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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAWHC 2025-07-09 AWHC 2025-07-09 Final 1 AFFORDABLE AND WORKFORCE HOUSING COMMITTEE July 09, 2025 Virtual (via Zoom) Present: Leonardo Vargas-Mendez (chair and Town Board), Charles Geisler, Michael Murphy (Village of Dryden), Martha Robertson Absent: Christina Dravis (Town Board), Miles McCarty (Village of Freeville) Staff: Ray Burger (Director of Planning) (arrived late), Gina Cassidy (Planning Department), Loren Sparling (Deputy Town Clerk) Guest: Nick Helmholdt (Tompkins County Planning Department) The meeting was called to order at 2:03 p.m. Review and Acceptance of Minutes Both C Geisler and M Robertson had suggested some clarifying edits to the draft minutes through email, which were shared with Committee members. RESOLUTION #12 (2025) – ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES FROM JUNE 04, 2025 L Vargas-Mendez offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: RESOLVED, that this Affordable and Workforce Housing Committee hereby accepts the meeting minutes of June 04, 2025, as amended. 2nd M Robertson Roll Call Vote L Vargas-Mendez Yes C Geisler Yes M Murphy Yes M Robertson Yes Short-Term Rentals and Their Impacts on Dryden’s Housing Market Nick Helmholdt (Tompkins Co Planning Dept) presented on short-term rentals and their potential impact on Tompkins County in general and Dryden in particular. He began by providing some background on the County’s interest in tourism. In the mid-1980s, Tompkins Co began collecting a hotel room occupancy tax (HOT) on any overnight stay in a hotel, motel, or bed and breakfast; this rate is currently set at 5%. This funding has been invested in promoting tourism, cultural programs, and events. Tompkins Co was the first county in New York State to reach a voluntary collection agreement with Airbnb (in 2016), where Airbnb remits HOT for their units in the County. However, this provides very little insight into booking activity. New York State passed a law in late 2024 that shifted the onus on counties for the registration and monitoring of short-term rentals (STRs). This law enables counties with existing HOT laws to impose the tax on STRs without needing further state enabling law changes; basically, STRs can be treated as any other type of lodging for which HOT is being charged. The new law mandates specific health and safety equipment in all STRs statewide (e.g., working fire extinguishers, maps for unit egress and fire escape, and clearly posted emergency service phone numbers). Counties can opt out of the new state law and rely on platform-based agreements, but Tompkins Co plans to utilize the new law for market regulation. Platforms are currently lobbying counties to opt out of state law, offering direct tax payment agreements, but this leads to opacity regarding actual activity; this mirrors the current agreement between Tompkins Co and Airbnb, whereby the County has little insight AWHC 2025-07-09 Final 2 regarding STR booking activity. (In comparison, when hotels pay their occupancy taxes to the County, they also report such basic metrics as how many nights were booked, what the rates of those bookings were, how many rooms were available for rent, etc.) Sales tax has been imposed on STRs statewide since March 1, 2025. This can (but is not required to) be collected by platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo, which are then remitted to the State; otherwise, the hosts are responsible for remittance to the State. The State will then distribute these funds to the counties once a month. Sales tax on STRs will not be coded to identify its source as being from STRs; it will be treated as general sales tax. Tompkins Co is in the process of developing a county-wide STR registration system. This system aims to provide clearer data on active STRs and will be used primarily for HOT collection. Data collected through this system will be shared with towns, potentially replacing local registration lists. The system is expected to be operational in about six months (i.e., fall 2025). Key Data, a private vendor used by the County, collects information from Airbnb and Vrbo (owned by Expedia) by screen-scraping listings daily. N Helmholdt displayed the data that he pulled for the Town, cautioning that the data does not align with municipal boundaries and thereby provides incomplete information; polygons denoted as Dryden and Freeville exclude areas like Varna and Ellis Hollow, lumping them instead with Ithaca. STR data gathered from 2024 for Dryden and Freeville revealed that the average daily rate (ADR = payments divided by number of days) fluctuated between $119/night in January and $200/night in August. Occupancy fluctuated between 6%-10% in winter and 31%-32% in September and October (numbers between 10% and 30% are considered the norm). Between 48 and 65 units are being used as STRs in the area; doubling this amount would calculate roughly 100-130 units being used as STRs throughout the entire Town. N Helmholdt has not seen an increase in STR supply over the last four years in the County and surmises that the STR impact on affordable housing is anecdotal. Hospitality is highly competitive and operationally demanding; many STR owners do not have the time and patience to deal with this. There is also strong competition from