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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-17-23 Public Comment - K. Seymour - PLEASE VOTE NO ON ORDINANCE 2149From:Kelly Seymour To:Agenda Subject:[EXTERNAL]PLEASE VOTE NO ON ORDINANCE 2149 Date:Tuesday, October 17, 2023 8:13:30 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. Do we really want to be a city where we take away property owner's rights? Montana is not that kind of state. We need to PLEASE Vote NO on Ordinance 2149!!! Please read ourstory below: We are the owners of a short term rental type 3 in downtown Bozeman. We are 2 veryhard working parents of one biological son with special needs (he has a very rare geneticsyndrome called Joubert's syndrome) and 2 adoptive sons who came to us with their ownchallenges when they were babies. We worked very hard to earn enough money topurchase this short term rental so that we could ensure an additional income stream forour special needs son. This additional income stream would allow our younger son totake care of his brother with special needs if anything should ever happen to my husbandand I. As you know; there is no housing for people with special needs or disabilities butwe are not asking you to give us under market value housing for him, or take away hardearned property from someone else and give it to us for a reduced rate. We are workinghard to find our own long term solution for him so he can have a future here with hisbrother if something should happen to us. We purchased this specific property with onedistinct intent in mind: RENTING IT. This additional income stream is our long termplan and it's a very viable one that we are depending on and shouldn't have to beworried about at this stage. We could have purchased other properties, but weonly wanted to buy one that we could rent short term for the income potential. Our sonwill never be able to live on his own independently; so this will allow him to have hisbrother be there to help him someday. Don't take this away from us; it's just not right. Your independent study performed by EPS did not prove that there was any way thatcracking down on STRs would help support affordable housing so why do this?? Insteadit would irreparably harm so many families in this valley. At the very least; we ask thatproperties like ours be grandfathered in and don't just make one rash decision to takeaway our rights after the fact. It is imperative that Bozeman be allowed to have short term rentals; not only have we worked extremely hard to earn the income to purchase this property for our family to have thisadditional income stream, but short-term rentals bring a huge amount of tourism to Bozeman and MSU. Many of our small-town businesses will suffer irreparable consequences and lossesin their income if we allow Bozeman to shut down short-term rentals. Short term rentals account for a large amount of the tourism brought into Gallatin County and help thesebusinesses stay in business. We love our downtown and want it to stay busy and vibrant. Many people prefer to use Airbnb and VRBO to travel anymore; without these options fortravel, they would stop coming to our town and many of our small-town businesses will not survive. We only travel via STRs now as we need to have a kitchen to prepare foods for our son as he is immunosuppressed and we need to be able to maintain his routine as we do athome. We cannot do this at hotels and STRs allow us to travel more affordably. We as property owners should not have our property owners' rights stripped; this isunconstitutional. The city cannot take away from hard working people who are paying thetaxes, following the rules, getting their properties licensed properly and doing everything right to just give it away to others. We went above and beyond to obtain all our licensing andwouldn't dream of operating our business without the proper permitting! We love our city so much and personally support so many different nonprofits. Wesupport Special Olympics Montana, Eagle Mount, Heart of the Valley, Big Sky Bravery,MSU Athletics, HRDC just to name a few! We give so much of our hard-earned incometo so many important causes and now when we need help; we feel we are being ignoredand no one is listening to a very important issue that will have a HUGE impact on ourfamily. Why is one group of people more important than the other? Why don'tproperty owners like us matter? Why aren't we being heard when we work so hard, andare making big contributions to our city???? PLEASE VOTE NO ON ORDINANCE 2149 Truly, Kelly Seymour REALTOR® Keller Williams Montana Realty Learn more: www.kellyseymour.com Ph: (406) 600-5198 kellyseymour6@gmail.com