While the ski resorts bemoan the lack of substantial snowfall and warm weather, this past spring our East Side ranchers enjoyed “shirt-sleeve calving.” Now that those calves are a few months old, the valley is in the middle of the most labor-intensive of the three seasonal windows of the ran ching calendar: calving, branding, and the fall gather. Like most big brandings, the work actually starts indoors, with families putting clean sheets on the beds and dusting out the bunkhouses and guest cabins. Then the crew arrives and heads out to the branding pens for a long day of roping, vaccinating and castrating. It’s an all-hands affair, drawing generations back home to lend a hand. But thanks to the Summit County Council, those guest rooms are now required to remain dark for most of the year. By applying blanket, resort-town short-term rental restrictions to agricultural land, the county has effectively banned multigenerational families from using their own historic assets to fight the skyrocketing property taxes that price them out of their heritage. In theory, the County’s STR crackdown makes perfect sense. Outlaw nightly rentals of accessory dwelling units, and you unlock a ton of workforce housing for the ski patrollers, lifties and kitchen staff who run the resorts while simultaneously cutting down on S.R. 224 traffic. As well-intentioned as those rules are on paper, does anyone honestly think killing off a rural vacation rental in a place like Peoa solves the affordable housing crisis in Deer Valley? Not a chance. I can’t imagine a J-1 visa holder or a student taking a gap year to enjoy the ski-bum lifestyle while renting a basement room in Henefer for a job in Park City. The real winners here are the consulting companies reaping mounds of taxpayer money to police local property owners, and the corporate hotels that can maximize revenue by locking guests into those in-house amenities. While our resorts and bougie restaurants thrive, a growing demographic of vacationing families is looking to enjoy the tranquility and bright stars of a rural setting. Travelers are increasingly opting for historic cabins or homesteads rather than a couple of rooms at a resort hotel. Ironically, these visitors want to experience the quiet, agricultural lifestyle our elected officials in Park City constantly claim they want to protect, or do they? The financial trickle down of those rural nightly rentals directly hits our local businesses, too. When guests grab breakfast at the Oakley Diner or the Mirror Lake Diner, buy artwork at Artique, grab ice cream at Mix’s Place, and pick up new boots from the Bolt Ranch Store, they financially support our local families. If you are wondering how many folks staying at the Pendry skip the shops at Canyons Village to drive out and visit any of those East Side diners, let me help you out: None. The economic impact doesn’t stop with retail and diners. Dozens of independent contractors rely on this boutique market. Small property managers, local cleaning crews, carpenters and handymen all benefit. Even the local hardware store wins because a competitive vacation market forces owners to constantly maintain and upgrade their spaces. Clean, modern spaces with new appliances rent for more, which means these historic bunkhouses and guest cabins are ultimately better maintained and preserved for the next generation. If we really care about open space, we should stop pricing out the large landowners who provide it. We should stop erecting barriers that keep locals from earning a little extra money with their land to hold onto their family homes. The cynic in me thinks the county wants to grow its own footprint by purchasing these properties under the guise of “managing open space” when locals can no longer afford the tax bill. Or better yet, force families to sell out to mega-developers who will leverage teams of lawyers and friends in the Statehouse to build “little boxes made of ticky tacky … little boxes all the same.” But I suppose that is perfectly fine by the County Council. All those new “people in the houses, all went to the university, where they were put in boxes, and they came out all the same” — and they will all pay taxes to an ever-growing county government. Some might even step out of those boxes to become the next generation of lawyers and politicians working for those same developers. Personally, I prefer the rancher who comes home to work the land with his teenage kids in tow. They’ll rope ’em, shoot ’em, brand ’em, cut ’em, and enjoy some Rocky Mountain oysters. All while those lawyers and politicians pop out of their boxes to enjoy fresh-shucked oysters washed down with High West Double Rye at the Montage Deer Valley. Ari Ioannides, chair of the Summit County Republicans, is a recovering tech entrepreneur, founder of BootUP PD, and serves on local government and nonprofit boards. He offers a conservative perspective on local politics. He can be reached at [email protected] The post The Porcupine Quill: Rounding up all those short-term rentals appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less