Twenty-eight nights.
This fall, owners at The Landings at Bayside vote on an amendment to the Master Declaration requiring that any rental agreement run more than 28 days. Monthly and seasonal renting stays legal. Weekly turnover stops.
We're asking you to vote yes. Here's the case.
Maryland law sets the threshold at 60% of all lots — not 60% of ballots returned.
A ballot you don't return is counted as a NO.
There is no sitting this one out. If you agree with us and your envelope stays on the counter, you have voted against us.
One house. One summer.
May 1 – Sep 30 · 153 nightsEach gold line is a turnover: a new set of keys, a new car count, a new pool code, a cleaning crew, a trash run. This measure doesn't stop anyone from renting. It changes who is here — whether the people on our streets are living in this neighborhood or passing through it, and whether they treat it accordingly.
What's on the ballot
An amendment to Section 7.3 of the Master Declaration setting a minimum rental agreement of more than 28 days. As written today, Section 7.3 permits leasing with no minimum term at all.
- Threshold: 60% of all 310 lots — 186 yes votes. Under Md. Real Property § 11B-116 this statutory threshold replaces the Declaration's 75% requirement.
- An uncast ballot counts as a NO vote.
- On or about September 1, 2026 — the official voting packet mails with the exact amendment text and your ballot.
- Shortly after — the Board hosts an informational Zoom call on the ballot and the process.
- October 10, 2026 — Special Meeting, final deadline to submit your ballot to Legum & Norman. Ballots are tallied live and results announced that day.
Source: Landings at Bayside Board of Directors, Community Update, July 2, 2026
What this measure does not do
Most opposition to rental rules comes from owners who believe they're losing something they aren't. Read this part first.
You can still rent your home
Monthly and seasonal rentals stay fully permitted. A May-to-September tenant, a snowbird lease, a 30-day corporate stay — all allowed, all unaffected. The income stream narrows; it does not disappear.
Family and friends are not tenants
Nothing here limits who stays in your home when you aren't charging rent. Your kids, your college roommate, your golf group — no change.
Existing bookings: not yet determined
We won't pretend to know this. Whether reservations already on the books will be honored, and for how long, is a decision the Board will make after the vote. If that matters to you, ask the Board directly on the informational call.
There is somewhere for short stays to go
Ocean City exists for a reason, and the surrounding area has enormous capacity for weekly vacation rentals. This is a single-family residential neighborhood a few miles inland. The question isn't whether visitors are welcome on this coast. It's whether this particular street network can absorb them.
How we got here
This is not a sudden objection to something that has always been here. Rentals have existed in the Landings since the beginning. What changed is the number of houses, the size of the groups, and a county parking standard written for exactly this problem and then set aside.
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2006–07
The Landings begins, partially built by Toll Brothers
Rentals are part of the community from the start. At this scale they're absorbed easily — the neighborhood is small and the streets are mostly empty.
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2008
Construction stalls at roughly 30% built
The recession halts build-out for over a decade. The community that exists through the 2010s is a fraction of what was platted, which is why the original covenants were never stress-tested against a full neighborhood.
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2020
Worcester County requires a third off-street parking space
The county adopts a rule requiring three dedicated on-site parking spaces for short-term rentals, effective for homes permitted January 1, 2020 or later. Each space must measure 10 by 20 feet, be fully accessible with no stacking, and sit on the property. Street parking does not count. The rule exists because of congestion.
Worcester County Department of Development Review & Permitting -
2022
Build-out resumes under NVR / Ryan Homes
The remaining lots fill in to a completed community of 310 lots — on the same street network, with the same single point of entry, and the same amenities that were sized for the original plan.
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2020–25
Licenses issued that didn't meet the standard
County planning staff later acknowledged that multiple short-term rental licenses were issued in error because of inconsistent enforcement of the code, and were subsequently revoked — causing financial harm to owners who had relied on county approval.
Worcester County planning staff, reported March 2026 -
Mar 2026
The parking rule is pushed back six years
Rather than enforce the 2020 date, the Commissioners moved the cutoff. The third space is now required only for homes whose building permit was submitted on or after April 17, 2026. Commissioner Eric Fiori described the vote as correcting inconsistent oversight — owners who had done their due diligence and invested on the strength of county approvals. Reporting on the amendment names The Landings specifically.
WBOC, March 2026 · Baltimore Sun, March 2026 -
2025–26
The dispute turns on the volunteers
The Board reports that its individual members have been repeatedly threatened with lawsuits over this question, from owners on both sides of it. These are unpaid neighbors who agreed to serve. The Association absorbs legal costs every year that have nothing to do with maintaining the community and everything to do with fighting about it.
