Officials in Stonington are considering a moratorium that would halt the conversion of downtown waterfront commercial buildings into residences due to fears that Airbnb-like vacation rentals could overrun the island town’s commercial center.
There is a growing concern in the fishing community that storefronts along Stonington’s harbor could convert into short-term rentals until all that’s left are vacation properties used a few months of the year.
The town created a task force in December to examine the issue of the lucrative rentals, which take in about $2.8 million annually in Stonington, and ponder potential ways to maintain a year round community.
Linda Nelson, the head of the task force, proposed enacting a moratorium that would prevent changing the first floor of a commercial building on Main Street into residential in order to preserve the town’s business district.
“Right now, the highest and best use of property in Stonington is [vacation rental] housing and that endangers a lot of our traditional commercial properties here on Main Street,” she said. “We’re trying to keep our first-floor commercial properties commercial and allow housing on the upper floors.”
The darkening of Main Street has been going on for years. About 55 percent of homes in the downtown area are now owned by non-residents.
“We have already gone quite a far way down the slope,” Nelson said. “It doesn’t help us to have a town be dark for 10 months of the year and only busy in July and August.”
The interconnected issues of housing and a dwindling workforce are alarming for town officials. They’ve seen housing for workers evaporate in the red hot real estate market, pushing more and more people who work on the island to the other side of the Eggemoggin Reach.
There is no longer a school bus run that goes downtown due to a lack of students. One select board member also said kids don’t trick or treat in the heart of town anymore because there aren’t enough people to hand out candy.
Even if the town can block Airbnbs from infiltrating Main Street storefronts, there are still concerns that short-term rentals will price out island workers, prompting the task force to suggest several other proposals that aim to maintain and generate more housing options.
Along with the moratorium, the task force also recommended creating a registration for all rental properties, a fee structure for different types of rentals, a possible cap like the one implemented in Bar Harbor, and re-establishing the victualer’s license for bed and breakfasts and hotels.
Though the task force believes in all five recommendations, it presented them to the Select Board a la carte. It wanted to give the board the flexibility to pick and choose different options and have the ability to tailor them how the board saw fit.
Nelson stressed that the task force isn’t trying to outlaw short-term rentals. Renting summer cottages has a long history on the island, and tourism is an essential piece of the town’s economy.
But many feel that the scales have tipped out of balance, which could lead to further hollowing out of the island.
“When someone comes in and they’re buying — especially multiple properties — for investment purposes, all they’re doing is turning around and trying to rent it for the highest and best costs that they can get,” said Evelyn Duncan, a Select Board member. “All that money frequently leaves the island … That does not pay for somebody to keep a grocery store open full time. It doesn’t pay for the pharmacy to be open.”
