The Boulder City Council on Sept. 4 gave initial approval to an ordinance that would make it easier for homeowners to rent out properties during the Sundance Film Festival, which is expected to bring tens of thousands of visitors to the city.
The measure would create a new short-term “festival lodging” rental license, the first major policy shift tied to Boulder’s successful bid to host the 11-day event beginning in January 2027.
Under the proposal, property owners could obtain a license for up to 29 consecutive days during “large festival special events,” with far fewer restrictions than the city’s current short-term rental program. The ordinance does not define which events qualify, but the Sundance Film Festival would.
One major change would remove the rule requiring property owners to live in their homes at least six months out of the year. That owner-occupancy requirement is meant to keep homes from sitting vacant in a city facing a severe housing shortage.
The ordinance would also allow short-term festival rentals in accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and permanently affordable housing. Currently, ADUs cannot be rented short-term unless the ADU was established before Feb. 1, 2019, among other requirements. Affordable units are barred from short-term rentals altogether.
For budgeting purposes, city staff estimate the changes could add more than 1,000 new short-term festival rentals by 2027, on top of the more than 600 short-term licenses already issued in the city. The city plans to charge a $190 application fee to cover administrative costs.
An equity analysis by city staff said the policy could displace renters and increase vacancies. In response, city officials have proposed keeping restrictions that limit each property to one rental license type and capping festival licenses at 29 consecutive days per year around the time of a festival. This could make it harder for owners to earn enough income to let the home sit vacant the rest of the year.
Some councilmembers have also shown an interest in pursuing a vacant homes tax as soon as next year, which would penalize property owners whose homes sit empty for much of the year.
On Aug. 21, the council held a closed-door executive session on the Sundance Film Festival for legal advice and to discuss “positions relative to matters that may be subject to negotiations, developing strategy for negotiations, and instructing negotiators.” A public hearing and vote on the festival rental license is scheduled for Sept. 18.
Sundance has been held primarily in Park City, Utah, for about four decades. In 2025, it drew 85,000 in-person attendees, far exceeding Boulder’s hotel capacity of about 2,900 rooms, according to an estimate from city officials.
To secure the festival’s move, Boulder and partner groups committed $34 million in incentives over the next decade. In 2024, Sundance’s total economic impact was $132 million, according to an estimate by the organization.
The purpose of ADUs is to provide housing that is affordable (given the realities of Boulder). Allowing them to be rented out short term undermines that entire stated objective. And eliminating the 6 month residency requirement for primary residents is another bad move. That was added in for a good reason.
I have sent numerous emails to the ciry council expressing my concerns about this exact thing. Tara Winer got back to me saying it will be great for the businesses and didn’t say a thing about short term rentals despite it being the main focus of my message. It’s really disappointing to know that they can’t hear my pleas over the sound of the cash registers opening.
Maybe if they didn’t get 40 percent of their budget from a regressive sales tax they might care more about people than business. Maybe they wouldn’t need that sales tax revenue so much if they weren’t missing 10 million dollars from their budget. And maybe they wouldn’t have such a large hole in their budget if they didn’t offer 34 million dollars to bring Sundance here in the first place!
That is insane for something that was never on any ballot. The public was never given a chance to object to the Sundance proposal before it was submitted either. Make no mistake I will be there on September 18th and I will be asking about the missing 10 million dollars and the 34 million dollars offered to Sundance. I will be asking why we invited a festival to pur city that we cannot accommodate. I will be asking how they intend to deal with the massively increased traffic on the snowcovered roads of this city in January. And I will be asking why the Boulder International Film Festival isn’t enough for Boulder anymore.
My sentiments precisely, Keenan.
I completely agree with all the negative comments in regard to inviting the Sundance festival to Boulder. I also strongly object to the funds offered to Sundance by our bankrupt City. Boulder government has continuously wasted our tax dollars on their pet projects vs. keeping the infra-structure updated along with providing necessary services to residents such as adequate snow removal on our hilly streets. Furthermore, renting out affordable housing during this festival is a bad idea. Frankly, I wish the City had not even put in a bid for Sundance. Given more waste of our tax dollars for this film festival, I will not be voting for the extension of the existing .3 percent community, culture, resilience, and safety sales and use tax in Novemeber.
Laura Osborn
Uni-hill
Good for you, Laura, I’m not voting for CCRS either, but a for an additional reason, the developers should pay. Did you know the OS sales tax already has 4 other taxes currently, the longest of which ends in 2039 and 1/2 of it is in perpetuity. Also the mental health tax polled poorly, but they pushed it through to be on the ballot, so we lost the expense of running it.
