East Lyme ― The attorney for an East Lyme property owner who encourages short stays in the Oak Grove Beach community stood up at a public hearing Monday with a warning: Any “targeted restrictions” on short-term rentals in town could result in lawsuits.

Jeffrey Londregan identified himself as the lawyer for the Vafidis family, who have been present at multiple Ad Hoc Short-Term Rental Committee meetings representing 44 Shore Road. The two-story waterfront vacation home has been the subject of complaints from neighbors about trash, parking and noise concerns well into the night.

The committee held a hearing Monday evening to gauge input on how much regulation of the emerging short-term rental industry is necessary. After six months of discussion, the committee’s eight members expect to put their recommendations into writing by mid-February with a presentation to the Board of Selectmen likely the following month.

Londregan said any regulation must be uniform across all residential properties in town or it could fail the “arbitrary and capricious” legal review standard that seeks to ensure decisions are made reasonably in accordance with facts and evidence.

He objected to the characterization of short-term rentals as businesses.

“Most of the cases that have occurred nationwide on short-term rentals outside of the Northeast have all determined and held that short-term rentals are not commercial uses. They are residential uses,” he said. “They’re residences for the tenants who rent them.”

Londregan referenced reports at the time of the committee’s first public hearing in September showing only two calls to police dispatch stemming from the Oak Grove neighborhood over the past three years.

The attorney said most of the calls in town were “not related to the narrative that short-term rentals are running amok in the town of East Lyme.”

Police Chief Michael Finkelstein has maintained short-term rentals do not appear to be a large driver of calls to the police with the complaints that do come in revolving around noise or parking.

Police are empowered to investigate noise complaints and issue fines as well as write parking tickets.

Committee members over the past few months have discussed strengthening existing ordinances to make them more effective at reducing noise and parking problems across town, including at short-term rental locations.

Committee members like Greg McIntire, who lives on the street where Londregan’s client advertises short term stays, said he also wants equity in whatever decision the town makes. For him, the best way to do that is through a registration system which would require all short-term rental operators to provide basic information about their operation and to pay an annual fee.

“If you don’t put a registration system in, then you can never establish the size of the problem,” he said.

How to regulate?

One fundamental question the committee will be addressing is whether to address the broad issue of regulation through adoption of a local short-term rental ordinance, through zoning regulations, or through a combination of both.

A town wide ordinance would supersede beach association regulations, while updating the town’s zoning regulations would not. The communities of Black Point Beach Club, Giants Neck Beach Association and Crescent Beach Association have separate zoning regulations.

Londregan told the committee he serves as law director for the city of New London, where short-term rentals are unregulated. He is town attorney in Stonington, where a proposed ordinance was defeated at a referendum, and in Bozrah, where an ordinance creating a licensing framework was enacted in 2021.

He objected to using zoning regulations to address the issue on multiple grounds.

“Number one, if you go the zoning regulation route, you will not have uniformity within your town because you have areas of the town that are autonomous as far as zoning oversight is concerned,” he said.

An amendment to zoning regulations also would not apply to businesses that existed as short-term rentals prior to approval by the Zoning Commission, he said. The term in zoning parlance is known as a pre-existing nonconforming use.

Short-term Rental Committee members during the regular meeting after the public hearing said they did not want to make decisions based on the fear of being sued. But they also wanted to make sure they made informed decisions.

The conversation was held against the backdrop of a state Supreme Court case expected to be taken up in February. That’s when the judges will weigh in on the first precedent-setting case in the state’s highest court involving short-term rentals.

Town attorney Mark Zamarka has said the Appellate Court found municipalities allowing single-family homes to be rented out for any length of time must allow shorter stays as well.

Co-chairwoman Anne Santoro on Tuesday said she sought guidance from Zamarka in an email inquiring whether town zoning regulations explicitly allow long-term rentals. She also asked whether existing short-term rentals would necessarily have to be grandfathered in if the zoning regulations are changed.

Zamarka, of the New London-based Waller, Smith and Palmer law firm, previously submitted a memo to the committee stressing the importance of uniformity much like Londregan.

“In sum, if any recommendation is made, we urge that it be in the form of ordinance and not a zoning regulation,” Zamarka wrote. “An ordinance applies to all residences in town, allows for the possibility of fines and avoids the complications of pre-existing non-conforming uses.”

But there remained an appetite on the committee for addressing the issue at least partly through updates to zoning regulations. Among proponents were Zoning Commission Chairwoman Anne Thurlow, who was returned to the commission this month to fill a vacancy after losing reelection in November.

“Different parts of town are so different. Pine Grove doesn’t want them,” she said of short-term rentals. “Other parts of town do want them. I don’t think one size fits all for East Lyme.”

e.regan@theday.com