SOUTHWEST HARBOR - Pemetic School, which once was a high school, is now the smallest public school on the island in enrollment, eclipsed even by neighboring Tremont for the first time in history. Taking pre-K out of consideration because it gums up historical comparisons, Pemetic is down to 108 students in the latest report from the MDI superintendent’s office, compared with 120 in Tremont.
The many conclusory statements in your piece about short term rentals (STRs) give me great heartburn. Take, for one example, your citation to "proof" that STR growth in Bar Harbor was "halted" after Bar Harbor passed its ordinance: a gummy worm shape undulating up and down across the graph, but showing on average an overall uptick.
And, consider your conclusion that impeding (with taxation) rentals will magically bring back young families with affordable housing in SWH. Ain't gonna happen, in SWH or elsewhere. Market forces are simply too great, along with the demographics of a huge surge of retiring Baby Boomers who want a vacation home. Remember, the Island benefits from these folks, as they spend their dollars here (just try to find a free plumber, a free tree trimmer, a restaurant that doesn't have an overflow of summer diners.)
And, have you measured the number of MDIslanders who themselves rent their homes in summer to tourists, in order to garner funds to survive low income in the winter? I think you would be surprised, even shocked. Would you deny these folks (many I know with children) who try to raise an extra buck by renting space in the summer?
Adding yet another tax to pay (besides 9% to the State), and another ordinance to follow, is nothing more than a punishment without benefit. As you describe it, the money would simply go to funding the individuals who will have to be paid to administer the taxation. What an incredible bureaucratic waste!
So perhaps your goal is to just punish the "intruders" who have bought here and whom you deem an annoyance? Well, I've been here for 41 years, and apparently I am the target of your blind ire- I finally was able to buy here. Why do I rent my house? It is to pay the absolutely extraordinary taxes that SWH imposes on me, within a taxation structure that -let's face it- shifts a disproportionate burden on higher end homes. (As the tax collector told me, in Maine, it doesn't matter if the assessment is way out of line with actual value; there just has to be an evenhanded methodology to the assessment program. )
But I digress. I urge you to think a bit harder about what it is that you -really- want to achieve, and whether another tax, another bureacratic headache, is really going to advance those goals.
Thank you for your comment. I think you have nothing to worry about. The town isn’t about to interfere with your agenda. That’s why SWH doesn’t even have zoning.
The many conclusory statements in your piece about short term rentals (STRs) give me great heartburn. Take, for one example, your citation to "proof" that STR growth in Bar Harbor was "halted" after Bar Harbor passed its ordinance: a gummy worm shape undulating up and down across the graph, but showing on average an overall uptick.
And, consider your conclusion that impeding (with taxation) rentals will magically bring back young families with affordable housing in SWH. Ain't gonna happen, in SWH or elsewhere. Market forces are simply too great, along with the demographics of a huge surge of retiring Baby Boomers who want a vacation home. Remember, the Island benefits from these folks, as they spend their dollars here (just try to find a free plumber, a free tree trimmer, a restaurant that doesn't have an overflow of summer diners.)
And, have you measured the number of MDIslanders who themselves rent their homes in summer to tourists, in order to garner funds to survive low income in the winter? I think you would be surprised, even shocked. Would you deny these folks (many I know with children) who try to raise an extra buck by renting space in the summer?
Adding yet another tax to pay (besides 9% to the State), and another ordinance to follow, is nothing more than a punishment without benefit. As you describe it, the money would simply go to funding the individuals who will have to be paid to administer the taxation. What an incredible bureaucratic waste!
So perhaps your goal is to just punish the "intruders" who have bought here and whom you deem an annoyance? Well, I've been here for 41 years, and apparently I am the target of your blind ire- I finally was able to buy here. Why do I rent my house? It is to pay the absolutely extraordinary taxes that SWH imposes on me, within a taxation structure that -let's face it- shifts a disproportionate burden on higher end homes. (As the tax collector told me, in Maine, it doesn't matter if the assessment is way out of line with actual value; there just has to be an evenhanded methodology to the assessment program. )
But I digress. I urge you to think a bit harder about what it is that you -really- want to achieve, and whether another tax, another bureacratic headache, is really going to advance those goals.
The dissolution of Acadia National Park would begin to solve the problem.
Thank you for your comment. I think you have nothing to worry about. The town isn’t about to interfere with your agenda. That’s why SWH doesn’t even have zoning.