve in town as they make choices with their property, and as the Assembly does its good work to chart the best way forward through this fraught issue.
There is work to be done, but town and its families cannot afford to sit on their hands while the Assembly comes up with more laws. For this reason, I am glad members voted this measure down. I look forward to folks in town setting aside their emotions, taking a hard look at the data surrounding STRs, and charting the best course forward.
Brendan Jones, Sitka
