HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-12-23 Public Comment - N. Barrett - Amend Ordinance 2149From:Neil Barrett
To:Agenda
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Amend Ordinance 2149
Date:Wednesday, October 11, 2023 8:32:13 AM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless
you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Dear Commissioners,
I am writing to urge you to amend Ordinance 2149 to allow legal and existing STR’s to be grandfathered into the
Ordinance as the Community Development Board has recommended.
For those of us with existing STR licenses, we have already invested large sums in our homes over the last few years
based on our legal right to operate an STR if it is situated in the appropriate zoning district. For you to suddenly take
away that right is an unreasonable infringement of our property rights through retroactive legislation.
It is also very unfair to exclude those of us who are intentionally following the current law to not be allowed to
continue doing so.
Why penalize the law abiding members of the community when you have done nothing to penalize illegal STR’s
operators? That is a very strange double standard.
As currently configured, the only thing that Ordinance 2149 will achieve is to create a wave of lawsuits on the state
and federal level challenging your ability to deprive law abiding property owners of their vested property rights.
You have not yet publicly made the case for how banning STR’s would positively impact affordable housing. Your
own study from EPS implied that the effect on affordable housing would very likely be negligible yet would
dramatically diminish choices available to the $1 billlion/year tourist industry. That sounds like a net negative for
the community.
I care about affordable housing, and I would love to see you enact an ordinance grounded in good public policy. So
please follow the Zoning boards recommendations which seem smart and reasonable. Pause new licenses,
grandfather existing licenses to avoid the lawsuits. . . . and then really study this issue so that you can enact
legislation that is truly for the communal good. Other mountain communities have come up with much sharper and
smarter solutions based on taxing STR’s and organizing caps on licenses. Let’s look at all the options before
rushing into a very controversial decision.
Following the Community Development Board’s recommendations sounds like smart public policy and responsible
leadership.
Respectfully,
Neil Barrett