WHITE LAKE, NY — Bethel has a lot to consider as it proposes its short-term rental regulations. 

Short-term rentals (STRs)—homes or rooms rented out like hotel rooms—have exploded in number throughout Sullivan County in the past few years. The trend has been pronounced in the Town of Bethel: four to 10 percent of homes in the residential hamlet of Smallwood and its vicinity are used as STRs, according to numbers from the citizens’ advocacy group Smallwood Aware Residents Team (SmART). 

The town board has drafted a set of STR regulations that require permits for STR use; compliance with parking, fire safety, occupancy, septic and garbage disposal standards; and a contact person available within 24 hours notice if something goes wrong. 

Town supervisor Daniel Sturm has described the law as a fair permitting system with additional enforcement mechanisms. 

Residents of Bethel—and residents of Smallwood in particular—question if enough research went into the creation of the law, and if it accurately reflects the needs of the Town of Bethel. 

“The current law as proposed by the Bethel Town Board is too lenient and fails to take note of the far-reaching effect of this law on environmental sustainability and the character of our community,” reads a statement from Smallwood resident Anupama Rao. 

Residential or commercial

The law as written does not distinguish between the town’s different zoning districts. It regulates STRs the same whether they’re in an area designated for homes or an area designated for businesses. 

That’s an issue, say advocates, especially for the town’s densest residential communities like Smallwood and White Lake.

“For me, Smallwood was to be a life in a residential neighborhood free of commercial business and transient people coming and going,” reads a statement from Smallwood resident Gail Rubenfeld. “Now, the town board is proposing that this residential area should include transient renters who, I believe, have no stake in my community.”

Other homeowners in the Smallwood area have a different view of the community—particularly those who use their homes as STRs. 

Scott Kohanowski bought a lakefront house as a second home in Smallwood with his spouse about 12 years ago, and needed to rebuild it from the ground up, he said. They’ve relied on the income from the home since the pandemic; in the time that they’ve rented out the house, they haven’t had any complaints from friends or neighbors about their guests, Kohanowski said. Many of the guests “are also visiting friends and family in the area and want that feeling of home away from home.”

“We, like everyone else we know in Smallwood who rent their homes, are responsible community members who screen their guests, don’t accept any disruptive behavior, have the necessary permit and insurance and pay applicable taxes,” says resident and STR owner Melinda Martino. 

Even so, says Rubenfeld, “it troubles me that this board doesn’t care about my right to not live next to a commercial motel business (even if these entities don’t call it that) in a residential district and [that my right] is somehow less important than my neighbor’s right.”

Where the rules apply

Because the law doesn’t distinguish between zoning areas, it has no special regulations for the most densely populated areas of town that are zoned as residential, particularly Smallwood and White Lake.  

Residents of those areas have submitted comments to the town board calling for different rules to address those residential areas. 

The Smallwood Civic Association (SWCA) has explored action it can take for STRs in a parallel process to the town’s regulations. 

“The board of directors of the SWCA formed a ‘rental committee’ approximately two years ago to study the use of the SWCA’s facilities by non-member transient (STR) renters,” reads a statement from SWCA president Jonathan Hyman. “Having received recommendations from the committee, the board has discussed with membership and has sought comment on the details of a policy it is considering implementing.”

The details of this policy are still private. In Kohanowski’s view, “that proposal effectively bans the use of any SWCA facility, including the lake, beach, benches, tennis courts and playground, by any short-term renter.” 

He and other STR owners in Smallwood have begun to organize against both Bethel’s proposal and the SWCA’s. According to Kohanowski, people feel as though both processes lack full transparency, are motivated by the personal interests of council and board members, and address a “non-existent problem” without data to back up their solutions. 

Over 20 people have reached out to organize around a counterproposal, says Martino. She believes the current poroposal will most likely increase use of the SWCA’s facilities by non-renters, and recommends changes including a cap on the number of short-term rental memberships. “Before banning short-term renters from using the facilities, I believe a thorough impact study should be done,” says Martino. 

The SWCA is limited in what it can do, according to Hyman. It cannot limit or restrict its members from using their homes as STRs, but “it does however have the right to control access to its private property and facilities.” It’s limited, too, in its reach; the SWCA has just under 450 household memberships out of the approximate 1,100 homes in Smallwood. 

Further regulation of STRs falls on the Bethel Town Board of as the area’s civil authority. 

Canadice cut-and-paste

The majority of Bethel’s STR law follows a 2021 law from the Finger Lakes town of Canadice. A few things are changed—the two-year term of an STR permit in Canadice’s law is brought down to one, and there’s an additional definition of “short-term rental” included—but the essence of each law is the same. 

The choice of the Canadice law didn’t come out of nowhere. New York State has identified the law as the “gold standard” of STR regulations, a fact Bethel officials have mentioned in support of Bethel’s regulations.

Zoning officials throughout New York received STR training in September and October of 2022 from the state Association of Towns. The presentation held Canadice’s law up as one to emulate for its “clear legislative intent and purpose—regulating short-term rentals to preserve and protect health, character, safety and general welfare of residents.”

But the direct carry-over of the law from Canadice to Bethel leaves a lot of work undone, residents claim. 

“It is unfortunate that Bethel’s STR law has essentially been cut and pasted from a town in the Finger Lakes Region named Canadice… there has been no study or discussion as to what the overall impacts could be if up to 12 transient renters are allowed in every house in Smallwood, White Lake and the rest of Bethel,” reads a statement from SmART.