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FORUM RULES
Thanks for participating in our community discussion on short term renting. To ensure the best possible experience for all members, we have established some basic guidelines for participation.
By posting in the forum, you agree to abide by the following rules. Snowater Association reserves the right to delete improper posts, or to suspend or terminate access to the forum for participants who violate these rules.THE RULES
• Don’t challenge or attack others. The discussions on the forum are meant to stimulate conversation, not to create contention. Let others have their say, just as you may. If referring to a prior post or comment from another individual, consider using a generic term such as “the prior post” or “some owners…” rather than the name of any individual.
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• Send your message only to the most appropriate topic(s). Do not spam several topics with the same message. Do not advertise any products or services.Please participate in the Online Survey on this topic: Short-term Renting
https://survey.zohopublic.com/zs/B2CN4YDear Owners,
Thanks to Mollie for setting this forum up. With this forum, and the results of the new survey for 2022 as linked in Mollie’s opening post above, I hope to foster additional productive dialogue on the important issue of short term rental (STR) activity at Snowater.
As of today, I do not think the Snowater Board or the Snowater Community at large has formed a consensus or even a majority view on the issue of STR. Many owners purchased units at a time when the STR activity at Snowater was far lower than it is today, and thus feel that the emergence of STRs the “sharing economy” have upset their expectations for the Snowater experience as a quiet, uncrowded resort getaway. On the other hand, other owners purchased with an express expectation of being able to rent out their unit to defray the costs of dues and/or create income. For these owners, restricting rentals would feel unfair and potentially cause financial burden.
At the end of 2021, I proposed a “licensing” model which I felt best reconciled some of the competing interests. The model I proposed was an annual “licensing” model that would limit the number of full share units that can rent in any given year, as well as cap the number of nights such units could rent, while overall permitting the same volume of renting as Snowater currently experiences. The basic idea of this plan was to provide a mechanism to “freeze” the rental activity at its current levels. I explained that in order to pass this licensing proposal, each building would need 60% of their voting share to be in favor. The feedback I received was mixed. From what I could tell anecdotally, several buildings would pass the proposal, and several buildings would not. I do not think a “piecemeal” or “building-by- building” approach is in the interest of the community.
As President of the Snowater Association, I am open to ideas and encourage owners to speak to each other about this issue. Perhaps this forum is a good place for those discussions. Why do STRs concern you or not concern you? What will Snowater look like if our STR activity continues to steadily increase? Is STR activity different than “friends and family” sharing activity in your mind? How so?
For me, the STR activity at Snowater is a concern for the future, but not a current crisis. At today’s STR levels, I still find Snowater to be a peaceful place with well-used, but generally available common areas and amenities for me and my young family. But I do have concerns that our pools, spas, parking, septic systems, and other common areas are not amenable to an ever increasing amount of occupancy and usage. Some criticize the fact that the Snowater Board can’t “prove” that STRs are responsible for increased usage or costs. This is true. Unfortunately, with today’s tools, Snowater does not have the ability quantify or attribute certain usage or costs to any one usage type because we don’t track owner usage and our FOB system is not a viable way to back out this information. So for now, we are left with the survey, this forum, reason, and good faith.
I look forward to your views and contributions.
Sincerely,
Phil Decker
SA President 2022It might be interesting for those owners using this forum to know in some detail how and why the RUF for STR’s came about.
Prior to sometime around 2014 there was no rental fee. What happened at that time that led to the RUF? It might be interesting for all owners to know the who, how, and why the first iteration of RUFs came about.
I had an idea that might be worth considering. For those owners who rent less frequently than they use their own units, charge only a minimal fee. For those who rent far more than they use their unit or who own only for the purpose of rentals for profit, charge enough to make up the revenue lost to the reduced fee on owners who only rent minimally. Perhaps the entry gate software and the required guest/rental registration could be manipulated to provide the info needed to monitor rental occupancy VS occupation by owners.
Please participate in the survey when you have a moment.
Great posts and especially well stated by Phil Decker. Being new owners here,I certainly lack the background & experience with the STR issue. However in the brief slice of time of being here on a daily basis for most of this winter, I’m astounded that this is such a big issue. Certainly there’s an significant infux on weekends, from ” ghosttown” on weekdays to noticeably more populated but nothing close to crowded on weekends. It seems that there’s other priorities that could be pursued to improve this community move towards a mutually successful future than some of the measures currently being discussed. Happy to discuss further but not sure if my single finger pecking phone keyboard is best approach. Loving being here with family and friends, so much to explore. Thanks, George Haselton Homestake 402
For more than 30 years Snowater has charged Snowater Time Share Owners a Resort Usage Fee (surcharge) for the daily usage of the property.
In 2013 the Board of Directors made a commitment to the Building Chairs and Owners at Snowater to develop a Strategic Plan which included a review of many items. During that process, it was found that there was only a 5% difference in usage between time share owners, trades (exchanges)and guests and full share owner renters. Lastly, Snowater was determined to be the last of all rental communities in the Glacier and Maple Fall area to impose a Resort Usage Fee despite that we offer the most amenities.
In 2013, the Snowater Association posted and hosted several Town Hall Meetings, including updates in a Quarterly Newsletter sent to all owners with their quarterly assessments, recorded meeting minutes of all meetings, and addressed the 2014 changes in the AGM packet mailed to all owners in November of 2013.
