All right, I'm gonna go ahead and call our Monday, March 16th, 2026, City of Columbia uh council work session to order.

Um Miss Peters let me know that she might be a few minutes late.

Um our topic of conversation today is uh short term rental update uh our ordinance potential updates.

So I think I'm just kicking this right over to you, Clint, and I'll remind us to use the microphone so that everybody can hear us in here.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor, uh council.

So I'm Clint Smith with community development department.

Um with me tonight is also uh Ms.

Gaway Jones, who is the planning and zoning commission uh chairperson uh to offer some perspective.

I think if there are questions regarding uh I think short-term rentals in general, they have spent a uh uh a fair amount of time working on these provisions over the last several years.

Uh, we thought it would be helpful to have her perspective and again answer any questions uh that you might have on planning zoning's perspective on some of these.

So with that said, um, we have a little presentation tonight uh to discuss um a specific amendment um set of changes to the short-term rental um provisions that uh actually were at planning and zoning uh middle of last year.

Uh and we'll go through those here uh real quick.

Um not real quick, we have two hours, so we'll take some time.

And I'll just remind so yeah, this is our work session on it at the end.

We'll kind of talk about next steps, but no changes will be made or voted upon today.

Correct.

Yeah, so the people in the audience, not you, Clint.

You know that.

I appreciate that.

So, yes.

So just kind of walk through what what our steps tonight will be and what our goals.

So um, I'm just gonna provide a little history, I think, of these particular amendments to the short-term regulations.

Um, an overview of some of the goals, I think, that were identified uh when this did come uh in front of council or we're uh in front of planning zoning as well.

Um, and then we're gonna review a little bit of the current short-term rental information, uh, some statistics and numbers for the amount of uh permits and applications we've seen to date from the beginning of the short-term rental ordinance.

Um, and then I've given you a short packet or small packet of three pages, and there's three charts in there.

Uh, that's going to be really kind of our high level overview to talk about what the significant changes to the short-term rental regulations are going to be.

Um we have some uh additional slides there that go into a lot more detail and some of the specific text, but I think for the most part, we'll probably try to live in that slide or that fourth high level overview to kind of give a broad idea of what the changes are.

And I think we can kind of accomplish that.

And what I've got given you here is uh kind of the charts that we're gonna be looking at.

Feel free to take some notes on those or any additional information you'd like, but uh that way you can kind of reference back to these even if we're not on that particular slide.

So uh really just the history to kind of get you up to speed on where we've been.

Um so February 24 uh is when council adopted the the original short-term rentals, um, and they became effective June that same year.

Um, March last year, there was a year in review report um by our staff, kind of gave an update on some of the information that we've seen so far coming out of the short-term rental applications.

Um, and we also presented uh council a uh report uh and a recommendation to pursue some additional amendments to that short-term rental um uh regulations that we'd seen up to date.

And that was in response to I think some of the uh I think trends we had seen coming out of the the implement uh uh the implementation of the short-term rental regulations.

Uh and then during April to May, uh staff had worked to draft those amendments and planning and zoning did review those uh at that time.

So they had been completed.

If you notice some of the materials in your packet, they'd be completed mid last year.

Uh, I think with the change of leadership here in the department.

Um there was a little bit of delay, but we've been working on getting those brought before council at a work session to kind of go a little more into detail about um why we're proposing the changes and what those changes actually are.

I should know that that they're a little bit complicated.

Um, and so one of the uh principal goals uh for the the changes really is to reduce that complexity.

Um there's three tiers, but within each tier, there's kind of multiple standards and factors that go into determining which factor you might find yourself within.

Um, and so one of those uh primary goals is really make it simpler.

I think for the public to understand and those who are looking to actually uh utilize short-term rental regulations a little easier to participate.

Um we're looking to try to create a little more direct path to licensure.

I think some of the um outcomes we've seen could be pointing to uh the fact that maybe the complexity of the short-term rentals is uh inhibiting some people from actually submitting license requests going through the process.

So we're we're trying to make that a little more direct.

Um the last one really is to make sure in all of this that we're kind of retaining the core, I think, factors that went into the original short-term rental.

Um, some of the things that were the primary concerns were the density of such short-term rentals in in a certain area, uh was the limitation on the number um per individual.

