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It takes eight minutes by ferry to cross the Peconic River, the body of water that separates Shelter Island and the South Fork of Long Island, but the distance in temperament between the two areas could not be more pronounced.

On Shelter Island, keeping the party, and Airbnb, at bay | Pulselive Kenya

Sarah Maslin Nir

With osprey circling over the island’s 30 square miles of Long Island pine trees and the wetlands of Mashomack Preserve, and tricycles piling up outside the Tuck Shop ice cream parlor, Shelter Island has the refined but casual feel of an accidental resort town.

There are still the seasonal visitors, but they tend to be less disruptive than the weekend revelers who rent shares of Hamptons homes in the towns on the main island; many Shelter Island guests stay in bed-and-breakfasts or rent stately Victorians for the entire summer.

And that’s precisely the way town officials want to keep things.

In 2017, with online sites like Airbnb vastly expanding the short-term rental market, the town passed a law that regulated how often a home could be rented per season, with punishments including steep fines and even jail time.

The popularity of short-term stays have heightened anxieties, from Town Hall to the beach club in the Heights section, that the island will be overrun, and a seaside idyll spoiled.

Proponents of short-term rentals say they breathe new life into the island by appealing to people who might otherwise not afford it, and allow homeowners flexibility in renting out their properties.

Similar battles have been waged across the country, as many cities, including San Francisco, Las Vegas and New Orleans, have passed laws regulating the home-sharing industry. Opponents say the proliferation of sites like Airbnb and HomeAway has hurt the hotel industry, and has inflated rents and worsened gentrification.

On Shelter Island, town officials had other concerns: They feared that their quaint community, long preserved behind the moat of Gardiners Bay, would turn into another Montauk, a nearby seaside hamlet at the tip of Long Island’s South Fork that has seen a deluge of vacationers in recent years.

The town’s legal efforts to curb short-term rentals led some homeowners to sue the town and the town board in federal court, charging that their Fourth Amendment and 14th Amendment rights to their property were being illegally deprived. The law, they say, caters to wealthy residents intent on making the island their own private resort.

“All the nongazillionaires, we need this money from renting out our homes,” said Kathryn Klenawicus, who said she supports her husband, who has a disability, by renting their house out in the Heights each August, while living in their guest quarters. “But we definitely have some people here, they are of a certain financial stature, and they really want to turn Shelter Island into their own private gated retirement community.”

This month, Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn dismissed most of the major claims in the lawsuit. Even with a trial on the remaining issues pending, the town seems willing to make some changes.

Shelter Island officials are considering an amendment to the law that would make it illegal to rent a house for fewer than 14 days more than six times a year, and would require all rental houses to be registered with the town. Punishments for violators would start at $250 and could rise to $5,000 for repeat offenders, with up to 30 days of jail time.

In response to complaints that the law was onerous for families who need rentals to make a living, the town has proposed a “homesteaders hardship” exemption that grants families who earn less than five times the federal poverty line (about $130,000 for a family of four) a license to rent more frequently.

“This is to keep the character of Shelter Island,” said Bob DeStefano, the town’s attorney. “It’s a balance. We are trying to allow some of these, without being too restrictive.”

Shelter Island’s neighboring towns have wrestled with similar issues. The town of East Hampton, which includes the hamlets of Montauk, Wainscott, Springs and Amagansett, has had a rule since 2015 that permits rentals only in 15-day chunks, and only twice a year, and along with Southampton requires rental houses to be registered. In Ocean Beach, on Fire Island, rentals cannot be for less than a week.

“We have serious concerns about any restrictions that could hurt the local residents who rely on home sharing for extra income,” said Josh Meltzer, head of Northeast policy for Airbnb, in an email.

On Shelter Island, there are 110 Airbnb “hosts” who have housed 2,200 guests in the past year, according to the company, and nearly all of the hosts rent their homes for fewer than 60 days per year.

Meltzer said Airbnb had not been involved in the discussions between the town and residents about the law, but would “welcome the opportunity to work with Shelter Island to develop reasonable regulations.”

It seems clear that many Shelter Island residents would welcome Airbnb’s help. A petition against the law, featuring an osprey saying, “Are you kidding me!!” was signed by more than 1,030 people (the year-round population of Shelter Island is about 2,000) and urged residents to boycott registering their rentals as required.

In The Shelter Island Reporter, letters to the editor and online forums are filled with comments from those who oppose the short-term rental law, arguing that it is intended to keep out people who cannot afford long stays at the beach, and risks suppressing tourism, the lifeblood of the local economy.

Like many who oppose the law, Klenawicus said she believed that it was unfair for the town to restrict how and when she and her husband can rent out their home, all because of a supposed problem that she said the island, with its low-key beaches and main streets, does not have.

“Shelter Island is all about swimming, relaxing, maybe taking a nap. It’s definitely not a party scene,” she said. “How could it possibly be Montauk? The ferry stops all the traffic at midnight.”

Gary Gerth, Shelter Island town supervisor, said the back-and-forth over the short-term rental law was to be expected. “We have a very feisty island, and we have a very diverse economic and cultural group of people, and it’s wonderful,” he said. “They argue at the post office, at the IGA, on street corners. That’s who we are. That’s healthy.”

Gerth, who pushed for the 2017 law to be softened, said concern over short-term rentals getting out of hand was overblown.

“If I have a rental behind me and it’s four college kids, I walk over there and say, ‘Hey kids, take the party elsewhere.’ We are making a bigger deal of this than it is.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="96b869bc-11cb-381c-a623-be70777638ea" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/28/nyregion/shelter-island-airbnb-rentals-law.html">The New York Times</a>.

On Shelter Island, Keeping the Party, and Airbnb, at Bay

On Shelter Island, keeping the party, and Airbnb, at bay

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