More home rental debate
With justifiable apprehension, Town Council addressed the issue of single family home rental (SFR) at Wednesday night’s regular meeting in Suite Z.
For those who may have been living under a rock for the past decade, SFR is the short-term rental of single family homes. SFR is currently allowed in certain resort corridors (projects such as Stonegate), as well as RMF-2 (Residential Multi-Family) zones, which are peppered around town near Canyon Lodge and along Lake Mary and Old Mammoth Road, among other locations.
Currently, Town Zoning Code prohibits SFR elsewhere.
However, proponents of SFR, including Mayor Pro-Tem Michael Raimondo, have proposed expanding SFR to other residential areas (if not to all residential areas without prohibitive HOAs and CC&Rs) in town.
Council attempted to clarify that it was not deciding whether or not to sign off on SFR, but that it was strategizing a work program to examine the possibility of improving current SFR and/or expanding SFR to other areas in town.
Nevertheless, the item prompted several members of the community to express their views on the issue.
Homeowner Samantha Goetz spoke in favor of SFR. “I live in a residential neighborhood with a lot of second homeowners,” she said. One of those homeowners is renting their house illegally. “I’ve found it to be nothing but positive,” she said. “[Guests] are self-regulated; we’ve had no problems. We only had problems when they rented the house according to the [Town] rules, for a whole winter. They were not nice people, and the homeowners couldn’t get them out.”
Kathy Cage suggested that rather than continue the debate one voice at a time, Council take an advisory vote from the community to get a sense for what the majority might want.
Then former Council candidate Karen Sibert took the podium. “There was a debate, May 27, and Town Council candidates were asked a question from a member of the community, ‘Yes or no, do you support expanding single family rentals into neighborhoods where currently it’s prohibited,’” she said.
“Colin [Fernie], Sheilds [Richardson], John [Wentworth], you all said no, you do not support that. The speed with which this has come before Council on the agenda makes it look very clear to me that at least some of you did support it at the time. I think that you guys knew that if you said ‘Yes, I support this and I want to push this forward,’ you wouldn’t have gotten the votes. I think you were disingenuous to get the votes; I think at this point you owe the community an explanation who you’re doing this for.”
“I never did anything to get votes,” said Councilmember Shields Richardson. “The answer [to the question of SFR], for me, is still no,” he said. “You got that?”
“I find that offensive, personally,” said Councilmember Colin Fernie. “You will remember that I followed [my answer] with an explanation that as an elected official, you are not supposed to make a decision until all the facts are put in front of you.” But, he argued, such facts were not available regarding SFR.
“What I said is that I do not support it in every single home in this community, and I still stand behind this statement,” he concluded.
Councilmembers continued their discussion about what facts would be necessary in order to make an informed decision on SFR. Councilmembers discussed a list of questions ranging from whether there is even a need to change the current SFR, to whether, should Council support expanding SFR, staff should allow SFR everywhere but in areas with HOAs, CC&Rs, or Master Plans that exclude the activity; allow transient rental but limit the number of SFRs in town; or create a location-based ordinance or ordinance based on zoning designations to maintain limits on SFR.
Councilmembers agreed unanimously that some change is necessary, and that the current status quo is not working, considering problems within existing SFR zones and problems with illegal SFR in other parts of town.
According to Town staff, there are 167 stand-alone homes currently available for legal SFR.
According to staff’s estimation, between 100 and 150 other homeowners rent their homes illegally, “And we haven’t even started on condos,” noted TOT Committee member Cheryl Witherill.
“We need to start looking at what it would take so enforcement is working,” said Council member John Wentworth. “What do we need for an enforcement mechanism for the current status quo, so the quality of life is working?” Wentworth and others noted that, just because some might be permitted to rent their homes, neighbors still dealt with trash, parking, and noise issues related to the legal rental.
Councilmembers also requested data to inform future conversations, such as how many homeowners in areas zoned for SFR are licensed to rent their homes; how the Town might strengthen ordinances so compliance comes with enforcement; what the cost of enforcement within current, legal zones might be; and what it would take to make TOT enforcement for those who continue to rent illegally sustainable in perpetuity.
Councilmembers agreed that these questions must be answered so that Council could use the example of the current SFR to get a better idea of what the implications of larger-scale SFR might be for both residents and Town staff.
“The status quo is not working,” concluded Council member Fernie, “[but] to just release 2,400 homes to the market is not a good idea. We need to find a middle ground.”