So those things are really important to be retained.

Uh, and we'll talk about um how those have been addressed, I think, in those amendments.

So really, I want to kind of kind of frame this as having really three significant changes to the current short-term rental amendment.

And one, the very first one essentially is eliminate tier one.

Um, it's underused, and we'll talk about it a little more in detail, but eliminate tier one and essentially roll that into tier two, kind of simplifying the different levels that people uh might have to consider when they're looking at short-term rental regulations.

Uh really uh kind of open the door for individuals who are not just principal residents for a property.

Um, and part of this kind of goes along with uh number the first priority there is really kind of put a single cap uh on that tier on that first tier.

Uh and that's there's some nuance there.

We do have a couple other uh additional uh night tiers, but we'll talk about that a little more detail.

Uh but I think one of the more significant things is rethinking the conditional use um triggers, if you will.

So the things that would require somebody to seek a conditional use permit, which essentially means they have to come to council uh to get permit approval.

So this kind of starts uh the three tables that I'll I'll be spending a lot of time in.

So really the first one, I kind of wanted to start with really just an overview of what we do now.

Um when we're putting this together, I I wanted to make sure that I could explain it in a way that made sense.

And so for me, it's a little easier to kind of lay out all the different factors and triggers that go into our tiers.

Um, as you can see, starting from the beginning, um, tier one, um the middle column there is the number of nights that are associated with that particular tier.

So tier one stands by itself, there are no other um factors going into uh separate tiers uh that include tier one, like tier two has three kind of sub-levels.

Tier one is strictly for less than three uh 30 nights.

Uh to obtain that though, you do have to be the principal, it has to be a principal principal residence of someone, all right.

So somebody has to be living in that uh property in order to be um eligible to get a tier one permit.

Um there is a a small benefit to that tier, is that um if you did uh submit application for tier one, um, you would not have to actually add parking if you wanted to have a certain number of tenants to that uh property.

So if you uh were allowed six transient guests, that would normally require three parking spaces.

Tier one would not require you to add any more parking than what you currently have.

So it's a little bit of a benefit.

I think it's looked at as tier one low-level impact.

Uh, and so we're we're okay with people who are principal residents there are having that additional kind of uh option of not providing parking.

And that does uh I think point to uh the ability not to have as much of a disruptive impact on neighborhoods uh and avoids having to install additional parking spaces and driveways.

Yeah, if you have the microphone every time I'll never get used to these microphones.

Um yeah, if you can take questions in the middle, um, I'd like to ask besides the rented days per night, what's or the nights per year?

Um, what's the difference between tier one and tier two principal residence?

Is it just the parking?

It it is, yes, it is strictly just the parking.

So if you don't want to add any parking, you can do tier one.

Tier two requires you to provide the amount of parking that's required for short-term rentals, which is one per every two transient guests.

I'm curious as to what the um thought process is about eliminating tier one versus expanding tier one, expanding the number of nights and the no parking permission.

And I can see that you did expand the no parking permission to attach it to number of guests, which that is actually a really smart way to do that.

Um and then go back to like the initial um research done and the understanding that for a principal residence, it's not removing housing availability because it's somewhere that still has a long-term tenant in addition to uh short-term rental license.

Uh and like I said, we kind of I think um when we look at the new tiers, I think we can kind of explain it a little bit better when we have that in front of us.

So if you don't mind, we might go through this a little bit.

I don't know if Pat you had anything to add to that at the time being, but um I think we see a very, I think a low utilization rate for that 30 days.

Um we're looking at, I think people are looking to do this if they're looking to do it or looking to do it for more than 30 days.

Uh you can see, I think uh the next slide, we have some numbers on the applications for each tier, uh, which I think kind of indicate uh where that uh I think desire is for most users.

What's the utilization rate for tier two?

I want let's have him finish this slide, and then that is on the next slide for all the tiers, it looks like.

If I can if I can ask a question, that's actually going back to the slide about the history.

Yes.

Um, so can you remind us how long this was in process before we got to adopting the regulations?

Uh my colleague uh Pat Zinner, uh the development services manager here, uh he says it was about five years that they had worked on the initial draft, I think of the short-term rental reports.

