Colonie, NY Short-Term Rentals: Short-Term Rental Permits (2026)

Local Law No. 3-2021, adopted September 9, 2021, added short-term rental regulation to the Town of Colonie zoning code's prohibited-uses article as § 190-20F. " Subsection (3) limits that permit to one year, renewable annually, and subsection (4) restricts issuance to one permit per owner per parcel. The Town caps total supply under subsection (5): the number of permits issued annually is limited to 50 throughout the Town of Colonie. Once that cap is reached, no new short-term rental permits are available until an existing one lapses or is not renewed.

Subsection (6) requires the Building Department to inspect every parcel seeking a permit, and that inspection recurs annually as a renewal condition, not only at initial application. The ordinance sits alongside two related conditions covered elsewhere in the same subsection: the rental must be the owner's primary residence (§ 190-20F(1)) and the owner may not advertise the rental on the premises itself (§ 190-20F(7)). Because the STR rules were folded into § 190-20, "Prohibited uses," a short-term rental operating without a current Building Department permit is treated as an unauthorized use in that district, not merely an unlicensed business. The code leaves the permit fee schedule to the Town Board by resolution, as it does for other permit types in this chapter.