That is part of why this vote exists. The Board has stated it does not have unilateral power to decide the question and has put it to the owners — which is the right call, and the only one that ends the argument.
Landings at Bayside Board of Directors, Community Update, July 2, 2026 -
Now
The standard the county wrote for congestion does not apply to almost any home here
Nearly every home permitted between 2020 and April 2026 can be licensed as a short-term rental with two parking spaces. The congestion that rule was written to prevent is the congestion on our streets. The county set its date. We get to set ours.
The case
We've left out the arguments that don't survive scrutiny. What follows is what we can stand behind.
Emergency response is slower here than it should be
Emergency responders who live in this neighborhood have said plainly that their full equipment cannot adequately navigate it. Apparatus that can't get down a street is apparatus that arrives late, or doesn't arrive at all.
Two features of this community make that worse than it would be anywhere else. Our streets were built for a single-family residential neighborhood, not for parking on both sides — and when ten guests arrive for one house, the overflow has nowhere to go but the street, because the county's own rule says street parking doesn't count toward a rental's requirement. And there is one way in and one way out. Congestion at the wrong moment doesn't reroute traffic here. It stops it.
Every minute of delay is a minute of delay for whoever needs the ambulance — an owner, a child, a visitor. This is the argument that has nothing to do with anyone's opinion about rentals.
Listings advertise groups our streets weren't built for
Worcester County calculates short-term rental occupancy at 50 square feet per person per sleeping room, assigned room by room on the approved floor plan. Public listings in our area advertise this:
| Listing | Advertised | Beds |
|---|---|---|
| Entire home | 10 guests | 4 br · 6 beds |
| Entire townhouse | 9 guests | 3 br · 5 beds |
| Entire home | 10 guests | 4 br · 6 beds |
| Entire home | 10 guests | 4 br · 6 beds |
Public listings in Berlin, MD, captured July 19, 2026. Ten guests do not arrive in two cars — and two on-site spaces is all most homes here are required to have.
We have already hired another lifeguard
The Association added a lifeguard position to handle the load at the pool. That is a permanent line item in your dues, created by rental turnover — a cost every owner pays and only some owners generate.
Our indoor/outdoor pool, playground, courts and docks were sized for the homes here, not for the season. A single rental advertising a party of ten consumes a meaningful share of that capacity on its own.
Rental income is about 5% of the annual budget
It's a real number and we're not hiding it. But it needs to be read against what turnover costs us on the other side of the ledger: accelerated wear on common areas, additional staffing, and the legal fees this Association absorbs every year fighting about this question rather than maintaining the place.
We expect those costs to substantially offset the lost revenue. That is an expectation, not a guarantee — but a 5% revenue line is not the reason to keep a policy that is costing us in three other columns.
Concentration raises what the association pays
Insurance brokers report that once short-term rentals pass roughly 10% of a community's units, carrier options narrow and premiums rise. Frequent turnover accelerates wear, and many policies exclude losses arising from short-term or commercial use — leaving the association to absorb them.
Harris Insurance, 2026 · RealManage, 2026 · Amundsen DavisInvestor share narrows your buyer pool
A high percentage of non-owner-occupied homes can affect FHA and other loan qualifications. Every financing program a buyer can't use is a buyer who doesn't bid on your house.
FirstService Residential, 2025The window to decide this is closing
Owners holding multiple rental homes accumulate voting power. Once that bloc is large enough it can block amendments outright. Communities that wait find the vote is no longer theirs to win.
Action Property ManagementThe part that costs us
We're not going to tell you this is free. Research on coastal Virginia found short-term rental activity raised nearby sale prices, and a Los Angeles study found cities restricting short-term rentals saw home prices fall roughly 2%. If you were planning to sell to an investor, this measure may trim your number.
Three things worth holding alongside that. The measured effects are small and highly localized — 2% is noise against mortgage rates, inventory, and the regional economy, which move values by far more than that in a single year. Those studies measure the short run immediately around a regulatory change; none of them tell you what a community is worth in ten years. And this is a judgment rather than a finding: we believe the durable driver of value here is whether this remains a place people want to live — quiet streets, working amenities, neighbors who know each other. Weigh that for yourself.
What we won't do is claim the research says something it doesn't. Anyone who tells you there's no cost at all is selling you something — and so is anyone who tells you a 2% estimate settles the question.
