SARANAC LAKE — The village development board is considering the first slate of new short-term vacation rental permits applications tonight. There are five applicants for STR permits requested on Fox Run Road, Petrova Avenue, Park Avenue, Prospect Avenue and Virginia Street.

These permit applications were supposed to be voted on earlier this month on Feb. 4, but sickness left the development board with too few members present to have a quorum to vote. The meeting tonight is scheduled for 5 p.m. in the village board room at the Harrietstown Town Hall. The meeting will also be streamed on Zoom at tinyurl.com/4huvfs38 or by using the meeting ID 518-491-9884 and the passcode 704556.

As this new phase of the village’s landmark STR law kicks off, residents are raising some questions and concerns. Residents are asking for more reliable notification of neighbors of STR applications, as well as more details included in the applications.

STR applicant neighbor and town board member Jeremy Evans said the applications seen at the Feb. 4 meeting had differing amounts of detail and clarity. He felt like several didn’t have enough information included for readers to form an opinion on the application. This hurts neighbors, the applicants and the board, he said.

Community Development Director Katrina Glynn said she’s heard several people mention this. But she said the Special Use Permit forms which STR permits are categorized under aren’t really the right form for the job. The main reason the village chose to make these permits SUPs is to get public hearings on each one.

Because of this, on the applications, many questions were left with “N/A” answers — questions about impact on traffic, character of neighborhood, water dispersal and other topics. Glynn updated these forms with more information on the morning of the Feb. 4 meeting after hearing these concerns about a lack of detail before the meeting.

Development Board Chair Allie Pelletieri opposed the village using SUPs for STR permits. He feels it’s the wrong form and has “no teeth.” It can’t really regulate STRs, since it’s not really meant for that type of residential use.

Several members of the public said there were inconsistencies in the applications. For example, one on Prospect Avenue said the whole house would be rented on the application, but the owner said at the board meeting that they’ll also be living in it. It’s unclear which case is being applied for. The application currently still states “whole house.”

Shaun Kittle is a neighbor to the Prospect Avenue applicant. He was supposed to get mail letting him know about the permit application and the public comment session on it. But he said he learned of the hearing from another neighbor. When he asked Glynn about this, she told him the village got the data from the Franklin County GIS tax map through the Development Authority of the North Country. But that database was at least a decade out-of-date on Kittle’s mailing address. It still shows an old mailing address for his Prospect Avenue property.

Kittle was able to send in his concerns about the STR application before the development board meeting. But he’s unhappy with how they were handled, with Glynn adding details to the applications before the public hearing. He felt concerns about an STR application shouldn’t be used to make the application stronger. He doesn’t want another STR next to his home.

The Enterprise was not able to reach Glynn by deadline for this article.

Pelletieri said there aren’t many reasons the board could reject an STR application, since they are zoned as residential homes.

It’s hard to reject one based on things like noise, speeding or parking concerns since there are already laws about these things, Pelletieri said — a lot depends on who is renting the unit and there could be the same problems with a long-term rental.

“We don’t judge the people, we judge the land,” he said. “Really, our hands are tied.”

But neighbors feel the fact that STRs are occupied by strangers instead of neighbors changes things. Several of the applications are for owner-occupied rentals, which some neighbors feel better about. But not all do.

Some neighbors are looking to improve the STRs planned next to their homes. Others do not want them in their neighborhood at all.

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The current process

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The village’s year-and-a-half-long moratorium on new STR permits ended at the end of 2024. The village board chose to allow up to 10 new permits in the village in 2025, but only in certain zones of the village.

There are exemptions to both the 10-permit villagewide cap and the individual zone caps, but these exemptions are limited to cases where STR owner hopefuls are rehabilitating a dilapidated building or doing new construction to create their planned STRs. These exemptions will be decided on by the village board. An exemption is not an automatic approval of the STR. It just allows the STR application to be heard by the development board, which has its own, separate criteria for approving projects.

All applications are considered on a first-come, first-served basis. Each special use permit application costs $300. Each application comes with a public hearing. Then, if the development board approves it, the applicant will file with the village.

There are fees for obtaining a new STR permit, with sharply increasing rates for operations with more bedrooms — ranging from $25 to $1,600. New STR permits also have stricter residency requirements than preexisting ones. There were 116 preexisting rental permits on 85 properties which were grandfathered into the law. Three did not renew their permits, leaving 113 current STRs in the village.

A formula determines where new STR permits are allowed. If a district has between 51 and 200 residential properties, it can have one more STR. If it has more than 200 residential properties, it can have two more STR units.

A chart showing each village district, how many residential properties it has, how many STR units it has and how many new STR permits would be allowed in its boundaries can be found at tinyurl.com/4827z3p2 starting on page 32.

