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Home My WebLink About06-22-17 Public Comment - B. & S. Antonopulos - Short Term Rentals1 Clerk Temp From:Beth Antonopulos <antonopulos@gmail.com> Sent:Thursday, June 22, 2017 9:19 AM To:Agenda Subject:Please vote to regulate STRs in R1/R2/RS neighborhoods Attachments:STRletter6-22-17.pdf Categories:Public Comment Dear Commissioners, Attached is a letter outlining what we hope you will do at tonight's meeting regarding the short-term rental issues facing our city. We both spoke last time so won't do so tonight, but we would like you to consider taking definitive action. As always, thanks for your time and dedication spent towards helping our citizens and our community! Sincerely, Beth and Sam Dear Commissioners, We appreciate that you have taken up the thorny issue of STRs over the past year and have heard from neighbors with concerns as well as STR operators, management companies, and their employees. While we respect the individual success stories told by STR homeowners/merchants, what they are doing as a group has brought us to a tipping point. There have been claims that the overall percentage of STRs in town is only 0.5-1.5%. However, in residential neighborhoods around the downtown core, the concentration of STRs is much higher. In the 6 blocks on 3rd Ave near our home, we have identified 10- 15% of residences advertised as STRs. We have been reluctant to send a list of addresses since it feels like informing on our neighbors, but we can provide a list of online advertisements if it helps guide your decision. We do not believe the city would permit a 10-15 unit hotel in an existing R1 neighborhood, so why would we allow 10-15 single-unit hotels in that same neighborhood? Why do 3rd Ave residents come to discuss our concerns at the STR meetings? Because we are heavily impacted by STRs and believe additional neighborhoods will also be increasingly affected if the City Commission does not regulate this growing business practice. The current zoning regulations are quite clear, so it appears that most of Bozeman’s STRs are illegal. Several STR operators have proposed that they should be grandfathered in even though they have been operating illegally all along. Others have argued that they had planned upon extra income from a STR to provide the owner with money to travel or bolster retirement funds. Many of us would like to travel and enjoy a more luxurious retirement, but it is not the responsibility of the city nor its residents to provide individuals with additional income for travel or retirement. Similarly, when the owner/operators of current STRs argue that there should be a density cap, it clearly benefits them without any logic behind why they get permit(s) and others do not. While we’ve occasionally brewed beer at home, we haven’t insisted that the city grant us a protected liquor license to create a new tavern in a residential neighborhood for extra income so that we can travel or retire early. Why would the city do that for STR operators? Another argument brought by the STR owners is the lack of police records about complaints, and Commissioner Pomeroy brought up at the May 22nd meeting that there are mechanisms to handle complaints (primarily Bozeman PD in the middle of the night). This highlights the problem we raised earlier – residents will be forced to police their neighbors rather than relying upon the collective goodwill and negotiation of a community of people who live alongside each other for extended periods. We have had multiple problems with a nearby STR which we have dealt with late at night by talking to the short- term renters. Should the number of STRs and problems continue to increase, we too will call the police to deal with issues – not a good use of police resources for nuisance complaints but one which the STR operators appear to believe is the preferred solution to neighborhood concerns. As the number of STRs goes up in any given neighborhood, we believe conflicts will become more frequent until the situation becomes intolerable for many long-term residents, and they move away. Bozeman will then possess a hollow core of many STRs with fewer residents making up what was once a vibrant small town. We are not claiming that any single STR is the sole problem, but collectively, their owners are selling the value of “charming neighborhoods” (a frequent phrase in online advertisements) to the highest bidders. When these mini-hotels take over our residential neighborhoods, our town will turn into a full-blown resort such as Banff/Jackson/Vail, and Bozeman will be further depleted of residences available for long-term citizens to buy or to rent. We do not aim to simply object without proposing solutions, so we suggest: • Option 1 (our preference): Ban all STRs in the principal residential zones – R1/R2/RS. Residential zones were created with the intent that they were for residences, not businesses. The prior CUP exception creates a have/have-not system similar to liquor licenses and should be abandoned based upon current zoning. Allow other types of STRs in the zones only where they are currently legal. Follow the city staff’s recommended registry and licensing system. Be clear that STRs are a business use of property in the regulations and zoning. • Option 2: Ban all Type 2 & 3 STRs in the principal residential zones – R1/R2/RS. Allow the Type 1 STRs in zones specified by the city staff recommendation with one important change. The definition of an “owner-occupied” residence that allows an owner/representative to live in the home and fulfill the requirement needs to make clear that if one person is the owner/representative for a dwelling, they cannot have another principal residence. This will prevent one commercial representative from “living” in multiple dwellings as part of a larger business. Allow the other types of STRs in the zones where they are currently legal. Follow the city staff’s recommended registry and licensing system, and be clear that STRs are a business use of property. Finally, please consider that even with regulation of the STR industry, visitors and homeowners still have multiple options. There are many new and existing hotel and B&B businesses whose owners have invested time and money in providing legal, high-quality lodging for visitors to Bozeman. Homeowners can continue to rent their rooms or homes for more than 30 days. Collectively, we need to call a halt to the rapid growth of STRs before we lose what makes our neighborhoods wonderful places to live, work, raise families, and grow old. STRs are businesses – homes are not. Please, this is a real opportunity for the City Commissioners to stand up for the residents who want to see our town grow sensibly rather than through unbridled market forces. Thank you for all of your time and effort on this issue, Beth Antonopulos Sam Mitchell