Annals of Regional Science, 2024 · Journal of Urban Economics, 2021The record
Owners here have been photographing what this looks like on the ground — vehicles stacked into the street and turnarounds, overflowing trash at the curb on changeover days, amenities at capacity on ordinary weekdays. The collection is growing as neighbors send more in.
Every photo is dated, taken in a common area rather than aimed at a residence, and stripped of location data before posting. We do not photograph homes, house numbers, license plates, faces, or children. This is a record of a pattern in shared spaces, not a complaint about any neighbor.
View the photo recordSubmit a photo
Sending one in? Include the date and the common area where you took it, and email it to savethelandingsatbayside@gmail.com. If you believe an image identifies your property, write to us and we'll remove it the same day.
Where our neighbors landed
Worcester County classifies any stay of 28 days or fewer as a short-term rental. After resetting the parking date, the Commissioners deferred the question to individual associations — the county's position is that owners should decide what they want for their own neighborhood.
Comparable communities in the greater West Ocean City area have already decided. Glen Riddle and Whispering Woods are, for practical purposes, the only other neighborhoods a buyer or an appraiser weighs our homes against — and both restrict short-term rentals. The Landings is the outlier.
That matters for the argument you'll hear about property values. The communities we are directly compared against made this same call. Our comparables are neighborhoods that restricted, and they have not suffered for it.
Worcester County rental license classifications · Worcester County Commissioners, March 2026Fair objections
I bought here specifically to rent short-term. This changes my deal.
That's a real grievance and we won't dismiss it. Monthly and seasonal renting stays fully legal, so the income narrows rather than disappears. And the county's own standard — three off-street spaces for short-term rentals — was written in 2020 and would have applied to most homes here but for an administrative error. The rules were always going to tighten. This is the version that keeps rental income legal for every owner.
Isn't this really about noise? My guests are quiet.
Probably true, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. A Charleston study found that living next to a short-term rental doesn't necessarily mean a louder neighbor than living next to a long-term occupant. Our case rests on emergency access, parking capacity, amenity load, and association cost — not on a claim that visitors are bad people.
Won't a restriction hurt my property value?
Possibly, modestly, in the short run. We've put the contrary research on this page rather than hiding it — see "the part that costs us." We think the trade is worth it. You may weigh it differently, and that's what the vote is for.
Why 28 nights and not 30, or 7?
28 matches the line Worcester County already uses to define a short-term rental, so it aligns with how the region regulates and how license classifications work. Shorter minimums of five or seven nights leave the weekly-turnover pattern essentially intact.
Who's behind this website?
Owners who live here. We are not the Board and we don't administer the election — the Board has stated it is remaining neutral and putting the question to the membership. We're campaigning for a yes vote and we'll tell you when we don't know something.
How to vote
- On or about September 1 — the official voting packet arrives from Legum & Norman with the amendment text and your ballot.
- Shortly after — the Board hosts an informational Zoom call on the ballot and the process.
- October 10, 2026 — Special Meeting. Final deadline to submit your ballot. Votes are tallied live and results announced that day.
- Mark it and send it back the day it arrives. A ballot on your kitchen counter on October 10 is a NO vote.
- You do not need to attend. Submit your ballot to Legum & Norman before the meeting, or send a proxy — we'll help you with either.
Questions
If you're undecided, on the fence, or you think we've got something wrong, use the form above or email us directly. We'd rather answer a hard question than lose your vote to silence.
savethelandingsatbayside@gmail.com
For questions about the ballot itself, Association records, or the voting procedure, contact Legum & Norman. We are owners campaigning for a yes vote; we don't run the election.
Sources
- Landings at Bayside Board of Directors — Community Update, July 2, 2026
- Worcester County — rental license classifications and parking requirements
- WBOC — Worcester commissioners delay short-term rental parking rule, March 2026
- Baltimore Sun — Worcester changes parking cutoff for short-term rentals, March 2026
- Harris Insurance — short-term rentals and HOA master policies, 2026
- RealManage — how short-term rentals affect community associations, 2026
- Amundsen Davis — short-term rentals: considerations for homeowner associations
- FirstService Residential — HOA rental restrictions, 2025
- Action Property Management — short-term rentals and association governance
- Annals of Regional Science — STR activity and house prices, coastal Virginia, 2024
- Journal of Urban Economics — Airbnb regulation and the housing market, Los Angeles, 2021
- VRM Intel — comparative noise levels, Charleston and Palm Springs studies