2017 is when it began.

Thank you.

All right, so going on from tier one.

So tier three, uh, you can see has really kind of three subcategories.

The original one, which we we talked about, the low level one for 120 nights.

Um, again, principal residents.

So I would point your attention to the top two options there, tier one and the 129 tier two, only available if it is the principal residence of an individual.

And I'll come back to why that's important here in a second.

Um tier two uh has two subcategories in 210 nights.

And this is where uh we start to see the distinction in where some of these applications will come to city council.

So once you uh approach the 210 night threshold, uh the difference in getting administrative approval and a conditional approval which comes to council is the zoning.

So if you're in a residential zoning district and you want 210 nights, you will come to council.

Uh what I would point out is up to that point, all the tiers below it, you had to be a principal red principal resident.

Right.

So any owner who owns a property um as a um an investment property or through an LLC where it's not their principal residence, the first option they have to participate in short-term rental is the 210 night.

And if it's in a residential district, it must come to city council.

So that is why I think that is really the majority of conditional uses that council sees are are really that triggered.

It's essentially they don't live there full time and it's in a residential zoning district.

So and we'll talk a little bit more about I think some of the provisions and why that distinction is really where I think some of the amendments were trending.

Um tier three, we really won't spend a lot of time there.

Most of that's not changing.

Tier three, I just say is mostly commercial zone.

Uh, and that's really year-round.

So the distinction there is if you're in the uh mixed use office, and I'm kind of generalizing commercial, it's mixed use MN, MD MDT, MC, but essentially the commercial districts.

Uh Office O is a little bit different.

Uh, that's one that originally been in the uh ordinance as a conditional use.

Again, we didn't really go into tier three, other than that will become tier two, which we'll see here in a in a different slide.

So I did want to talk a little bit about statistics, update this from the uh I think the update that was given last year in April.

Um, I think at that time there'd been 38 applications total.

So uh to this point to date, we have received 134, and that's the lower left there.

So the the left column after the tiers, and we've kind of discussed what the each tier is.

Uh, but that's the number of applications that we received with each.

Doesn't mean all those applications have made it all the way to licenseure, but that's everything that we've received.

Somehow our staff's touched it, right?

It's it's come in as a conditional use, it's come in uh as an administrative approval.

For some reason, uh an application has been uh instigated by by an owner.

Uh again, uh the rented days per year, number of withdrawn, to give you an a little idea of um you know why we don't have all those coming through to license.

Uh the next column though, uh points your attention to that.

That's um basically the ones that have come through or could come to council.

So those are conditional use permit applications.

Um tier two again, the conditional use permit for tier two.

Uh again, that is by far the one we've had the most applications for.

Uh, and that uh the number there is essentially uh in that uh CUP column 59 is a number that council has approved.

Eight has been denied, and one is currently pending.

Uh and I didn't put all the numbers up there, but if you want to break that down further, um eight obviously all came off consent and was on old business.

Of the 59 that were approved, six were pulled off and put on old business, right?

So the 59, 53 stayed on consent and were approved.

I got Valerie and then Nick.

Yeah, so this is the slide we were talking about before.

Um, and what I'm wondering about is if you look at that tier one and tier two um non-COP, you have 37 licensed out of 46 tier 2, and only two people that sought the tier one at 30 nights.

Um, I'm wondering if that 30 nights is short, but also um perhaps the application procedure could be made more simplistic for a um host on site.

Um, but I'm also wondering like where the decision was made to get rid of tier one and collapse everything into tier two versus combining those and keeping the tier two CUP because those numbers start to appear more relevant.

Right.

And I think you know, in in the and pack of fill in a little bit of the details, but I think in the grand scheme of simplicity, uh, given that we had a lot of people interested in that 210 day um, we weren't seeing, I think um really a distinction between that 120 with the 46 applications and 210.

The distinction there is to go to 210, you need to do the conditional use.

So I think people going to 120 nights, it's it could be less about that's the number of nights for them, and and more about the process of going through conditional use approval could be cumbersome.

Right?

Because again, if you are going above 120 uh and you're in a residential district, you will always go to a conditional use uh process, which uh inherently brings along a certain level of risk and uncertainty.

