HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-07-23 Public Comment - J. Wesley-Wiese - STR regulationsFrom:Jeanne & Paul Wesley-Wiese
To:Agenda
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Fwd: STR regulations
Date:Thursday, September 7, 2023 8:28:02 AM
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From: Jeanne & Paul Wesley-Wiese <lazarusstudio@gmail.com>Date: Tue, Sep 5, 2023 at 10:17 AM
Subject: STR regulationsTo: I-Ho Pomeroy <IPomeroy@bozeman.net>, <candrus@bozeman.net>,
<tcunningham@bozemannet.co>, <ccoburn@bozemannet.com>,<jmadgic@bozemannet.com>
Greetings, I want to let you who are in control of the above to see how any policy that stripsme of my right to rent my property will impact the rental housing market.
Firstly, I survive on a very limited income, including the amount I receive from my STR. If Iam stripped of the extra small amount of STR income I receive, I will be forced to sell the
home I live in currently with my daughter and her family. This will require me to move intothe house I have used as a long term rental for over 30 years and put my daughter and her 4
children on your affordable housing list. So in my case it will cause the community to loselong term rental housing. Because of the forced sale of the home I have lived in for 25 years,
and the escalation of housing prices in Bozeman, I will not need to rent out my STR anymore. I won't rent it long term for various reasons, one being that I resent people who are
coming here unprepared to live in this economic climate and complain to you that they wantyou to penalize me who have striven my whole life to serve and contribute greatly to this
community. I have complied with everything you have ever required of me. I paid thousandsof dollars to be grandfathered in when this all started and was denied because a long term
renter had put a stove in my studio and I didn't remember that 20 years earlier on my buildingpermit it said there couldn't be a stove which took 5 minutes to take out. If I was a good ole
boy I would have been forgiven. Fortunately for me a few days later, new regulations wereapproved regarding ADU's that saved me, but also cost me a few more thousand dollars. That
long term renter also turned the heat completely off when they left for Christmas vacation anddestroyed the wood flooring because the pipes froze. After that I was done with long termers
in my property because it is all I have for financial stability in this world. To properly maintainand take care of it, I need to not be cut off from my property for long periods of time based on
my negative experience with long term renters. I have empathy for the housing situation here. My own family, all born and raised here, can
not afford housing either, which is why I have been providing it for the last 8 years. I amgrateful for the work the City is doing to solve this problem and pray my own grandchildren
will someday have their own home here too.When I came here by myself with 3 children in 1976, you could find a place to live
reasonably, but there were NO jobs. My first job was at the Western Cafe for $2.30 an hour. Ihad to figure it out on my own how to support myself and my children, and didn't expect to do
it on the backs of the people living here.
I don't understand that if there are over 300 illegal, non complying property owners, why don'tyou deal with that first?? Since a great deal of housing is being bought by people who don't
live here and contribute nothing to this community, require them to rent long term v. shortterm.
Basically, my message to you all is that, if I lose my short term income, the long term rentalmarket will lose housing, and add another family to the affordable housing list.
Sincerely,Jeanne Wesley Wiese