Clueless Boulder city council urbanist and their ADU policy. ADUs will make much more sitting empty for 11 months and renting out only for the couple weeks of Sundance. These ADU’s will rent for over $2000 a night for Sundance (Maybe $3k to $5k a night). The rest of the year they will rent for far less. What would you choose, obviously rent during Sundance and keep it empty the rest of the month (no maintenance or hassels, make more).
Notice the throw away line mid way through this article? “…considering eliminating the requirement that homeowners live in their homes at least six months a year”?
They pass that; then they ‘forget” to repeal it and we who actually live here—and work –and Vote here–sink to the level of the mountain towns –where the actual citizens who rely on local government fade away-and the money folks take over. Anyone want JD Vance as a neighbor on 14th st. next year?
I think this is a good strategy to manage the influx. Those hotel rooms will hold more than one per room and people will commute from hotels beyond Boulder, but people can arrive without cars if more rooms are right in town. The choice to use sales tax vs property tax to run the city or state, allows us to spread the costs to people who visit. In other places I have lived, running on property taxes is very expensive for homeowners as well as renters but visitors get off essay with the low sales tax. Boulder has always been a visitor destination and this festival is just one more reason. I have NO intention of renting my home because I want to participate a little in the world renowned festival. This is an opportunity for residents to do something we could never have afforded if we had gone to another city. A win either way, rent your home or attend some of the festival from your own home. You can even host personal and family friends as guests of your own.
There is nothing stopping people from renting their homes under the current regulations.
So I do not see how your argument supports undoing the work that has been done to stop people from buying up our houses to make money off short term rentals.
This is amazing. If I can AirBNB my house for a couple of weeks and pay for a nice vacation…I’m 100% in.
Me too! Maybe it will help me to pay this enormous property tax bill
I’m mostly interested in the idea our “progressive” city council members want to require “vacant” homes to be rented. This seems to be on dangerous ground to me. Once again, the progressives are all about using a stick without a carrot.
As a retired homeowner who snowbirds some and travels extensively, I wouldn’t want to be forced to rent out my home. I don’t want to have to physically relocate my financial records and lock down my computer files, nor do I wish to assume the liability of having renters in my home or have to purchase additional insurance to cover the risk of renting my home out. I don’t want to find a contractor to have every little possible safety defect or maintenance item rectified. Hotels have staff to do that.
And that’s not to mention I’m personally opposed to short-term rentals because of the inflated rents landlords can charge tenants when the supply of long-term rentals drops. In fact, I’ve even looked into building an ADU, but Boulder’s zoning and building regulations *still* prohibit me from doing so.
But the issue is even more complicated. A number of years ago a ski-town owner brought suit against an HOA rule prohibiting short-term rentals in their condo complex. The district court judge found that the Colorado constitution confers a property right to a real estate owner to rent out their home and the rule was overturned. The HOA appealed and lost. To me, this suggests there is probably an analogous right to *not* rent out one’s home.
Boulder has intentionally become a city that is primarily focused on being a destination for non-residents, much like a ski town or Disneyland. The mall functions as a year-round attraction for visitors, and several events are designed to draw day-trippers. And, of course, the college football scene. So, Sundance is the coup de grâce, and especially egregious given the longtime presence and success of our homegrown festival, BIFF. It’s all about generating sales tax revenue and building tiny apartments for service workers to keep the tourist economy running. The current powers that be have little interest, it seems, in keeping Boulder livable for its long-term residents.
Completely agree with Patricia. And then the city wonders why residents don’t visit the businesses particularly on Pearl Street. The town isn’t about residents anymore or even about the university unless it’s about Coach Prime Time. And it doesn’t demonstrate any of the ideals it purports to be about. The driving force is simply greed. The surrounding towns have just as much if not more to offer than Boulder does. That’s why this CU Alum takes her business elsewhere.
I would think it would give BIFF a higher profile. They all see Sundance here and then want to come back for BIFF later. I think Biff is moving to a few months later. They will see our venues, our housing options and then see small, more affordable films and housing later. Fims that can e very interesting and filmmakers who will move into the big time. It’s like musicians, I saw Brandi Carlile at Chautauqua when she was mostly unknown. And last year she came back to CO and sold out Red Rocks as a star.
And by loosening short-term limits for “homeowners”…what they really mean is doing so to benefit speculative investors, real estate conglomerates, and the rest of the real estate cartel here that have our housing market in a chokehold. As if this won’t also encourage them to keep this housing empty the rest of the year to reap the tax benefit of “lost revenue”. At this point, it seems like our City Council never misses an opportunity to protect the profiteers…at the expense of the community. Maybe they should offer yet more incentives to Sundance; at our expense, of course. Meanwhile, the city tax revenue continues to shrink and almost half of our business spaces still sit captivity empty for companies to claim another tax write-off.
