New Britain, CT Short-Term Rentals: Noise Rules (2026)

New Britain does not regulate short-term rental noise with a decibel limit or curfew hour the way its general noise ordinance does for other uses. Instead, the short-term rental article in the Zoning Ordinance controls the activity itself. Section 270-40-40.300.70 restricts every short-term rental to lodging-type uses only, and it expressly prohibits non-lodging uses including, but not limited to, parties, receptions, weddings, filming, photo shoots, corporate retreats and fundraisers, the kinds of gatherings most likely to draw a neighbor's complaint. That prohibition is backed by a revocation power: § 270-40-40.300.10.20 lets the Zoning Enforcement Officer revoke a short-term rental's annual zoning permit on receiving information that the rental has imposed a nuisance on neighbors, without waiting for a criminal or civil noise case to run its course first.

The same subsection ties enforcement into two other city tools: it makes short-term rentals subject to the blighted-premises definitions in Code of Ordinances § 7-42, and to the fee for excessive responses by city departments in Code of Ordinances § 20-80, meaning a rental that repeatedly draws police calls for noise or disturbances can face a departmental response fee on top of losing its permit. Because renewal is annual under § 270-40-40.300.10.10, a rental with a documented nuisance history also risks having its special exception reopened at renewal, since a prior revocation for nuisance is listed in § 270-40-40.300.10.30 as one of the significant changes that triggers a fresh special exception review.