Judge dismisses lawsuit against Burlington's short-term rental regulations – VTDigger

A Vermont Superior Court judge last week dismissed a lawsuit filed by more than a dozen rental property owners challenging Burlington’s regulations governing short-term rentals.

The lawsuit, filed in July 2023 in Chittenden Superior civil court, argued the city overstepped state law when it enacted restrictions in June 2022 on short-term rentals.

Those restrictions set strict limits on property owners who rent out their properties using services such as Airbnb and VRBO. It prohibited short-term rentals in the city unless they are owner-occupied and defined a short-term rental as a dwelling rented to guests for fewer than 30 consecutive days.

The penalty for noncompliance starts with a $100 civil fine and increases to $200 after the second violation.

Burlington is not the only municipality to set limits on short-term rentals. Towns and cities such as South Burlington and Morrisville have in recent years enacted similar regulations in an effort to ensure the availability of housing for long-term residents.

In previous legal filings, the property owners’ attorneys wrote that enforcement would have a “substantial impact on Plaintiffs’ financial stability and greatly harm Plaintiffs’ business interest.”

State law grants municipalities jurisdiction over regulating housing for the purpose of promoting a city’s or town’s health, safety and welfare. But the plaintiffs, 14 different individuals and business entities in Burlington, argued the city overstepped state law by setting duration limits and owner-occupied requirements for rental units.

Superior Court Judge Samuel Hoar was not convinced, and on Nov. 19 dismissed the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs’ claim “fails as a matter of law,” Hoar wrote in the decision, because the city “plainly has broad authority to regulate short-term rentals” under existing statute.

“The relationship between a lack of available long-term housing and strains on the housing market, with impacts on homelessness, is intuitive, as is the consequent impact on a municipality’s general welfare,” Hoar wrote. “Thus, the city’s regulation of short-term rentals bears an obvious and rational relation to public welfare, health, and safety.”

The judge’s decision was first reported by Vermont Public.

The plaintiffs in the case included three individuals — Sean Hurley, Kristin Baker and Petra Winslow — and a number of companies. The properties listed in the suit are mostly located in the city’s Old North End.

Liam Murphy, an attorney with Burlington law firm MSK, which represented the plaintiffs, did not respond to a request for comment. City attorney Kimberlee Sturtevant and city spokesperson Joe Magee did not respond to an email seeking comment.