Not to quash your theory, but not only do I , a 51 year resident of Boulder still use downtown regularly, I almost always run into some other residents. It’s so much more interesting and convenient for me to shop downtown. I always have and I always will. If you have not been there in a longtime (like since before the pandemic), you might be surprised by the fun replacements for those longtime businesses we lost. No it’s not exactly the same though many longtime places remain, but there are many new that I enjoy too. Don’t sell Boulder short without even looking.
I’ve been there every year since the pandemic. Not impressed. In the meantime, Superior, Louisville, Lafayette, Erie and Longmont have grown and added so much more to Boulder County. Thank goodness. A friend from Lakewood who had lived and worked in Boulder visited last fall for the first time since the pandemic. She was shocked that so many places had been replaced with high end stores and restaurants or the store fronts were empty. Her comment to me was that Boulder had lost its character.
Sadly, my very favorite business downtown was lost, older Arts and Craft Gallery that I had supposed since the 70s. But I still like a lot of the new shops and I am a regular at Avanti as a new food option to complement my longtime standbys on west Pearl. The new addition to the Zoe family of restaurants, Pearl Poke is competitive with most mainland options I’ve been told by a former HI resident. As a longtime resident I find that my outdoor clothing and gear wears out regularly and I love the new choices now available that previously had been relegated to online purchases. Nice to see and try on right in Boulder. But I agree, some of the smaller suburban towns have matured too. Just not as accessible really, as downtown .
It will bring in $132 M, great, but how much will it cost us? $500 M? And in Park City they drew 89K people in ’25 and this exceeds 2900 hotel rooms capacity in BOULDER.
They had to be accommodated in Park City. So I guess the relevant figure of comparison would be PC’s room capacity, which is not given. But I do know Park City wanted them out. I wonder what they did with 89K people in PC, and what we will do with them.
They say they want residents to benefit from Sundance? There is nothing stopping local home owners from short term renting during Sundance, under the current rules.
This is simply an excuse to overturn the law put in place to alleviate our housing shortage.
That 29 nights of “special rental” at inflated prices will be more lucrative than a standard year lease.
We will go back to encouraging empty ADUs and investment properties.
Don’t change the STR ordinance to accommodate this ill-conceived festival. The city knew they didn’t have the infrastructure for Sundance when they bid for it, and they shouldn’t put the onus on residents for their folly. Per sundanceinstitute.org, in 2024 the festival had 72,840 in-person attendees. Looking at facts, Park City is a resort town with thousands of dedicated vacation rentals and a shuttle service to connect them. It accommodated festival goers in style. Boulder is a college town with an affordability crisis and 2900 hotel rooms. A quantity that has never provided enough, even for CU Parents weekend, where rates now skyrocket from $250 to over $1200 per room per night. Plus, there are well-researched reasons cities all over the world strictly limit STR’s. They remove housing from the rental market, raise rents, and are a nuisance to neighbors. In the case of Boulder’s “festival lodging,” families, college students, and working people aren’t likely to move out of their homes in January so someone can attend Sundance. Additionally, attendees don’t really want to stay in temporarily vacated residences — with someone else’s personal items and clothes in the closet. They want the amenities of professionally staged units that feel like hotels. This leaves investors and second-home owners as the biggest beneficiaries. If they receive $4500 a night for a 3-bedroom for up to 29 days, why rent for $4500 a month for 12 months? It doesn’t add up. They will pay the vacancy tax, legally take in their haul, and leave anyone looking to live in Boulder, including students, with fewer options and higher rent.
Exactly. And even if home owners do chose to vacate their homes in January to rent to attendees, they are able to do exactly that right now, under the current rules.
I believe that “number of attendees” is per admission to an event. So a single person in Boulder for the festival could turn into a multiple number of attendees. Like movie theaters, a person can go to more than one during a visit. I do not believe we are looking for 72,000 beds every night. But beds are available in every city around Boulder including as far as Denver. And RTD will have to put in shuttle buses here too. I think that part is a given. Park City used SLC that way for years. People came and did it even though PC is so much smaller than Boulder. Also, CU students are still on winter break part of that time. Some may clear out to sublet near downtown when they leave for Christmas. So will some people who already are here part time. People lease out their ski condos all the time without removing every single personal belonging. I have rented some that had a locked area for their own stuff and not accessible to the visitor.
They are already buying up my neighborhood to use as student rentals. None of this replacement of long time residents can really be stopped anymore, the state has decided we cannot limit resident occupancy . I think we need to try and enjoy an event we may like too. It can’t be undone at this point and if it fails it will move on again. Boulder cannot turn back the clock to the 60s or 70s. And really should not. It wasn’t that great then. Most cities around the county who do not cater to visitors ends up with property taxes that are astronomical by Boulder standards. Remember that 30,000-50,000 people come for a one day event every year for the Bolder Boulder. Would you get rid of that too?