I think the biggest thing that people coalesced around in the survey is that there are economic benefits in the town to having STRs. (The survey) wasn’t a slam dunk in one way or the other. The name of the game is going to be finding where is that compromise that will make this work.”

Westport Town Planner Michael Burris

A majority of residents want Short Term Rentals (STRs) to be legal and regulated in Westport, but do not want the town to establish a minimum length of stay. They believe they have a positive impact on the town, that the owners of the homes or units being rented out should live on the same property, and that the practice is vital to the economic well-being of many Westporters.

Those are a few of the takeaways from a recent survey on the practice posted on the town’s website and presented to the planning board Tuesday.

All told, 428 people responded to the survey drafted by town planner Michael Burris. And of those, nearly 85 percent live in town.

The results, members of the planning board said Tuesday, will give the town valuable insight into what residents are looking for as the board works to adjust proposed STR bylaws that were defeated at this year’s Town Meeting in May.

“It gives you a better sense of what to home in on,” member John Bullard said of the survey.

“I think it was a wonderful job by (Burris) to try and carry something forward,” added realtor Nicole Plant, who does not live in Westport but works for a local realtor and has followed the proposed regs for months.

STRs are currently and have always technically been illegal in Westport, as they are not specifically mentioned in the allowed uses table for the town’s various zoning districts.

The May vote, if passed, would have codified them as an allowed use, thus legalizing them. But town officials believe those who voted ‘Nay’ may have been unaware that turning them down actually affirmed their long-time and current status as illegal.

False information presented by some residents at town meeting played a big part in that vote, board chairman Jim Whitin suggested, and “it’s terrible because (due to Town Meeting rules) we had no ability to rebut all the stuff out there that was completely erroneous.

With the survey results in hand, he said, the town has a better sense of what residents want to see, and what they don’t.

What does it say?

Following are results from the STR survey:

• More than half of respondents (52.6 percent) believe short term rentals have a positive impact in town, while just over a quarter (26.2 percent) believe they have a negative impact. The remainder believe they have neither a positive nor negative impact.

• The type of short term rental respondents believe should be allowed drew a big spread of responses, but a majority believe owners should occupy the home in which a room is being rented (60.5 percent) or should live onsite if the unit being rented out is a home itself, or an accessory dwelling (72.9 percent).

Meanwhile, 38.1 percent of respondents believe renting a room, home or accessory dwelling unit in which the owner lives offsite is appropriate, "so maybe there’s some room to find some compromise there,” Burris told the planning board. Just over 20 percent of respondents do not support short term rentals.

• Where STRs should be allowed provided a clear mandate — 68.9 percent of respondents said they should be allowed in both the business and residential agriculture districts. The support for allowing them only in the residential agriculture district was much lower, at 4.2 percent, while support for them in the business district only hovered at just over 8 percent. Nearly 19 percent of respondents marked their preference to “disallow short-term rentals in Westport.”

• When asked how to regulate STRs, just over a third (36 percent) want to allow the use with some regulations, and combined, 52 percent want at least ‘some degree of regulatory oversight,” Burris said. Support for allowing them with no regulations hovered just under 30 percent, while 18.2 said Westport should disallow them. Least popular (16.4 percent) was the option of allowing them with “substantial” regulations.

Burris said the answer to this question suggests that in the town’s first attempt at regulations, “maybe it was in the right direction (but) could have gone too far.”

• One of the reasons officials believe the vote failed at May’s Town Meeting was due to a floor amendment to increase the minimum stay allowed from two to seven days.

In the survey, nearly half (48.4 percent) believe that length of stay shouldn’t be codified in regulations as “a classification based on the length of stay is not necessary.” One third of respondents (33.2 percent) believe there should be some classification based on length of stay. Meanwhile, 18.5 percent said they do not support short-term rentals.

• In a follow-up question, residents were asked what any minimum stay should be. Just over 40 percent favor no minimum length of stay, while 19.2 percent said short-term rentals should not be allowed, regardless of the length of stay. About one out of nine believe the minimum stay should be seven days, while support for two or three-day minimums each hovered around 9 percent. There was less support for stays of greater than seven days but less than 31, and five and four day minimums.

• The depth of regulations came up in another question, in which respondents were asked about the nature and depth of town oversight.

More than half of those who took the survey (52.3 percent) prefer that a local party be available to respond to issues that may arise. Nearly as many (50.2) percent want parking requirements clearly spelled out, while about 45 percent said building code/fire safety inspections should be required, and about 41 percent also said the board of health should inspect properties. Just over a third said there should be signage limitations, while just over 28 percent favor increased lodging excise taxes. Other categories drew lower or statistically insignificant responses of less than 1 percent.

Priorities

Respondents were also asked to rank the impact of various STR-related impacts, and rank that priority on a 1 to 5 scale with 1 being lowest and five being highest. Results include:

• Noise: Highest priority was chosen by 37.6 percent, while 15.9 percent said it was their lowest priority.

• Parking: Highest priority was chosen by 30.6 percent of respondents, while 18.2 percent said it was their lowest priority.

• Trash and litter: The highest priority was chosen by nearly 40 percent of respondents, while 14 percent said it was their lowest priority.

•  Building and fire safety: The highest priority was chosen by 33.2 percent, while 16.4 percent said it was their lowest priority.

•  Signage does not appear to be a significant issue, as the highest number of respondents (28.7 percent) said it was their lowest priority. The second to lowest vote total (14.7 percent) came from those who believe it is the highest priority.

• Likewise, the impact of STRs on the town’s long-term rental availability was also not an issue to most respondents. The highest vote total (30.1 percent) came in the lowest priority, while one in five respondents said it should be the highest.

• When asked where they stood on whether increased income for property owners was a priority for them, the results were a mixed bag, with the highest number of respondents (28.3 percent) voted “3” — halfway between lowest and highest priority. The second highest vote total came from those who believe income should be the lowest priority (23.1 percent).

• Whether STRS provide additional commercial tax revenue to the town was also a mixed bag, as the largest block of residents (27.1 percent) chose option three, halfway between low and high priority. The second highest vote total (25.9 percent) came from those who say it should be the highest priority.

• A majority of owners believe that the economic benefits to local business should be of the highest priority (40.2 percent), with percentages tapering down from there to lowest, with just under 10 percent of respondents said it should be the lowest priority.

• There was some consensus that increased lodging opportunities for visitors should be a priority, with the highest vote total coming from the “highest” category — 29.7 percent. Just under 23 percent said it should be a medium priority, while 21 percent chose priority 4 — second highest. Almost 19 percent, on the other hand, said it should be the lowest priority.

Take-aways

“I think the biggest thing that people coalesced around in the survey is that there are economic benefits in the town to having STRs,” Burris told the planning board. However, he said, the survey ”wasn’t a slam dunk in one way or the other. The name of the game is going to be finding where is that compromise that will make this work.”

The mixed bag in some areas “makes our jobs a lot more difficult when trying to work out what is that gray area that people will support at Town Meeting.”