SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — Summit County is putting new short-term rentals on pause. Starting Friday, the county will not accept new Airbnb or VRBO applications for unincorporated areas.
County commissioners are hoping the moratorium will help with their housing crisis. Affordable places to live are hard to come by in the county, and local leaders say that's driving worker shortages. So they're not taking new short-term rental applications for the next 90 days.
Commissioners said they'll use this time to study if they should add caps in certain neighborhoods.
"We're receiving close to 100 new STR license applications every week in the unincorporated areas," Summit County commissioner Elisabeth Lawrence said. "We hear those stories every single day from our workforce saying, 'Look, I had a place to live and overnight I'm being kicked out because it's turning to an Airbnb or VRBO."
There are exceptions for people who are already under contract to buy a property they planned to put up for rent, or are in the middle of construction on such a property.
Separately, the town of Breckenridge is considering a cap on short-term rentals: no more than 2,200. The town council will vote on that at the end of the month.
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