So all of those 37 are principal residents in the correct, they would have to be yes.

Nick, you had a question.

I just want to be sure I understand how many came off consent, then so total 14 came off.

So all of the eight, which are were denied, obviously, and of the 59, six additional of the approved came off.

So when you said they came off, they weren't sent to council on consent and they came off.

Six of them were six of them six of them were and the eight were old business because they were denied at planning and zoning.

Okay, that's what I wanted to be sure about.

Yeah, yeah, it kind of reads like is that us denying them?

Is it P and Z denying them?

Lots of people have an opportunity to deny.

So I think I think the way it had it was eight were denied.

So if we wanted to give it down a little more, eight were denied at council.

That's not necessarily all eight were but not eight, they have started on, right?

They wound up on old business, but you know, reflecting that uh where they started.

Did they start on consent for second read, or did they start on old business because of the vote at P and Z?

That's not drawn out in this data year.

So then that is confusing the system because you just said 14.

So 14 were pulled from consent.

It the whole reason behind old business.

I think what you're trying to say here, hold on a second.

I've got Valerie and then done, but hold on.

Um, I think what you're trying to show us in this is how many were coming through P and Z approved, and it was coming to council.

I think that's what we got in that report last year, which council why we asked about potential improvements to this because automatic approval was starting to happen.

I I I do worry about it staying too long on this because as it's been said many times, the good applicants have applied, right?

Like, of course, they're probably going through and getting approval because they're following the rules.

I think it's the ones that have yet to come that there's concerns over.

So I don't want you to spend too much time on this number.

I do appreciate and I understand why you're doing it.

Um and then Val, you guys both had your hands up.

Did you have a comment?

Are you okay to move on?

Um, or question.

Yeah.

Um for that 5981 or the 14, maybe before this comes to council for a vote.

Um, and of course you'll have new numbers by then likely because we see more of these every week.

Um maybe just the ones that came to council not on consent.

Maybe it would be helpful to have a simplistic table of um how many of those came to council, how many of those were approved by PNZ, how many of those were approved by council, and what how many were recommended by staff so we can gauge how often there's a difference.

Can we hold on?

Um Don had his hand up first and then if it is a clarification to her question.

Okay.

Can we just clarify our because you said ones that came to us not on consent?

We have had a few STRs that have been chosen to be pulled from consent after they came to us on.

Do we want to include those in there?

I mean ones that we voted on for whatever reason, if council took a vote, then understanding how that pathway unfolded just in the most basic numbers would be helpful.

Yeah, Don.

I think my point the microphone, please.

Sorry, there's a lot of people in here, and I want them to be able to hear.

My point to simplify it is the eight were all voted on by council, regardless of where they appeared on the agenda when we got to the meeting.

Correct.

So I would simply like to see out of the if you want to if they want to break down the eight, how many uh came from planning and zoning approved, disapproved, um, and or not.

So uh, because like I said, the eight is approved, those all had to be debated and voted on regardless of where they started.

Um we know that if planning and zoning approves it, it may wind up on all business or it may come through on consent.

If it's disapproved, we're going to be debating it regardless.

Um, so I just don't see the point of trying to differentiate where did it start?

It ended up in front of us.

If I may, as to the point of where did it differentiate.

Um, I'm interested in the difference between staff approval, staff recommendation, and council votes.

Um, because we're potentially moving towards administrative approval, and I want to see how that was evaluated by staff compared to how that was evaluated by council, and if there's a difference in the way that we have been historically considering things.

Um, your point is well taken that there's been a difference in later applications.

Um there's only been enforcement on two properties so far.

Um, that's not right.

So my information is old.

Um I'm wondering if that's going to look differently as time progresses.

So sure.

Just to clarify, um staff doesn't ever recommend denial because they are not looking at the weighted factors, which for these CUPs, they are looking merely at the did they meet all of the technical criteria.

Planning and zoning commissioners have to then look at the weighted factors of how close are they to other potential STRs?

Is it right for the neighborhood?

What do things like that look like?

So I don't think it's fair at this juncture because staff is literally just looking at parking square footage, that kind of stuff to compare staff recommendation to final outcome.

I think it is fair to do commission recommendation versus final outcome.

So that's fair.

