A resolution can be easily overturned in the future if this does not work out.
That was the reminder one Tobyhanna Township supervisor gave fellow board members at the March 2025 meeting where they voted to undo the township's own short-term rental cap. The cap had been in place for exactly one year. Before that meeting, it capped the number of STR licenses in the township at 12 percent of total homes. After that meeting, the cap was gone. The supervisor's point was procedural: because the cap had been adopted by resolution rather than written into the township's zoning code, reversing it took nothing more than another majority vote.
If you're looking at a home in Pocono Lake with rental income in mind, that sentence matters more than the listing's median price. Pocono Lake isn't a single municipality. It's one of several villages inside Tobyhanna Township, alongside Pocono Pines, Blakeslee, and Pocono Summit, and the township contains more than 20 private developments, including Arrowhead Lake, Locust Lake Village, Lake Naomi, and Emerald Lakes. Your right to rent a home here depends on two things a portal listing never surfaces: which way the township's political mood is currently pointing, and which of those private developments your specific parcel sits inside.
One Meeting, Twelve Months Apart
On March 18, 2024, the Tobyhanna Township Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 to cap short-term rental licenses at 12 percent of homes in the township. With roughly 7,500 homes in Tobyhanna Township at the time, that put a hard ceiling of fewer than 900 licenses on a market where demand for vacation rentals had been running well ahead of that number. The board's own staff had originally floated a 10 percent threshold, then raised it once they realized the township was already close to or past that mark.
The cap held for a year. Then, on March 17, 2025, the same board voted 3 to 2 to rescind it. The reversal followed pressure from the Short-Term Rental Alliance of Tobyhanna Township, whose "Tobyhanna for All" lawsuit was still unsettled and, its members argued, in tension with the cap itself. The Poconos Association of Vacation Rental Owners also showed up to the meeting. Its co-founder urged supervisors to trust the market rather than ration it, and to spend their enforcement energy on the STR rules already on the books instead of adding a new numeric limit on top of them.
Both votes were 3 to 2. Both were resolutions, not ordinances. That distinction is the whole story. An ordinance in Pennsylvania typically requires more process to change and carries more legal weight. A resolution is a board decision that the same board, or a differently composed board after an election, can revisit with a single meeting. Tobyhanna Township held its next Board of Supervisors election in November 2025. Whatever the outcome, the mechanism that flipped once in twelve months is still sitting there, available to flip again. If you're relying on today's rules to hold for the life of a mortgage, verify the current status directly with the township rather than trusting a listing description or a search result that may predate the next vote.
The Rule Every Buyer Misses: Licenses Don't Follow the Deed
Here's the detail that should change how you shop, even more than the cap itself. Tobyhanna Township's supervisors have stated plainly that STR licenses are not transferable. If you buy a home that currently holds a rental license, the license terminates at closing. You don't inherit it. You apply as a new owner, and if a cap is ever back in effect, you go to the end of whatever waiting list exists at that moment.
That means a listing advertised as a "turnkey STR" with strong historical rental numbers is telling you what the previous owner earned, not what you're guaranteed to earn. The income history is real. The license is not part of the sale.
Two Communities, Two Rulebooks
Even setting the township aside, Pocono Lake's private developments each run their own rental systems layered on top of whatever the township requires. Two of the larger ones illustrate how differently that can play out.
| Locust Lake Village | Arrowhead Lake Community Association | |
|---|---|---|
| Scale | Over 1,600 properties | 2,450 member-owned homes plus 850 lots, 4,330 total |
| Full-time occupancy | Roughly 40 percent | Roughly 33 percent |
| Rental licensing | $700 per year community rental license | Permit issued through ALCA, tied to the owner |
| Guest tracking | Advance registration of guest groups and vehicles, wristbands for amenity access | Photo ID access cards replacing wristbands and gate cards as of 2025 |
| Enforcement | Registration required before check-in | Three "Failure to Comply" citations on one property triggers a 90-day rental permit suspension |
| Amenities | Four lakes (East, Pines, Locust, Pilgrim), non-motorized boating on the main swimming lakes | Two lakes, four beaches, three heated pools, a lodge with a fitness room |
Locust Lake Village's system runs on registration and access control. Owners who want to rent pay the community's annual license fee, then register each incoming guest group and vehicle before arrival, and wristbands control who can use the beaches and pools. Arrowhead Lake, one of the older communities in the area with roots tracing to a 1960s subdivision of former ice-harvesting land, runs a stricter compliance model. Its Community Association issues its own rental permit separate from the township's, tracks violations against that specific property, and can suspend a renting owner's permit for 90 days after a third citation for the same address.
Neither system replaces the township permit. Both sit on top of it. A home inside Locust Lake Village or Arrowhead Lake that's fully compliant with Tobyhanna Township's STR ordinance can still be out of compliance with its own HOA's rental policy, and vice versa. Buying the right zip code doesn't answer the question. Buying the right specific development, in good standing with that development's current rules, does.
What to Check Before You Write an Offer
If rental income is any part of why you're looking at a Pocono Lake property, a few questions belong in your due diligence before you get to inspection:
- Confirm the township's current STR permit status directly with Tobyhanna Township rather than relying on a listing description. Township rules have changed once already inside a single year.
- Ask whether the property currently holds an STR license, then ask separately whether that license transfers. It doesn't, so plan your offer and your income projections around applying as a new owner.
- Get the specific HOA's current rental policy in writing, not a summary from a listing sheet. Locust Lake Village and Arrowhead Lake each publish their own rules, and those rules get revised.
- Ask how full-time the community actually is. A development running closer to 40 percent full-time occupancy feels different day to day than one closer to a third, even if both allow rentals.
- If you're looking in Arrowhead Lake specifically, confirm which township your parcel sits in. The community straddles the line between Tobyhanna and neighboring Coolbaugh Township, and which side your lot falls on can change which rulebook applies.
None of this shows up in a median sale price. It shows up in a phone call to the township office and a request for the HOA's current governing documents, both of which take less time than a single showing.
A Few Questions I Hear Often
Is short-term renting currently allowed in Pocono Lake? As of the most recent board action in March 2025, Tobyhanna Township had rescinded its rental cap and licensing continues under the township's existing STR ordinance. Because that cap was reversed by resolution rather than ordinance, and the township has since held an election, confirm current status directly with the township before you count on it.
If I buy a home with an active STR license, do I keep it? No. Tobyhanna Township's own supervisors have said licenses are not transferable. A sale terminates the existing license, and the new owner applies fresh.
Does being in an STR-friendly HOA guarantee I can Airbnb the house? No. The HOA and the township each have their own separate approval process. You need to be compliant with both, and each can change its rules independently of the other.
Are all of Pocono Lake's communities run the same way? No. Locust Lake Village and Arrowhead Lake alone show two different licensing fees, guest tracking systems, and enforcement mechanisms. Other developments in the area, including Camelot Forest and Greenwood Acres, add their own variations on top of that.
If you're weighing a purchase in Pocono Lake with rental income as part of the plan, I'd rather walk you through what's actually on the books today, in the specific development you're considering, than let a portal listing make that call for you. Suzanne Kasperski has spent years tracking how these Poconos communities actually operate, not just how they're marketed. Schedule a free consultation and we'll go through it together before you write an offer.
