(Courtesy: Town of Bolton, 2022)
The nine-page short-term rental application gives a landlord all they need to apply for a town rental permit and a county occupancy tax certificate.
The Town of Bolton has sent 143 letters to potential landlords of short-term rental properties, a simple reminder to homeowners that if they plan to rent this year, they need to register with the town and get an occupancy tax certificate from the county.
About 12 addresses were pulled from the original list because they had already completed the application process by last week when the letters went out.
The town is asking to have the paperwork by March 15. Under the new short term rental ordinance that was voted into law last September, renters cannot take reservations until they are compliant. The law went into effect at the start of the year.
By Monday Feb. 21, Cheryl Bolton, in the Planning Department, had heard from nine, about 6%, of the 143 that they were no longer renting.
"They are no longer renting due to COVID," she said. They have made the Town of Bolton their primary home. "That's actually been something eye opening."
The main intention of the law, leadership said as they debated it last year, was to make rules so that the residential charm of Bolton is not lost to house parties and overused septic systems.
[Read our coverage of the law and discussions here, here and here.]
The intentionally long time between the law’s approval and implementation gave people time to register and ask questions, she said.
She knows that more than 143 expect to rent this year, she said, adding that the town expected a report from the county last November containing a list of potential landlords, but that did not happen.
The county hired Granicus, of Colorado, to help find people renting without registering.
“We had some problems getting that going,” said Mike Swan, the county treasurer.
The company started last September, he said.
"It just took us a little bit to get it all working properly,” Swan said, adding that they were trying to get clean data: removing duplicates and people who have already registered from the list. "The reality is we're just starting to get the information now."
From the data, he estimated the county has 1,600 or 1700 active short-term rentals.
"We have about 670 registered right now. And we're in the process of chasing everybody else down,” he said. Registrations were required starting in 2020.
Cheryl Bolton said that people like the town's 9-page application packet because it includes a “laundry list” of how to register a home with the town and how to get an occupancy tax number from the county.
"It's been very well received,” she said.
She said the form is on the town’s website and must be filled out and either emailed or printed and mailed in. The town should have an online form ready in the coming months.
The town’s list of 143 addresses was drawn by the town’s assessor who used outdated Warren County occupancy tax information, the assessor’s own investigation of properties listed on the internet, and reports from neighbors, who often call to query, not to complain, Cheryl Bolton said.
The county is hoping for a March 1 release date of the latest data and a quarterly release date after that for about a year. By then the dataset should be complete, and the county will assess the Granicus contract to see if their service is still required, Swan said.