hotels, especially considering that hotel room growth from 2009-2015 was robust. In addition, the ending of the sales tax exemption for STRs this year, thus adding 8% to the price, makes them less attractive business ventures. The City of Ithaca requires STR owners to live on-site, which has demonstrably taken STR supply offline, but its impact on the broader housing market is still unclear. The Town of Dryden, Town of Ithaca, Village of Cayuga Heights, and City of Ithaca are the only municipalities in the County with STR ordinances. Dryden has a registry with a $90 biennial fee. However, there are a lot of people who have not registered and are not paying the fee, but the Town lacks enforcement capacity to rectify this issue. Enforcement will remain a local, not county, function. The County is starting its own STR registration process, primarily related to room occupancy tax collection. This data will be shared with the towns which could assist local enforcement. It was indicated that the Town Board would need to vote on whether to replace their current list with the county data. There are challenges to the County enforcement of STR sales tax collection as cash transactions or direct rentals (e.g., yard signs) are hard to trace. The County will focus on units advertised via platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo due to their scale and traceability. AWHC 2025-07-09 Final 3 In sum, the explosion of STRs has potentially levelled off, and a major impact on long- term housing availability is not being seen. However, the County will continue to monitor this issue. Zoning Rewrite Update L Vargas-Mendez announced that the first phase of the zoning study is complete. M Robertson has stepped down as the Committee’s representative to the Zoning Advisory Group for the second phase, but C Geisler has graciously agreed to take on this role. Increased Community Representation on the Affordable and Workforce Housing Committee The Planning Board currently does not have an appointed representative to the Committee. The Planning Board’s reluctance to appoint a liaison is due to increased meeting commitments from the zoning rewrite effort. C Dravis has not been able to attend meetings due to scheduling conflicts. The Committee will explore adjusting their meeting time to better accommodate potential new members and improve attendance, particularly for those with 9-5 jobs. The Committee discussed increasing the number of its members to nine. The rationale for expansion includes needing more community representation, as well as desiring broader geographic representation (i.e., from the north and east sides of the Town), given that the current non-elected community members are from the west side of Town. RESOLUTION #13 (2025) – RESOLUTION TO INCREASE AFFORDABLE AND WORKFORCE HOUSING COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP TO NINE MEMBERS C Geisler offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: RESOLVED, that this Affordable and Workforce Housing Committee requests that the Town Board increase the membership of the Affordable and Workforce Housing Committee to nine members. 2nd M Robertson Roll Call Vote L Vargas-Mendez Yes C Geisler Yes M Murphy Yes M Robertson Yes Other Agenda Items Infrastructure Improvements. R Burger confirmed a CDBG grant application for $1.5 million for the Hanshaw Village MHP sewer project. CDBG cannot be used for both water and sewer due to specific funding pots and project maximums. The project aims to improve existing housing but could also enable the park to return to its full capacity of 149 pads; currently they are around 120. The Town is seeking separate funding for water, estimated at $1-3 million; this currently lacks a full engineering report (unlike the sewer project). R Burger will meet with the Environmental Finance Center (EFC) to learn about infrastructure funding opportunities. An initial idea to package the INHS Freese Rd and Hanshaw Village MHP projects with the Leonardo parcel infrastructure project (which could reach over $3 million) was discussed to AWHC 2025-07-09 Final 4 meet the $5 million threshold for this fund. However, the T. G. Miller engineering work for the Leonardo parcel is still preliminary, lacking the necessary map and plan report required for the NYSEG intersection infrastructure. This is hindering progress on that front. Ownership clarification for the Leonardo parcel has not advanced, which is a prerequisite for moving forward with infrastructure planning. It was briefly noted that new federal legislation may surprisingly contain funding for housing, including for middle- and lower-income efforts. The Committee should keep an eye on these potential sources, lest an opportunity is missed. County HASIG Application. M Robertson will contact Greg Mezey regarding Dryden’s application to the County’s Housing and Economic Development Committee for funding. There are three or four applications for the limited County funds. Dryden’s was the third submitted. M Robertson’s goal is to advocate for the County to fund all projects, given that the County did not use all its funds last year. The County Committee meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday, July 16, at 10:00 a.m. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 3:26 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Loren Sparling Deputy Town Clerk