Seen at the back of the property at 124 Washington St. in Keene on Tuesday afternoon is a two-bedroom Airbnb unit that is currently available to rent and is owned by Rob Patton-Spruill and his wife, Patti Moreno, of Winchester. (Photo by Hannah Schroeder, Keene Sentinel)
Amid the state’s housing crisis, Keene and Rindge officials are evaluating the effects of short-term rentals, such as Airbnbs, on housing in their communities. Officials in Keene are interested in whether these properties have an impact on long-term housing options and neighborhoods, while Rindge officials are focusing on crafting new regulations.
“The goal here is not to stop short-term rentals,” Keene Senior Planner Mari Brunner said. “It’s to really assess them and make sure that we have a solid understanding of what the impact is right now, kind of keep tabs on it over time.”
The Keene Community Development Department recently applied for a grant to study the issue, and officials in Rindge are considering adjusting town zoning rules to address community concerns about this type of housing.
Websites like Airbnb and Vrbo have become popular with travelers and others, allowing them a short-term rental alternative to traditional lodging like hotels. Sites like these have contributed to more awareness about this kind of housing in the past 10 years, according to a 2023 report from N.H. Housing.
Per that report, people across the state are debating the same questions about short-term rentals as in Keene and Rindge.
There were roughly 9½ short-term rentals per 1,000 residents in Cheshire County as of 2023, according to the N.H. Housing report. This number is low compared to Carroll County, which had 100.1 per 1,000 residents, the highest of any of the state’s 10 counties.
A housing needs analysis that a consultant did for Keene counted roughly 49 short-term rentals in early 2023. Rindge officials did not have data on how many there are in that town.
The city’s community development department is hoping to receive a grant from InvestNH, a statewide program run by the N.H. Department of Business and Economic Affairs and N.H. Housing, to hire a consultant to research the community impact of short-term rentals. The city expects to hear about the grant decision within the next two months.
“Everything that we know about [short-term rentals] is mostly anecdotal,” Brunner said.
Her department wants to learn what regulations it can propose for these types of properties and gather more information on people’s concerns about them, which she said include worries that they affect the “fabric” of a community. She noted that learning about the benefits short-term rentals generate is also important.
“We also don’t want to unduly limit an option for folks in Keene to be able to make money,” Brunner noted. “I know I’ve heard anecdotally from some folks that being able to rent out a room in their house or another property that they own in the city allows them to live where they live.”
Rindge looks to new regulations
Neighborhood complaints are the primary reason Rindge officials are considering changes to short-term rental zoning, according to planning board Chair Roberta Oeser. These concerns include that short-term rentals are hosting too many guests at a single time, and that renters are throwing parties, she said. People also worry that renters are taking up parking and are leaving trash sitting in cans for excessive amounts of time.
Oeser said officials are proposing prohibitions on renting out accessory dwelling units as short-term rentals. These structures are additional buildings on the same property as a single-family home.
“The whole reason that we [allowed accessory dwelling units] was to provide housing, you know, not to provide … income,” Oeser said.
The town is also looking at how to discourage people from purchasing residential properties with the intent to use them as short-term rentals.
N.H. Housing’s October 2023 report found that short-term rentals haven’t had a significant impact on the rental vacancy rate in New Hampshire, which was only 0.6 percent for two-bedroom apartments that year — roughly 4 percent lower than what is considered healthy. The report also found that statewide median rents weren’t affected at all.
However, the organization notes in the report that the findings don’t show how short-term rentals could affect housing in the future.
As in other parts of the state and country, rents and home ownership aren’t affordable for many Keene residents, per a 2023 assessment of the city’s housing needs. What median-income households can afford to pay for a home and what a median-priced house costs aren’t aligned, the assessment said. Plus, a salary under $21 per hour isn’t enough to rent a median-priced apartment.
Considering the already-low rental vacancy rate in the Monadnock Region, J.B. Mack of the Southwest Region Planning Commission said, “when you talk about short-term rentals taking up apartment spaces, I can see that really having an impact.”
“… I think this is just part of the puzzle,” Mack, the assistant director of the organization, said.
“I think that short-term rentals are a good thing to look at.”
Local Airbnb owner sees benefits
However, local Airbnb owner Rob Patton-Spruill doesn’t think the numbers support the notion that short-term rentals like his are hurting the housing stock. Patton-Spruill and his wife, Patti Moreno, live in Winchester and own 11 Airbnbs in Keene, six in Winchester and five in Orange, Mass. The couple is working on adding eight more to their Keene portfolio. The pair run their Airbnbs full-time.
He believes short-term rentals are having a positive effect on the community.
“The customers to the Airbnbs in Keene are people who are working at the hospital for two months. They’re people that are going and putting fiber-optic cable in the ground,” he said.
“These are people that don’t want to stay in a hotel. It wouldn’t be good for them. They want to bring their families, their dogs, their cats and their things like that with them, and they provide an immense service to our community.”
Patton-Spruill noted that some people also use short-term rentals when relocating. They stay in an Airbnb for a few months while they try to find permanent housing.
He said he hasn’t had any issues with partying or noise. “Parties never happen. I’ve been doing it for six years … not one time has anyone rented any house or apartment or anything of mine, threw a party. I just don’t know where that comes from.”
Patton-Spruill said he’s never received a noise complaint associated with one of his properties, either. “And you know, I’ll be the first one to jump on something like that, because I’m trying to have a good relationship with people,” he said.
“I don’t want to get in trouble.”
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