An interactive online map showing the village’s different districts and their boundaries can be found at tinyurl.com/ct5fwsmx. This can be used to determine which district a property is in.

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The applications

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Kathy Pallotta said her STR application on Fox Run Road is a basement efficiency apartment in the home where she lives, which she plans to rent out in the summer and fall to supplement her income. This house is in zone K-2, which has one more allowable STR permit.

Neighbor Tamara Van Ryan said she had no opposition to Pallotta’s application, but asked the board to come up with more clear written standards for STRs. She said not all neighborhoods are the same and not all STRs are the same. While she approved of her neighbor’s, she said she wouldn’t feel the same way about all STRs.

There was no public comment on Sunny Rozakis and John Joe Reilly’s Petrova Avenue STR, which is deigned in the style of a Hobbit house, from the Shire in “The Lord of the Rings.” This house is in the J-1 district, which has one more allowable STR permit.

John Pietras, a neighbor of John Muldowney’s Park Avenue accessory dwelling unit STR permit application, said he loves the night sky and was worried about a possible deck on the ADU disturbing the dark sky.

Muldowney said when they moved into the house in 2022, the ADU came with two doors leading out to an open space where the previous owners planned a deck. But he assured neighbors they don’t plan to continue with the deck plan. He said they don’t want their STR to be a thing the neighbors resent.

This comforted the neighbors.

This house is in the H-3 district, which has one more allowable STR permit.

Chase Jermano and Autumn Poppleton say they are looking to rent out their house on Prospect Avenue. The permit had listed it as a “whole house” application, but in the Feb. 4 meeting, Jermano said they will also live there and rent a long-term rental on the top floor. He said they have a long-term rental on the top floor. It’s unclear if the application is for the full house or if Jermano and Poppleton will be living there as well.

Neighbor Deb Story said she does not love whole-house STRs in residential areas, saying she feels it undermines a sense of community and security. There’s already a preexisting STR next door to this property.

Evans said this was another example of neighbors being confused by the proposal because it was poorly formatted. Story thought it would be an investor-owned STR, meaning the owner lives elsewhere, not an owner-occupied one. The application still says it is for the whole house. Evans said the details could be described better in applications to avoid confusion for the village and for neighbors.

Pelletieri said the permits can be granted with conditions making them for specific floors of the house, which cannot be expanded afterward.

This house is in the F-2 district, which has two more allowable STR permits.

Ian O’Brien said he’s no longer a full-time resident, but lives in Saranac Lake around half of each month. His whole-house Virginia Street STR application is made through an LLC with at least 25% local ownership.

Neighbor Barbara Hall asked about what’s the difference between a unit being an STR or a LTR if it’s not owner-occupied. Either way, it’s not for a resident, she said. O’Brien said he also plans to build a long-term rental where the garage is now, and rent it to someone to be property manager for the STR.

This house is in the F-2 district, which has two more allowable STR permits.

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Work session

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The village board is considering amendments to its STR law, including if they want to add “owner-occupied” as another reason for granting an exemption from the caps, along with the existing exemptions new construction or rehabilitation.

The village board had a fair bit of contention over how wide-ranging the exemptions should be.

Pelletieri felt the exemptions for new construction, addition and repair seem to lean too heavily on letting an investor “get ahead.”

Village Trustee Kelly Brunette said the point is that it increases the village’s housing inventory, it creates a home that didn’t exist anyway.

Still, Pelletieri asked village board to tighten up.

Development Board alternate Member Tim Jackson said he saw neighbors exhale and feel better when they learned about applications being for owner-occupied units. The public seems to prefer these, he said.

Still, Glynn felt people might have a “false sense of security” from owner-occupied units. Owner-occupied is classified as being lived in by the owner for at least 183 days out of the year. They could still be away half of the year.

Pelletieri asked, even if a property is owner-occupied, who’s to say they’ll be there? He felt another problem is that, while hosts can sort of choose who they rent to, they don’t really know the people — a group of guests could be good, or they could be trouble.

Village Trustee Aurora White said the comfort probably comes from the idea that owner-occupied hosts will be more discerning about who they let into their homes, because they’re either living there, too, or have more valuable and sentimental items there than in an investment property.

Pelletieri said if they have a problem with an STR in their neighborhood because of noise, traffic, garbage, light or anything like that, they need to report it to the police or the village if they want village laws and codes to be enforced.

White said a new state law taking effect on March 25 will require STR platforms to publicly report to the counties how many days a month each unit is rented. The law also introduces penalties for both the host and the STR platform for violations, such as if a unit is not permitted by the local government but operates anyway.

A village report last year found that STRs make up around 5.3% of the village residential housing stock — which is made of 1,527 properties.