Yeah, that would be good.

I think there was one where staff denied, but it was closer to you.

There would, but only one that I'm closer, sorry.

Only one that I recall, and it was multiple applications.

Yeah, two years removed.

And what I would say as it relates to enforcement purposes, we have prosecuted a number of cases more than two.

Uh there are uh additional actions being taken as it relates as we move forward.

So uh establishing a record uh and being able to present those to the city prosecutor, that is a that's an ongoing procedure, and so we are continuing to do that.

Um, and that is something that we will likely continue to see increase as we on board as our vendor and we are on board it together, and we have better information coming forward.

So um again, I think as Mr.

Smith has pointed out, the purpose for the amendments really are to increase licensure compliance rates, by which then at that point we are bringing everybody under one consistent house of regulation, at which point then enforcement may be able to be more appropriately administered as it relates to those that are in compliance by licensure, uh, and then those that are not.

And so, you know, the the advantage of having a registration and a licensure program is we know where everyone is, they all know they are under a microscope.

Uh, right now we are still uh very short on getting everybody into the same house of being licensed.

And so part of what we are looking at is through the through the amendments is a simplification process, which I could tell you because I receive all of our applications and evaluate them.

That is probably the most common complaint that we receive from folks that contact our offices, is that this process is too complicated.

And so simplifying that process is a significant objective of why we are doing this.

This does not have anything to do with the staff side of this.

Administrative approvals will not reduce our workload, it will actually increase it, uh, but it will gain greater levels of compliance to the content of the ordinance's purpose, and that is why some of these changes have uh been birthed.

Uh so with that, I'm gonna turn this back over to my boss.

And that's a good segue, I think, into the next slide, which I think really gets into uh laying out really the significant changes here.

If anybody had any final questions on this one, we can always come back to that as well.

So what we're trying to do here is really show you a one-to-one comparison of where we're at, which is the left side and where we're where we're headed, which is on the right side, and kind of what the changes are uh and really what the factors, and I didn't I didn't probably explain them quite enough on the first slide, but the factors on the right side of each uh table, those are the things that we evaluate to determine what tier you're in, like specifically.

So those are the things we'll look at to say, okay, you're in tier one, tier two, right?

And so, like we talked about for uh the first column, really that distinction in tier two for two ten, uh 210 nights, it's it's based on your zoning, right?

So that that's where where that one lives right now.

So I'm gonna start from the top and we'll get to that one uh because that's probably the the one of the more consequential changes.

But the top uh the top tier, you can see on the left we have tier one and the 129th tier two.

That really becomes uh an expanded tier one and eliminates that 30-day threshold.

We don't have a lot of people utilizing that 30 days, but we did uh find, I think that one of those provisions that were, and I had to hesitate to say benefit, but it's really meant to allow short-term rentals in certain situations and not have that impact of requiring additional parking, is we've preserved the no additional parking provision from the 30-day tier to now to the 120-day tier.

But we put a cap on it up to four people.

So as long as you are limiting your occupancy to four people, equal or less than four people, you do not have to provide any parking.

So if you had a structure that didn't historically have a driveway or a garage, uh, and you've been using it as a residential property in the past successfully with long-term rental or or living there as a principal residence.

We're not going to make you put in a driveway in a parking uh area just to have essentially the same impact on a neighborhood when it comes to parking.

Uh, and if you don't have a curb cut in a driveway, you likely have at least 40 feet of street space in front of your house, which accommodate two cars.

Yeah.

Do we have any data on how many um license STRs have less than four guests requested or less than or equal to?

Can we get that from our new contractor?

We actually we have that information as a part of the intake and as a part of how every council report comes to the comes to council that's specifically stated as a part of the executive summary of every council report.

So I'm sure we can pull that information together again.

So based on your research, does that represent a good chunk of the applicants?

Is it worth six to eight?

Yeah, when you say most of the ones that have come to us, at least they have come to us.

I don't know about your the admins, the admins are typically so the administrative ones, which would be the 129 primary resident or tenant.

Um, they are generally uh between they range between four, six, and eight, and it is all dependent upon where that structure is actually located in the era of construction.

