After a heated three-and-a-half-hour debate — punctuated by more than 45 minutes of emotional public comment — the Steamboat Springs City Council agreed Tuesday night to direct staff to modify the city’s short-term rental enforcement policies and move toward more grace and leniency for owners found in noncompliance. 

The specifics of new notification requirements, however, such as the number and type of notices before enforcement, were not finalized and will return as topics for further council debate.

The city’s STR enforcement policy has drawn heavy criticism for imposing immediate court summons and steep fines without prior warning — a practice that has left many local property owners feeling ambushed and financially devastated. 

Council scrutiny was heightened after a summer marked by urgent pleas and emotional stories from affected residents, many of whom described sudden ruin after missing a single email or minor detail — prompting officials to reconsider whether the current enforcement process is fair and effective.

Tuesday’s discussion opened with a presentation from City Attorney Dan Foote, who gave an overview of STR enforcement history in Steamboat and reminded the current council of why the city made the changes it did a few years back. 

Council adopted the STR licensing code and overlay zone in June 2022 after extensive public input gathered through approximately 20 council and planning commission hearings held over the course of a year, as well as a four-month online community survey on Engage Steamboat. 

The survey helped establish three policy priorities, explained Foote: introducing stricter use standards, increasing and improving enforcement, and restricting STRs to specific areas.

To implement these priorities, council raised the maximum daily fine for unlicensed STR operation from $1,000 to $2,650 and removed the requirement for prior notice before citing violators, said Foote. 

Since April 2023, city staff has strictly enforced these regulations, issuing citations  —  including for expired licenses — without warnings or second notices, Foote said. Licensed property owners receive renewal notices, but failure to renew on time results in immediate enforcement action.

Prior to the public comment period, Foote outlined staff’s recommendations based on the barrage of previous complaints: sending renewal notices, sending notices of expiration in addition to renewal notices; continuing the policy of not issuing warnings; suspending a portion of fines; and offering deferred judgments in certain cases in the green zone. 

Tammy Snyder, who with her husband owns two one-bedroom condos in the green zone, was the first to speak during public comment.

“For nine years, we’ve been in compliance … but on Sept. 11, we missed one email, and now we are facing penalties that are financially devastating. To put it simply, we’ve had to cancel all of our bookings this summer,” said Snyder.

“Imagine being fired for missing one email at work, having to repay a year’s salary, and then being banned from working for two years,” she added. “That’s the penalty we’re facing.”

Following his wife, Dan Snyder said that when they realized their license was expired, they immediately tried to renew and “were met initially with contempt on the phone for the effort.”

Judd Sandstrom, who bought a small condo in the green zone in 2019, flew up from his home state of Tennessee for the meeting after receiving a summons a few weeks ago. 

“We’re not a corporation, we’re not an investor group, we’re just a family of five doing our best to maintain our home and offset expenses through limited, responsible short-term rentals,” Sandstrom said. “In your recent meeting, it was stated that the reason behind the fines was not to ruin families financially, but to encourage compliance. If that’s the case, then I urge you to consider a penalty structure that reflects that intent.”

Robbie Shine, a multi-STR property owner who worked for the city as the parks crew leader for over 21 years, said that he’s “seen firsthand” how Steamboat has compared its policies to other mountain towns to ensure fairness, and he expressed disappointment that the city did not seem to do the same in establishing its STR enforcement policy.

“In 2023, when the city transitioned from (Vacation Home Rental system) to the STR system and framework, I received 11 separate notifications reminding me of my renewal license,” added Shine, who then addressed Foote directly. “I have $54,000 on the books this year, Dan, yet I’m being summoned for $440,000. It hurts. That’s all I’m going to say.”

Several people who vocalized their concerns at previous council meetings in the summer, including Kim Haggarty, Caroline Fisher and Jordan Harper, reiterated their grievances. 

Council’s discussion after the public comment period, which multiple audience members referred to as “confusing,” grew tense and complex.

“It was a difficult subject for a couple of reasons, one of which was that everybody who has come to council to talk about this in the last two months has been very emotional and has had a very awful story to tell,” said Councilor Joella West in an interview. 

Adding to the nuance of the issue, said West, is the reality that the STR enforcement discussion is inherently a legal one. “It’s hard to have a legal opinion when you’re not a lawyer,” she said. 

“It was also difficult because some of those cases have already been in the court system, and under normal circumstances, you would not want your council looking at the court and saying, ‘Hey, you need to do this other thing, not the thing that you’ve been empowered to do,'” West added.

The STR enforcement dilemma was further complicated by the vocal participation of council member Michael Buccino, who was recused from STR policy discussions in early 2022 due to conflicting interests, as well as tangled legal distinctions the council struggled with, such as whether to treat unlicensed rentals the same as expired licenses, and whether STRs in the red, yellow and green zones should be subject to different consequences.

“We were trying at the time to balance concerns of maintaining community character and citizens having a lot of issues with short-term rentals, feeling the impacts of their upstairs neighbor having parties late at night or concerns about trash and parking, and just wanting to be able to live in their home and not feel like they were living in a hotel,” said council member Dakotah McGinlay in an interview. 

“I feel that council did the best that we could to hear the current concerns while balancing concerns that had come up a couple years ago when we first created this policy,” McGinlay added.

Council ultimately agreed to defer judgments of the two-year license ban for first-time violators in the green zone. First-time violators in the red and yellow zones, if they at one point had a license but failed to renew it, will also receive deferred judgments; those in the red and yellow zones who never had a license will not see such treatment.

“What deferred judgment means is they are on probation for probably 18 months, and if they don’t have any further violations during that time period, then the two-year ban wouldn’t be applied to their properties,” said Foote in an interview.

Council also decided to allow Foote discretion to partially suspend fines that may seem exorbitant, though the extent to which they may be lowered remains vague.

For now, any STR owner whose case has already been decided can seek to have it reconsidered, and those with pending court dates have been advised that their trials may be postponed while the new policies take shape.

“We have not settled on the procedure for that yet,” said Foote of cases already adjudicated. “It could be that we reopen all the cases on an individual basis, or it could be that we do it in a blanket way, and I think that kind of depends on a conversation that I’m going to have with the judge as to how he’d like to see that happen.”

Council also agreed that enforcement must become more compassionate and the notification process needs an overhaul. Yet, because additional questions remain — like whether to require multiple renewal notices, email reminders or letters sent via certified mail, or to introduce late fees before pursuing court cases — the precise changes to the notification policy will be hashed out in future meetings. 

“There are still details that need to be solidified, but I really appreciate City Council showing compassion and fairness to make this right,” said Haggarty.