Martha Wright in the addition to her Munn Lane home that she uses for short-term rentals offered on Airbnb. The addition was built for her aging mother, who has since died. This is a replication of the kitchen of the Cherry Hill home her parents lived in for 65 years.
Standing by authentic Windsor chairs and a 1500's-era communion table, Martha Wright shows the meticulously furnished addition to her Munn Lane home in Cherry Hill where her late mother lived after breaking her hip and giving up the family home in town after 65 years.
The three rooms — a modern handicap-accessible bathroom also is included — are a representation of the furnishings and decorations that her antique-dealer parents were comfortable with in their own home. The wooden kitchen table her father built sits in the middle of the room, not far from the pie chest also crafted by her late father.
After Wright's mother died, the addition has been rented out on a short-term basis since 2021 and offered on the Airbnb site, which says it has more than nine million listings and more than 2.5 billion stays in the last 19 years.
"This is not a business for me," Wright told 70and73.com in an interview. "This is a way to use this space to honor my mother."
But the roughly 100 stays she has booked over time also play a role in her finances: Each year the revenue of $175 a night the 70-year-old collects from guests helps to pay her Township property tax bill, making it easier for her to age in place at the home designed and once lived in by well-known architect Malcolm Wells.
When Wright learned of the Cherry Hill Township Council's intention to adopt an ordinance aimed at lead-paint inspections and fees, she was stunned.
The proposed law, introduced at the Monday Council meeting and moved along by a unanimous vote to the second reading calls for the Township housing inspection fee to go from $65 to $80 — required every time a new renter comes in.Â
For an apartment building with infrequent turnover, the $80 is not a burden. For a short-term rental owner, $80 each time a new guest visits could be burdensome. One Cherry Hill rental advertising on Airbnb charges $75 a night. More than half of the revenue from a two-night stay would be spent on the town's inspection fee.Â
Wright complained to Township officials, saying the higher fees and frequent inspections could direly impact her short-term rental and those of other senior citizens trying to pick up some extra money as they stay in their long-time homes.
Township officials pulled the ordinance in the middle of this week, saying it needs more scrutiny before going to Council for adoption.
"We weren't taking a swing at the short-term rentals that are in town," Township lawyer Cosmas Diamantis told 70and73.com in an interview.
Brian Bauerle, chief of staff to Mayor David Fleisher, said they "will not be moving forward with this ordinance at the next Council meeting." Bauerle said the decision was made after hearing feedback and that the intention is not to make it more difficult for seniors to raise money to stay in Cherry Hill.
One of Fleisher's strongest pushes has been to make Cherry Hill a place where empty nesters can age in place with recreational opportunities and social services.
A few complaints about a handful of short-term rentals, reportedly often used as "party houses," have cropped up in Cherry Hill. In many of the cases, the owner of the property does not live there and may not live in Cherry Hill at all, choosing to rent it out on a short-term basis.Â
Some communities have taken an absolute stand against short-term rentals.
In 2021, some property owners in tiny Medford Lakes were on Airbnb promoting a "cozy cabin on the lake" and "lovely lakefront log cabin."
The Borough Council put an end to it December that year and banned short-term rentals in the charming 1.2-square-mile borough. Under the law, rentals of under 30 days are not permitted.Â
Some studies have shown that short-term rentals have few benefits to the overall community.
"While individual hosts and guests may benefit economically, the use of short-term rentals produces significant consequences for the surrounding community," Allyson E. Gold, who at the time was an assistant law professor at the University of Alabama Law School, wrote in a 2019Â research paper for the Washington Law Review.Â
She wrote that short-term rentals can cause fewer affordable housing options, higher average asking rents and "erosion of neighborhood social capital."
In Cherry Hill, native Wright said many of her addition rentals are truly short-term — often for a couple of nights when someone with connections to Cherry Hill has business here or is visiting.
Wright estimates that half of her guests have some relationship to Cherry Hill and many lived here at one time. Many have a tie to the neighboring Barclay Farm development. As for the others, she said one well-known miniature artist visits every year to exhibit at a major miniature convention in Cherry Hill.
Most of her customers look like they are 50 or older (you cannot ask). Most are short-term, but some have stayed longer. One woman stayed almost a full year because she was moving her parents to assisted living.
"It is certainly my intention to age in place here," said Wright, who has a second home in Avalon.
And she believes many seniors renting out part of their homes — the Township has no count — do so to supplement their income and help pay home tax, maintenance and insurance bills.
"You're a senior, you're in your home, you don't want to leave, you've got spare bedrooms, you've got a garage that's been converted, you've got a basement, whatever it is, you've got underutilized space," Wright explained. "You'd like to monetize it a little."Â