Uh, it is very clear, we are very clear with our applicants that if you are seeking uh to have eight guests in the central city and you do not have a driveway or you do not have a parking area available, you need to either add that as a result of trying to get an administrative approval, or your occupancy is restricted.

And most people will choose to restrict their occupancy versus putting in a driveway, which I think is what we have understood that is council's preference that we don't want to irreparably change a neighborhood and its characteristics by forcing parking.

So the choice to add is always entirely left to the applicant, and they choose often to not do so.

Um we have had a number of our conditional use approvals where they have been short four feet, I can remember on one driveway.

We conditioned the approval for a maximum of six guests, because they only had capacity for two on the addition of four feet of additional concrete internal to their lot.

We have done also other CUP approvals where we have indicated a maximum number of occupants subject to the addition of an additional parking stall, which again is at the discretion of the applicant.

It is not mandatory if they want to increase their occupancy.

So in those instances, often it's either set at four or six as the principal, the initial uh licensure authorization because they are short by one parking space generally.

Okay.

Can I ask Pat to that?

On kind of like the previous slide, you know, we had what 39 licensed of the 40 whatever that were there.

Are some of those waiting, like they've been approved, or the 59 to 39 because of those, those requirements?

Do we know, or is that just anecdotal?

I I would suggest it's maybe more anecdotal.

Uh, they may be hung up somewhere in the licensure process of either establishing an LLC properly with the state, uh, trying to get insurance documentation that will meet our requirements.

Um, there are some that may potentially that have gone through a process and are no longer operating.

And so part of what we may need to do more effectively as a staff if we notice that there is a lag between approval to actual completion of the licensure process, we may need to do a tickler file to just follow up with that particular applicant to find that are you still operating?

Because if they are not, we need to we need to denote that one, and then we need to make sure that they are we monitor through our vendor that that property is not coming up in repeated sweeps of the listing sites, uh, that they are actually continuing to operate, hoping that they could do so under the radar.

And that is part of where I think we may need to be more actively involved in coordination with our neighborhood services unit and us.

And for that lag there, um, remind us is the conditional use permit have a timeline for then the licensure.

We talked about this last week when we're talking about housing permits, certain period of time, that they're eligible, and then yeah.

It does not.

Um, and I think that that would potentially be um something that we could be considering uh to ensure that there is a more accurate or a more rapid completion of the process.

Uh the the procedure that we have operated under is a short-term rental that is seeking licensure, not unlike any other uh property found in violation.

The prosecution of that violation is generally suspended because they are going through a process to correct that.

Um, given that the majority of our requests that come through are for conditional uses, and that's probably where we see our least compliance rate, part of the conditional use process could be to establish a completion 60, 90 days from council action.

Uh, if we did that, we would administratively, of course, or regulatorily apply that to a also a administrative approval.

Um, but we did not think of that at the time that the ordinance was adopted in 2024.

Yeah, last parking question.

Um go ahead again, Clinton.

Sorry.

So for comparison between the previous um and the current, if it was a principal dwelling, and the resident had a car on site.

Did we require them to provide additional parking?

Okay, good.

I think that was misunderstood in places.

Yeah, no, no.

So they still only needed one parking spot for their and it and to drill a little bit in and drill just a little bit into that.

The so as many of you may be aware of the licensure criteria, uh, a principal resident has to seek licensure.

So that's either a tenant or the actual occupant of the structure.

And part of the reason why we have shifted from a 30-night no parking to basically the 120 night with no additional parking is because the the general philosophy is that most structures built within the city of Columbia that are more contemporary were required to provide two on-site parking spaces with their construction.

And as Mr.

Smith pointed out, those that have been operating without a driveway, without a curb cut, they've been able to get through life, so to speak, uh managing their parking as a residential unit, and therefore we didn't feel it is essential as long as you weren't going over the regular regulatory requirement for a single family home to provide the additional parking when we were tapping it at four guests, no greater than 120 nights.

And so that's why the parking waiver, so to speak, applies to the new lowest level of uh tier one, the new tier one.

Once you get beyond four guests, which would be equivalent to the two parking spaces by our current code, that's where you needed to start applying the new parking requirement.

Yeah, I'm I'm with you on that rationale and the um background more addressing concerns about and misunderstandings about additional parking that were spoken during public hearings.

