HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-12-19 Public Comment - E. Allison - Affordable HousingFrom:Emily Allison
To:Agenda
Subject:Affordable housing
Date:Thursday, September 12, 2019 7:04:14 AM
Good morning commissioners,
Two of my coworkers and I were taking about affordable housing on Monday... we are all different ages and live in
very different areas, but there is one thing we all identified that we think would make a big difference for the
affordable housing situation in Gallatin Valley.
If possible, we urge you all to put as many restrictions as possible on people who buy additional homes and turn
them into vacation rentals or worse, leave them vacant. Don’t get me wrong, I love Airbnb just as much as everyone
else out there, but this is seriously squeezing our already limited housing supply while just benefiting one person’s
bottom line.
Here are some ideas we discussed:
1. Require all Airbnb’s in the city to be the primary residence of the owner, so that people are forced to rent stand
alone homes to long term renters instead of tourists.
2. Make geographic restrictions aka you cannot have more than one vacation rental with 1000 ft of another. A
number of big cities have done this successfully.
3. I am guessing this isn’t possible based on state legislation, but if there is any way to actively tax home owners
who leave their property vacant for more than 3 months in a row or more than 50% of the year, we would LOVE a
steep fine/tax to be placed on those individuals.
Thank you all for your thoughtful work on this important issue!
Emily Allison
Sent from my iPhone