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Local owner, housing commission clash over proposed short-term rental limits
Summary
At the Londonderry Select Board meeting, resident and short-term rental owner Jessica Saterra warned that a proposed 50-night limit and other amendments could harm local businesses and tourism; housing commission members defended the changes as forward-looking and said current rentals would be grandfathered. A July 19 special town meeting will decide the amendments.
Jessica Saterra, a Londonderry resident and owner of a short-term rental, told the Select Board that restricting rental nights would hurt the town’s businesses and tourism economy. “We have 42 hotel rooms in this town, and they are all an economic choice of lodging,” she said, arguing that limiting new registrants to 50 nights would remove lodging nights and damage local revenues.
Saterra cited state tourism figures and local sales data and urged the board to rely on fuller data before adopting two amendment items she said would have negative long-term effects. Board members and several residents pressed for more precise local figures — including how many investor-owned properties are operated purely as STRs and how many units are truly ‘unhosted.’
A member of the town’s housing commission told the board the commission supports the amendments the board forwarded and emphasized that the changes are “forward looking” and would not affect existing, registered short-term rentals: “They do not affect anyone that currently has a short term rental right now.” The housing commission representative also pointed to a threshold concern — roughly 6.5–7% of housing stock — and framed the amendments as an effort to curb speculation and preserve housing for local workers.
The Select Board has scheduled a special town meeting for 09:30 a.m. on July 19, 2025, at Town Hall to let voters decide whether to disapprove the April 21 amendments; the board also adopted the short-term rental fee schedule during tonight’s business. The board and members of the public repeatedly urged better local data collection on owner usage patterns to inform future policy decisions.