All right, okay.

Oh, sorry, I want more.

Yeah.

Just clarification.

So in the amendment tiers that we're looking at within tier one from 120 to 210 to 210 with a CUV, is there no difference there between whether or not it is a principal residence?

Just as long as it is zoned residential, it would qualify tier one.

So if it's not in that factor calm, we do not consider that to be something that needs to be addressed.

So what that says is zoning doesn't matter, and principal residence doesn't matter.

So those are two things that we have removed from those first tier two, or excuse me, first two tiers.

Uh and that's where I'll I think where I'll pick up and get into I think what kind of some of the heart of I think the changes is going to uh where it's going to impact the ordinance.

Uh and so if you look at again the tier two C UP on the left, the two ten night residential zoning, that's where we've been generating a lot of the activity coming to council.

Uh and so what we've seen on the previous slide is um I think of the 68 applications, I think 57 have been approved at council or somewhere in there.

So we're approaching 90% approval rate.

And what I think the feedback we've gotten and the and the observations we've had is as long as they are checking a couple boxes, boxes, they are being approved.

And so the question we had to ask ourselves, why are we sending every single one that's residentially zoned through council if we actually know what the factors are that uh I think people are interested in?

So we're trying to, I think, really narrow that down, and I think that's uh that is really what a good conditional use uh process can be is what are the factors that are important, and if we know what they are, let's identify those, and that's what we essentially we've done now for the tier one CUP.

So tier one, two ten nights, uh essentially, no matter what zoning district you're in, and no matter what the ownership structure is, uh that's as of right now, that's administrative.

Uh except except for a couple new factors.

Are you within 300 feet of another licensed property?

And do you have any open code violations or reported violations to city staff?

If you have either of those two, not based on the zoning, but based on those two factors, now you will go to council for conditional use permit process.

And Clint remind us on your uh if it's where administrative rule, your checklist, what are the things that so you know you mentioned Sharon mentioned earlier parking square footage?

Is there anything else on your list that kind of gets to the questions that came up during planning and zoning commission meetings?

Yeah, I thought we're gonna Pat, you're the one who reviews all the applications.

Yeah, I and then these are the things we've seen.

We make sure that what is being provided to us uh does comport with the requirements for documented uh demonstrating documentation that the owner listed per deed is the actual occupant of uh well that matches up, and we wouldn't have demonstrating documentation anymore because you're drawing uh a diff, you're no longer drawing the distinction.

So the critical elements is does the unit have enough parking to meet the requested occupancy.

Um does the um does the structure have by stated bedroom area enough square footage in the bedrooms to meet the requirements of IPMC, uh, which is 100 square feet for two, it's 70 square feet for the first guest, 100 square feet for two guests, and for every 50 square feet after 100, it's three guests in a room.

So, you know, a hundred and three hundred and fifty square foot rooms is going to amount to a total of uh nine guests in a home, we would have capped it at eight.

And but we would have looked at the criterion that was stated on the application and said they're asking for eight, the square footage meets it, it's subject to a final inspection by our neighborhood services staff, but we're going to sign off that it is compliant with the criteria, subject to additional review.

We would check parking based on aerial as well as other uh factors that we utilize for doing any other analysis.

Umership is going to be something that if it is an LLC, a trust, corporation, we are going to require an ownership affidavit that basically stipulates all members of that LLC.

That gets compared against a database of LLC submissions that we have already had, because we will only allow one licensure to an entity.

And an entity is a person, an LLC, or any other uh body that basically could obtain a license.

And if there are more than one to any of those factors, we would not approve the request.

Um, furthermore, the ordinance does not really afford a path by which somebody that may be in that situation could seek licensure.

Um, and so there are some things here that basically we have to tell applicants that you have to change either the structure of your ownership if you want to pursue a license, because we don't have another mechanism by which you can pursue one.

You can't go to the planning and zoning commission and ask for a license to be issued if you're a member in multiple LLCs that already have licenses.

Um, and so this is that's part of what we're doing as we're evaluating these applications.

Average response to a single application I receive generally is anywhere between three to five emails that take normally about 45 minutes to an hour to generate because of the level of detail that has to go in to explain what the standard is.

