Sandpoint City Hall holds off on repealing short-term rental regs to align with new state law
By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff
One way or another, the city of Sandpoint will be required to repeal its short-term rental regulations by Monday, July 1, when a new state law goes into effect. But neither the City Council nor Sandpoint Mayor Jeremy Grimm are happy about it.
“Although I realize that we have to comply with state law, I think this House Bill 583 was some of the worst legislation I’ve ever seen,” Grimm said, referring to the law signed by Gov. Brad Little in March.
The council took up the issue on May 20, considering whether to approve an ordinance repealing the city’s current regulations in order to align with H.B. 583, which forbids Idaho municipalities from regulating STRs in ways different from any other private residential property.
Councilors first voted in a tie to advance the repeal ordinance to its third reading, with Council President Deb Ruehle voting “very disgustingly and apprehensively” in favor of moving the ordinance forward. Councilor Joshua Torrez also said that while being “100% still against this,” he would vote in favor “to make sure that our city does not go through more pain because of not supporting it.”
Councilors Pam Duquette and Kyle Schreiber both voted “no,” with Grimm reluctantly breaking the tie.
“I agree with all of you,” Grimm told the council. “But when we think about the taxpayers’ standpoint and our limited resources and the machine that is the swamp of lobbyists that put self-interest, corporate interest and profit over the health and benefit of communities, the fact [is] that we can’t fight that from Sandpoint City Hall effectively.”
However, the council then voted unanimously against the measure, delaying a final decision until its next meeting at the earliest.
“I just wanted to make a public statement that I’m very much opposed to the passing of H.B. 583 for many, many reasons that have already been stated here,” Ruehle said.
Schreiber echoed that sentiment, adding that he is “100% against this legislation and I think it’s very short-sighted and is going to cause all sorts of problems for our community. But we don’t have many options, unfortunately, and I don’t want to open the city up to undue risk by not keeping our ordinance in line with state regulations.”
“I have voted against this every time we’ve talked about it,” Duquette said. “I still agree that it is not in the best interest of our city and its taxpayers.”
Lobbied for by state and national vacation rental industry representatives — including from international STR platforms like Airbnb and VRBO — H.B. 583 was supported by Dist. 1B Rep. Cornel Rasor, R-Sagle, though opposed by Dist. 1A Rep. Mark Sauter, R-Sandpoint, and Dist. 1 Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle.
City Hall had been grappling with how to address STR regulations even before the passage of H.B. 583, beginning with threats of a lawsuit from the vacation rental industry in 2025 if Sandpoint didn’t remove its cap on the number of STRs allowed in city limits. Councilors voted in February to remove that cap while adopting a number of new policies related to establishing occupancy categories, permitting, parking requirements and administrative changes.
With Little’s signing of the bill into law in March, even that amended ordinance became obsolete, resulting in the May 20 agenda item totally repealing it.
“Cities and municipalities across Idaho are no longer able to regulate short-term rentals any more rigorously than you would a single-family home,” said Sandpoint Assistant Director of Planning and Community Development Bill Dean on May 20, later adding, “We’re basically going to be out of the business of being able to regulate these beyond basic basic life safety considerations regarding carbon monoxide monitors and things like that.”
Both local and state opponents have criticized H.B. 583 as an undue restriction of local control over property regulation, as well as putting communities at risk of seeing their housing stock opened to the unrestrained proliferation of vacation rentals — making already tight real estate markets even more accessible and reducing municipal tax revenue, while also presenting health and safety risks as well as threatening neighborhood integrity.
“The state of Idaho has invested tens of millions of dollars to diversify the economy of this community over the past two, three decades. We’ve succeeded,” Grimm said. “We represent one of the most diverse mountain town economies in the country today with aerospace, bio-med, food production, computer analytics and many other industries.
“Over the past five years, with our challenges with affordable housing and capacity, those employers are struggling to find full-time, year-round housing for our citizens,” he added. “Allowing unfettered short-term rental speculators and investors to come in and buy our housing stock — displacing the opportunity for a local resident or employee to live there year round for the proposed benefit of the individual for a short-term profit on a short-term rental — in my mind is not the direction we need to be going as a community.”
Before casting her vote against passing the repeal ordinance and delaying the final vote to a further reading at a future meeting, Ruehle emphasized: “I’d like this to be read that many more times so we can express our disgust publicly.”
