Steven McCrane bought a retirement home in Estes Park several years ago and spends as much time there as possible. The rest of the year, he rents his home as a short-term rental through VRBO.

He pays sales taxes and a lodging tax every night his home is rented.

McCrane's home is among 333 vacation homes and 29 short-term rentals in the Estes Valley that are registered with Larimer County, many of which are in residentially zoned areas. Hundreds more are registered within the town limits of Estes Park.

Now the county is considering changing the short-term rental policies, and McCrane says those changes will make it harder for homeowners like him to make money off his property. Some of the changes apply to the Estes Valley, where the bulk of the county's short-term rentals are located. And some apply to Larimer County outside the valley.

None of the proposed changes apply to homes inside town limits, but the county is working with Estes Park to see if the two can find some commonalities among the two sets of rules and standards.

"It's not uncommon that different jurisdictions have different sets of standards," said Lesli Ellis, community development director in Larimer County.

The proposed changes are still in draft form and could change, said Tawn Hillenbrand, senior planner with Larimer County. Residents have until Dec. 14 to comment.

As drafted, however, new regulations might reduce the number of rental nights to 135 for small short-term rentals, cap the number of short-term rentals allowed in certain areas, eliminate transferability of licenses and bump up inspection requirements.

Hillenbrand said the county was hearing confusion and concern from neighbors about ordinances and enforcement and recognized some of the review standards are not as clear or objective as they could be, especially concerning access, safety and neighborhood compatibility.

The county hopes to address the trends "in a way that fits the county's goals and values before it becomes a problem," Hillenbrand said.

This year, the town of Estes Park has received 103 complaints about short-term rentals, including complaints about noise, trash and illegal rentals. Larimer County has received 32 complaints, with most concerning short-term rentals operating without county approval, according to county officials.

The county has a three-strikes policy in place, meaning if a short-term rental has three separate violations, its license to operate will be revoked. Thus far, no revocations have occurred, Hillenbrand said. It has been a three-year process to get property owners into compliance, including sending letters to those illegally operating short-term rentals, Hillenbrand said.

The county has several dozen short-term rental applications now in progress and is seeing increased requests, Hillenbrand said.

Greg Rosener, president of the Estes Valley Short Term Rental Alliance, EVSTRA, said the county's proposals amount to a "war" against vacation rentals in the Estes Valley.

"I don't know why this is getting pushed by the county," said Rosener, who complained commissioners have rejected recent applications for additional short-term rental properties.

Ellis acknowledged the county has denied some recent applications, some because of neighbors' concerns about compatibility and density, and there's worry about the increasing number of short-term rentals in neighborhoods and the impact they'll have on the neighborhood or safety.

Any new regulations that are adopted will allow for grandfathering, from the standpoint "they could exist and not have to go through the process again," Ellis said. The exception would be if a re-registration process were adopted, requiring owners to re-register their rental or rentals periodically and let the county know "they are still the owner and still using it as a short-term rental."

Many jurisdictions around Colorado restrict the transfer of licenses in some form, Ellis said. But the inability for rental owners to transfer their short-term rental license to their children is a major concern. Many of them hope to hand down their properties to their children as a source of income.

In 2006, Gary Naifeh purchased a cabin two blocks from downtown Estes with the expectation that it would generate retirement revenue and that one day it would do the same for his four children.

"Why our children have to go to the back of the line when I die makes no sense to me," he said.

Although the proposed county regulations would not apply to him because his cabin is in Estes Park, he worries the definitions and precedents being set "might at some point in the future migrate and have an impact on me."

If the 135-night cap were put in place and he had already rented it for 132 nights but someone wanted to rent it for two weeks, the rental would have to be denied, he said. "If my cabin rents for $1 a night, let's just say, and I can't rent it for two weeks, they just took $14 out of my pocket."

Naifeh wants county commissioners to listen to the people who rent and not just to the people who don’t particularly like renters. He wants them to take their time with changes and do it right rather than feeling like they have to make a certain date, he said.

The county already extended the comment period from the end of November to Dec. 14 in an effort to make sure everyone has a chance to weigh in, Ellis said.

"From our standpoint, we're trying to give people ample time to provide feedback," she said. "There's no hurry on our end. We want to make sure to get it right."

EVSTRA supports Estes Park marketing district's recently passed 3.5% lodging tax extension on the local marketing district that will provide funds for workforce housing and child care, both significant problems in the expensive tourist town.

The new short-term rental regulations could cut into that funding, Rosener said, by reducing the number of available rental nights. "I don't know why the county wants to do something that will hurt the Estes Park area," he said, and the tax extension would have led to funding "that it hasn't seen before."

Rosener argues tourists interested in coming to the region will go elsewhere if short-term rentals are limited or curtailed. There aren't enough hotel beds in town to accommodate the number of visitors interested in staying in town, he said.

"Our guests have decided that hotels are not their preference," he said. "If they can’t stay here, they will go somewhere else."

Naifeh agreed that "people who come to my cabin wouldn't stay in a hotel. They're a family or two to three couples, and they want to stay together. It costs more to go to a hotel, and a hotel doesn't fit their need," he said.

"Why restrict renting my cabin at a time of year that is the least desirable for people to come to Estes Park?" he asked. "We should want to encourage people to come to Estes Park and rent during nonpeak times. People will come spend money, go to restaurants downtown, and retailers will make money. It's cattywampus to my logic."

Ellis said there's not enough data to verify a loss of revenue or tourism. "Some numbers show a mix of revenue that might come in from hotels, campgrounds, other accommodations, and bed and breakfasts; hotels are the largest source of that revenue to the tune of about 75%. It seems the numbers for bed and breakfasts and these types of accommodations are a much smaller part of the mix."

There is no proposal to disallow short-term rentals, but there could be some reduced revenue if there are fewer nights, Ellis said. But in the scheme of things it appears to be a small amount, he said.

Kara Franker, CEO of Visit Estes Park, said the organization has not yet determined "how we think Larimer County's proposed STR regulations will affect Visit Estes Park's lodging tax collections in the future. Many of our STR stakeholders in our district have voiced their concerns and we're in the process of conducting our own legal and financial analysis."

In 2021, Visit Estes Park collected $1.36 million in lodging taxes from visitors staying at short-term rentals in the Estes Park local marketing district, Franker said. That's 39% of its total lodging collections.

"It's fair to say that STR lodging tax collections make up a significant portion of our budget," Franker said. "And it is imperative that we conduct due diligence on how the county's proposed regulations could affect not just our budget, but also the potential funds that could be collected" with the passage of the lodging tax.