The short-term rental argument is everyday conversation in Summit County. It has become depressing to read the Summit Daily because of the constant “crisis” we live in here in our “kingdom.”

A recent letter submitted to the paper from Chad Trease asked Breckenridge to acknowledge that there is little support for short-term rental license caps. Trease, since you sign in from Breckenridge but have a Kansas mailing address, I will have to ask if you are registered to vote here in Summit County and Breckenridge? If you are so vehemently opposed, you can vote to make changes, right? Your letter cites the overwhelming opposition to short-term rental license caps. How many of those opposed to caps actually live and vote in Breckenridge?

Short-term rental advocates insist that the hyper-inflated real estate market has nothing to do with them. Yet the wailing about how home prices will drop precipitously if a moratorium is enacted is deafening. How does that work? Do short-term rentals impact home prices or not? You can’t bend the argument both ways and be credible.

Short-term rental investors argue about their property rights, but they often have little respect for the rights of property owners around them. My neighbor has her three-bedroom house listed to rent for 14 people. She pays taxes on a three bedroom residential home. She pays sewer fees for a two-bathroom residence. The fact is, we all pay for the lack of enforcement of short-term rental occupancy, and no one has the right to run a hotel in a residential neighborhood.

Other mountain towns have implemented sound and valuable policies for short-term rentals.

Many favor homeowners who live and vote in their communities. Summit mountain communities should work to emulate those policies and curtail the free-for-all that our short-term rental market has become.