J-BAR #18287 Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 (edited) I received a letter from an "Associate (city) Planner" about a rezoning appeal for a house in my neighborhood. Currently this is a Residential-Single Family neighborhood. The owner of a house nearby wants to have the house designated as Short-Term Rental, which is for periods of less than 30 consecutive days and is not owner occupied. The letter invites property owners in the area to attend the City Council meeting dealing with the appeal and express their views. I would not want to attend such a meeting without doing some research. Who rents a house for 30 days or less? It sounds like maybe a halfway house for addicts or parolees, maybe an Air BNB? What's the best way to find out who owns the house and their intentions? Who would monitor the 30-day rental period, and what would be the consequences of renting it for longer periods? Anything else I should find out? UPDATE 4/22: Thanks to your input and encouragement I was one of 3 speakers who spoke at tonight's City Council meeting in opposition to allowing a short term rental in our neighborhood. No one spoke in support of the re-zoning. Council agreed; 8-0 against allowing the short term rental. I appreciated your comments and wove them into a persuasive narrative. Can't say it was fun, but it was a unique experience! Edited April 23 by J-BAR #18287 8 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 City or county Registry Office would be the place to start, to find out the current ownership. Other than that, in the absence of any detailed information, I would encourage the affected surrounding home owners to voice strong objections, until the full details are made known and assurances put in writing and agreed to by the home owners impacted by the zoning change. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cypress Sun Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 If there is any way of stopping this now...DO IT. Do it for yourself and your neighbors! We have one about 200' away from our front door. The a******s treat the place like a party hotel. No matter how good the "intentions" are, truth is that it's a damn hotel, next to YOUR property with no restrictions. Go to any and all hearing to stop this if you can. 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpo Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 21 minutes ago, J-BAR #18287 said: Who rents a house for 30 days or less? People on vacation. The same thing as a timeshare, basically. People in the military who are TDY. I get transferred to Texas for 3 weeks, and I'm not thrilled with the idea of living in the barracks or even the BOQ. So I rent this house off base. For the 3 weeks that I'll be there. People in the military with PCS orders. Give them time to find some place to live, without having to stay in a hotel. There are several reasons for people to rent a house for a month or less. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cypress Sun Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 3 minutes ago, Alpo said: People on vacation. The same thing as a timeshare, basically. People in the military who are TDY. I get transferred to Texas for 3 weeks, and I'm not thrilled with the idea of living in the barracks or even the BOQ. So I rent this house off base. For the 3 weeks that I'll be there. People in the military with PCS orders. Give them time to find some place to live, without having to stay in a hotel. There are several reasons for people to rent a house for a month or less. Sounds good on paper. Try living next to one. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JD Lud Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 A lot of prospective buyers check zoning for allowance of these short term rentals and I would argue they could increase, or decrease property values depending where you live. If you have a family neighborhood and don’t want new people rotating in out every week I would try to fight it. Once zoning changes and someone puts a house up for sale an investor could buy it just to rent it out short term. Then people don’t like it so they move out, and more rentals…. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texas Joker Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 With a family of 6 plus friends when I vacation it's more cost effective to vrbo or airbnb or whatever local equivalent than a hotel. 3-7 days to rent a house or condo/apartment beats the cost of 2 or 3 decent hotel rooms for the same period. And we can cook to save eating out money. Hard to do in a hotel room. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yul Lose Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 Got a hunch that they want to make it an Air BnB. When we travel on the whole family vacation Air BnB;s are the way to go. We rarely eat out and do all of the cooking there or bring stuff that I’ve bbq’d and frozen and thaw it out there, saves a bunch of money on food and a whole bunch of money on rooms. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdeacon Joe Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 Sonoma County was having issues with STRs that would be rented as weekend party houses with 48 hour loud, sometimes violent, parties, often involving 50 to 100 people. It was probably less than 10% of the STRs, but that was enough to ruin it for everyone. As others have pointed out, STRs are great for a family on vacation, or someone who will be in the area for a couple of weeks on business. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Choctaw Jack Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 Some traveling nurses use these STRs while they are working out of their area, re-newing the lease as needed. Good for them , good for the homeowner. Word of mouth networking in the medical community usually keeps these types of rentals occupied. But the neighbors run the risk of it becoming a "party house" with all of the problems they create. Personally, I'd fight the re-zoning. