Eagle County declined to regulate short-term rentals and said it is the HOAs' job
Eagle County declined to regulate short-term rentals and said it is the HOAs' job
2026-09-10 · Colorado · Legislation · Did not pass
Eagle County's commissioners considered county-wide short-term rental rules, decided against them, and said on the record that regulation belongs to homeowners associations and metropolitan districts. The decision came on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, after a multi-year process in which a draft ordinance had been prepared and the county was reported as gearing up for STR licensing in unincorporated areas.1
This is the reverse of nearly every other Colorado local instrument on this subject. Where other jurisdictions legislate and stay silent about covenants, Eagle County declined to legislate because of covenants.
What the commissioners said
Commissioner Tom Boyd: “The correct solution to short-term rental regulation … is neighborhood by neighborhood, through action taken by metro districts and homeowner associations.”
The board's stated reasoning was that the vast majority of short-term rentals in unincorporated Eagle County are already governed by either a metropolitan district or a homeowners association. Rather than adopt an ordinance, commissioners directed staff to collect data on short-term rentals.
What that leaves
In unincorporated Eagle County there is now no county licence, no county cap and no county complaint line for short-term rentals. Whatever restriction exists is the one in the declaration, or in the metro district's rules.
For a board there, three consequences follow directly:
The association's own STR provision is the operative rule. Not a floor, not a supplement — the rule.
The association's own enforcement is the only enforcement. There is no permit to revoke and no county inspector to call.
And no county process will back the board up. The commissioners said as much, deliberately.
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Related Colorado HOA Topics
- "Eagle County officials: No short-term rental regulations," Vail Daily, May 13, 2025 — the decision and the Commissioner Boyd quotation ↩
- Draft short-term rental ordinance page, Eagle County ↩
- Short-term rental regulations, Summit County — Ordinance 20-C and Ordinance 22, licence types, and the January 2026 basin caps and issued counts ↩
- "Major changes proposed for PitCo's short-term rental regulations," Aspen Journalism, August 19, 2026 ↩
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