Eagle County has been working on short-term rental regulations since 2022. The problem is the county’s complexity.

Most of the short-term rentals in the county — 87% — are in Beaver Creek, and the resort closely monitors those units. Many of the rest are monitored by homeowners associations.

But the county’s staff continues to work on possible regulations, and the Eagle County Board of Commissioners Monday got a look at three possible options for regulations.

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Those options include:

• Continue with a current draft of an ordinance that requires registration of all short-term rentals in unincorporated Eagle County
• Try to draft an ordinance that would exclude already-registered units and only register units outside of Beaver Creek, Bachelor Gulch or Arrowhead
• Collect data from existing sources to monitor impacts over time of short-term rentals, commit to some level of staffing to monitor and analyze that data, then, maybe, reconsider one of the first two options

The staff report presented pros and cons for all the options, with pros including simplicity, ensuring health and safety of units and consistency of data.

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Arguments against various options included duplicating efforts already in place from homeowners associations and potential disparate treatment of property owners. Among the most important arguments against is the loss of simplicity in crafting the rules, which was near the top of the commissioners’ priority list.  

County Chief Financial Officer Jill Klosterman said the third option would ensure the commissioners could react to real estate trends.

On the other hand, the short-term rental market has been fairly stable for the past few years. And, despite initial fears that the short-term rental trend was cutting into the workforce housing market, most of those units remain in the county’s resort areas.

But Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney noted that unless homeowner associations already have licensing requirements for short-term rentals, they’re unlikely to have enforcement provisions.

Commissioner Tom Boyd said that’s why he believes a one-size-fits-all set of regulations won’t work in Eagle County.

Still, McQueeney said, while short-term rentals may not be affecting workforce housing that some once feared, “I think it is changing our communities,” citing the presence of “party houses” in some neighborhoods and the lack of enforcement for those properties.

Klosterman said perhaps the county could provide data if a neighborhood association decides it doesn’t want to allow short-term rentals. The county might be able to provide resources about how to manage those rentals, she said.

“It’s a complicated (issue),” Boyd said. “We’re working hard to get it right.”