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Riot Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 I would fight it if there is no clear outline of exactly what the property will be used for. This will diminish home prices surrounding the area. Things the owner might want to do: 1. Halfway for parolees, former convicts. 2. Galway house for drug and alcohol addicts trying to reacclimate in society. 3 AirBnB - perfect strangers on vacation from who knows where. In my book that’s a big No! 4. Corporate rental for corporation staff when in town for short stays. This reminds me of a house in SoCal that became a drug transfer house for the Japanese gang called the Yakuza. It was something like a Steven Seagal movie only in real life. I would definitely go to the council meeting and stand firm on a NO vote. This owner obviously has no loyalty or roots in the neighborhood. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jailhouse Jim, SASS #13104 Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 STRs are a shit show for a quiet neighborhood. Fight it now because once they get a foothold, there will be more. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cypress Sun Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 (edited) J-Bar Sometimes the people that rent are respectful towards their neighbors. However, there is almost always a problem with vehicle parking and noise at all hours of the day and night. A sampling of some of the "guests" that have stayed in the one across from me... - A biker gang of about 15 bikes..,until all their "brothers" showed up which made it about 30 bikes and a few SUV's. The house, and mine, are at the end of a dead end road on a cul de sac. Behind the "party house", as we call it, there is a large lake and canal with several layers of fencing. In front, a 1/4 mile of residential houses on a narrow road. The bikers I'm describing were a nationally known outlaw biker gang and all of them were patched. What better place for their enemies to attack them but in a place where they had absolutely no where to go while the gunfight raged. The bikers themselves were loud and ran up and down the street (straight pipes) all day and night but other than that nothing else occurred. - At least 15 large "pay to play" parties have happened there. I think that most of them were promoted by people on social media formats. All of them got shut down by the Sheriffs Department eventually. Almost all of these parties involved teenagers looking to get drunk/high and cause trouble. A couple of them had vehicles "bussing" the people in from a nearby place where they were parking their vehicles. One of them actually had over 100 people show up, it took Sheriff officers in 7 cruisers to patrol the area all night to stop people from continuing to go there and they arrested about 20 of the punks. - Various large parties for bachelor, graduation, spring break, etc, etc. have happened there. Sometime the cops get called, sometimes not. I've personally called the Sheriffs Dept no less than 18 times in the last 2-1/2 years. That doesn't include neighbor's calling. I don't call just to be an a*****e, I only call when things get out of hand or they block the road with their vehicles. For the most part, they only rent the place for 1 - 3 days/nights. There is no way to know who these people are or if they are criminals. I know for a fact that several of the rentals involved drug distribution, it had to be. I wasn't born yesterday, I've been around the block...I know what to look for. - Your County or City jurisdiction may put rules in place...good luck getting them to enforce their own rules...they won't. Most of the crap happens at night or on the weekends but even if it doesn't, they won't come out to see nor will they do anything about it. In some locations around here, the Air BnB type places have become such a nuisance that longtime residents have been forced to sell their homes and move out because the local jurisdictions won't do anything about the problems. Most everyone that lives near one of these places wished they didn't...including me, my gal and all my neighbors. I know it seems like I'm going to extremes to make my point but I feel I have to because once they get in...you're not getting them out. Just giving you fair warning. Edited April 13 by Cypress Sun 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-BAR #18287 Posted April 23 Author Share Posted April 23 Update in first post. 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cypress Sun Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 I am so happy for you and your neighbors that they disallowed it. I hope that you never have to experience what we have over the last 2 - 3 years, but you'll have to stay vigilant to prevent it. I'm just glad they gave you all the opportunity to voice your disapproval of it. We never got the chance to voice our opinions. Congratulations! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rip Snorter Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Stay Frosty, I doubt they will give up! 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeaconKC Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Good for you! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
watab kid Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 no good for you or the neighborhood will come from this - air B$B or whatever it is , next thing you know there will be squatters in there and he owner wont be able to get rid of them - but you will be stuck with them as well 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Riot Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 9 hours ago, J-BAR #18287 said: Update in first post. I am very glad you were able to help stop that silliness. Nothing good would have come from allowing that. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Original Lumpy Gritz Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 10 hours ago, J-BAR #18287 said: Update in first post. Bet now, the house will be listed for sale. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Be watchful for someone going ahead with the idea without approval. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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