Mollie, Administrative Manager
Like many of you, I knew I wanted to purchase a place here the first time I walked onto the property. I found my condo about 4 years ago and have spent much more time here than I originally anticipated. I’m staying here about 3-4 nights per week.
I was neutral on the STR situation and felt that owners should be able to do whatever they want in regard to renting. My opinion has changed as I’ve seen people treat our community differently than I think most owners would treat there own property or something they value. I’m sure our maintenance team has plenty of observations to this point, as well. I would like to thank them for their hard work.
The greatest of my concerns for Snowater is the risk of fire and people who do not understand it. I have personally seen on multiple occasions, in one building, people who I do not recognize as neighbors throwing cigarette butts from the decks onto the surrounding grass or into the woods during peak fire season. I have also broken down a couple of used fire circles on our property and another just east of the line in the NF. Would owners or people knowledgeable of the area do this? I have also seen open fires on decks which were reported to Snowater management and handled appropriately.
I have also have experienced many annoyances that impact me and other guests. I’m happy to share these on request but honestly they’re too lengthy otherwise. I’ll just summarize that I see a stark contrast in the actions of owners and those I see in known rentals. As an owner and frequent resident my mountain experience, use of common areas, my sleep, and enjoyment of my own unit is certainly being negatively impacted by people who do not respect shared space, or me as a neighbor.
I would like to see all rental units identified as such with contact information and phone number being made available to owners, regardless of whether it is managed by a local company or through a popular app. I also think that whoever receives complaint calls should be required to address them regardless of the time of day or night. I have called two of the local management companies to file complaints and one never returned my call and the other called me back four days later. I think this unacceptable. Is a renters experience more important than an owners?
I hope that we all put appropriate weight on the safety and the quality of the Snowater and the mountain experience, in addition to our individual financial concerns as we navigate this issue.
I’d like to start by sharing feedback I provided via the survey in response to the proposal to the proposal to implement a capped licensing system for STRs:
I believe approaching this topic as being related to short-term rentals is misleading and could result in negatively impacting those that would like to be able to rent their units while not delivering the desired results. The real topic is about facility utilization and ensuring that everyone is paying their fair share for their utilization levels. It is misleading to approach this topic only through the lens of short-term rentals because there are some that rent their units at modest levels that would fall within the “vacation usage” target, while at the same time there are other owners that don’t rent, but personally utilize their units at a level far above the vacation usage target (including reaching full-time utilization in some cases). If we need to track utilization to ensure everyone is paying their fair share, so be it, but assessing utilization should be agnostic of whether that usage is generated from short-term rentals or personal usage.
An additional aspect of this topic that I did not cover in my survey response are the types of issues highlighted by MTB in their post above. That certainly represents a side of STRs that I have not yet experienced, but nonetheless sounds like a legitimate problem. With that said, I don’t believe that the capped licensing system for STRs would necessarily solve those problems – the capped licensing system for STRs seems to be much more directed towards managing facilities utilization.
I look forward to hearing additional perspectives on this topic.
Thank you!
When we bought our condo, in 2008, other than the Snowater sign at the entrance, the only other sign said “No turn around”, and the community was about that welcoming. During the recession that followed, when condos and time shares were going into default, the Snowater community decided to encourage more usage as a way to keep the community going. A large sign was erected welcoming people and encouraging them to come check out Snowater. The community was more welcoming at that time too. Now the big welcome sign is gone and we’re back to the unwelcoming community with people complaining STRs are the problem.
Before implementing more rules and requirements for STRs there needs to be a reasonable amount of proof that STRs are actually causing impacts on our community. Are the issues being caused by a few STRs, all the STRs, owners or owner’s friends and family? If we want to change the rules for STRs we need some actual data of the specific impacts (not just anecdotal data). If the problems are truly with just STRs I’m open to adding some rules and restrictions but the issues I see are rare, minor and not just with renters. I admit I have mostly quit going to pools because of owner’s not supervising their children in the pools but that doesn’t mean I want to ban children from Snowater.
It seems that people are wanting to have Snowater to themselves but Snowater is a 27-acre property with 174 units. People love the Mt Baker area and will continue to come here with or without STRs. We use our condo multiple times a year and see an increase in Snowater usage but it’s not impacting our enjoyment of Snowater or the area. We also use our condo as an STR to help defray the costs of the unit but we have never made enough to cover the actual costs of the unit.
And publishing owner’s information is NOT the way to go, it’s petty and vindictive. If there is a problem, I expect the condo association to contact me so I can address it with our rental management company.
FYI, the RUF started sometime around 2013 when the budget process was revised making many common expenses into individual building expenses. That change reduced the STSA 15% surcharge. The RUF was implemented to make up the difference. The STSA (SnoWater Time Share Association) surcharge is codified in every time share deed starting from the beginning of the time share association.
Our introduction to SnoWater was Via a short-term rental. Shortly after we rented a unit in the 500 building, which introduced us to the facility, we were able to buy a unit. We do not rent due to the somewhat draconian and ever changing STR rules.
So, if you’re a forum user, I’d encourage you to voice your opinion related to the STR policy.
Thanks, CARESNOW
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