During the uncertainty of a challenging pandemic,  members of the Rockport Select Board have launched an unjustified attack on residents’ property rights that will adversely impact our local tourism economy. They plan to severely restrict the opportunity for Rockport homeowners to offer their homes for rental during the summer months.

Although the term “STR” is new, this practice dates back well over a century in Rockport. As Rockport homeowners who rely on summer rental income to help make ends meet, we feel compelled to share some relevant facts and ask this question: Why are our Town officials seeking to regulate an economic opportunity that helps us and our many local businesses and nonprofit organizations who rely on summer visitors to remain in business?

We were alarmed when certain Select Board officials announced their intention to draft a STR ordinance based on a handful of minor documented complaints and other complaints they say some residents have made to them anonymously. Yet two years of data produced by our Police Chief showed no complaints related to STRs. Similarly, we understand there have been no complaints to code officials about STRs based on safety concerns.   

With few documented complaints, certain Select Board members have relied on the claim that “investors” and “corporations from away” are buying up properties in Rockport solely to operate them as STRs.

We checked with local realtors to see if they had made any such sales and they confirmed that this claim is just not true. The realtors told us that the short term rental market in Rockport does not attract investors because it is limited to the summer months, and carries high costs for real estate, taxes, and the renovation and maintenance of older housing stock.

This came as no surprise to us who rent our properties in the summer primarily to help with our property taxes, oil bills  and other costs of maintaining our homes.

So just how did our Town officials get launched on this misguided effort? 

Last fall, at the  September 23, 2019 Short Term Rental Workshop (transcript available on the Town’s website) John Viehman, the Planning Board Vice Chair, stated: “Speaking from my own personal experience, we have two properties, one directly next to us and one directly across the street that just in the last year or last year and a half, were purchased and then money put into them to renovate. Both buyers, their intent was never to live there it was strictly to make it an Airbnb and a business.” 

When John’s two neighbors spoke at the November 9, 2020 Select Board meeting, one described his statement as a “bold mischaracterization.”

Her family’s connection with Rockport spans five generations. She bought her house because she wants to spend as much time here as possible. The same is true of John’s other neighbor who purchased his house to use as a vacation home. Both neighbors made extensive improvements to their properties for their own use and rent them out while they are away to help recoup some of their renovation and property costs, not to generate a profit. 

John may have thought he was making his comments in a private capacity but he is also the Vice  Chair of the Planning Board. Residents and Select Board members apparently assumed his words were accurate when they heard or read them (Village Soup, September 24, 2019).

Unfortunately, more than a year later, John continues to push his misrepresentation. In his most recent editorial about STRs,  John again mentions “speculative real estate investing” as a justification for regulating  “Non Owner Occupied”  properties more stringently than Owner Occupied ones.”(“Village Soup”, November 19, 2020). 

This distinction  actually appears to be intended to discriminate against homeowners “from away”. This is  highly  disturbing and very much out of character with Rockport’s long and storied history as a welcoming and loved summer colony.   Furthermore, the proposed definition for “Owner Occupied” is so restrictive – the owner must actually live on their property while renting it to a guest -  that most fulltime residents do not qualify for it either. Most don’t have a second unit to rent out, and even before COVID, most guests and hosts did not want to share rooms in the same house.

We also urge the Select Board to research other assumptions they have made to justify regulating STRs. For example, another rationale stated in the proposed ordinance is  that short term rentals have “affected the availability of long term rentals.”

Many Rockport homes that may be rented during the summer are already occupied by their owners for some, if not all, of the offseason. These homes are not a realistic source of year-round affordable housing, an unaddressed need identified in the 2004 Comprehensive Plan. Ironically, restricting residents’ opportunity to rent  their homes as STRs will make Rockport even less affordable for those of us who rely on this income now or who might need to in the future.

Residents have already expressed their disappointment that certain of our elected officials have made the passage of a STR ordinance in June 2021 one of their highest priorities during the pandemic. But even after the threat of Covid-19 subsides, our young people, families with children and retirees on fixed incomes will continue to face the financial challenge of becoming or remaining Rockport homeowners. 

If you are a Rockport homeowner now (or aspire to be) you may find a need to rely on short term rental income to help cover the cost of living here, as we do.

We think it is wrong for the Town to discriminate against our neighbors from away who, like us, are also taxpayers. You might also agree that our property rights and Rockport’s tourism-based economy should be protected against unjustified and overreaching regulations for problems that are minor or not even based on fact. 

Please consider emailing our town manager, Bill Post, at  wpost@rockportmaine.gov or attending the Select Board meeting on Monday, December 14 at 5:30 pm. via livestream or Zoom.

Marika Kuzma Green

Tim Montague

Alison Peabody Southwell

Vic and Marsha Steinglass

Clare Tully

Haunani Wallace

Ralph “Doc” Wallace