And so what we're trying to do again, I will not, and my staff will not see a relief to that if we convert to administration.

Uh, but we will potentially be able to process more efficiently uh those applications coming in.

I mean, we're gonna still have a volume.

Um, but I think as Clint was leading to the criterion that we have found that generally triggers uh the reaction is we have bad operator.

They have a bad history.

So we're gonna also be looking at well, what is the code related enforcement history?

Do we have complaints?

And so we do that today as a part of our staff reporting process to the commission for all CUPs.

Um we are not obligated to do that with administrative approvals today.

So we do not.

And what I will tell you is also under the current code, an administratively approved short-term rental is not considered a factor when we look at the 300-foot separation for CUPs.

This ordinance revision would reverse that uh pattern.

All licensed CUP, all licensed short-term rents, regardless, would be counted against each other.

So if somebody has already obtained an administrative approval, and then they are trying to get a under the new regulations, there is an administrative approved, and now under the new regulation, somebody wants to get a new short-term rental within 300 feet.

It is automatically going to require that new application to go through the CUP process.

Presently, we wouldn't even we would acknowledge that one exists, but we would state that it's an administrative approval in the commission's standard procedure, because administrative approvals were looked at as being lesser impactful, has discounted the fact that that short-term rental is in that general location, which has been a concern as it relates to concentration.

And so now the amendment would allow us to better address the issue of concentrations within particular areas more equally across the board.

And this is the B, let's see B one B.

So that's that one saying, Oh no, that's the code violations, the A, one A that says a dwelling unit is located within 300.

The A, one A that says a dwelling unit is located within 300.

So that would require them to go with the conditional use permit.

And then it'd be up to the planning and zoning commission to review here, and then to come to us.

That is correct.

For conditional, that's for a conditional use permit.

But if what you're saying is that an application that does not have one that's registered with us within 300 feet and does not have code violations, can you go into that that would be administrative rule approval?

It would not come to us or planning and zoning.

Can you um give us the example?

Because I see like code violations, but like is that any, you know, I I like flesh that out because I mean we've we've heard we've heard anecdotally at a public hearing or not public, you know, the the comments about these on like what is a code violation.

So is there a threshold of these?

And is it before it was operating on a short-term rental or before you just walk us through that?

So uh the the way that the the way that the legislation is written, any violation.

It's any violation.

I mean, you could have, and it is not necessarily if we have a registered complaint either into neighborhood services or into the it into community development, that counts as a violation.

It is not something that Lee has sent their staff out to go inspect as an environmental high grass, trash.

Um, you could have a police violation.

So we are searching through our violation records, and it would not necessarily um so we we will look generally to the ownership when the applicant took ownership of that property in order to differentiate if the parcel was previously owned by a problem child uh and had a lot of code violations, but was sold, and the new operator now is seeking license or trying to turn the page.

Um so prior bad acts of a previous owner aren't going to count against an applicant.

We are gonna look at the applicant's ownership of that property, and it could be they were operating a long-term rental and they had a lot of violations associated with the property.

That does not make a difference to us.

You have 10 violations on the property because you left the trash out, you put large furniture out, you didn't mow your lawn.

That all is a that is viewed from our perspective as a pattern, and therefore that pattern must need to be further investigated by the commission and council.

Um then Don Don and Bell have a question.

So keep up their microphone.

Sorry.

For the history of violations, code violations.

Is there age factor?

In other words, same owner, same ownership.

Last code violation was five years ago.

Nothing since.

Is that taken into consideration, or is you know what?

We don't care how long ago it was, that stays on to the right.

Results, so what we are looking at also is active, open.

Uh presently, what we look at is open violations.

So those that have been closed, we will note the we will note the difference generally between open and closed violations, just to report the total history on that property.

It is open violations that would be far more damning under today's particular process that we utilize.

Um, we do not cover in great depth under the amendment, how we would handle closed violations versus open violations, and I think that that is probably an area that we would probably want to tighten in on a little bit from an administrative perspective.

Um you raise a very good question.

And so if somebody hasn't had a violation within a one year or two-year period of time since having ownership of the property, uh, we probably need to uh give amnesty to those early ones and then look more at a more uh relevant either 12 or 24 month period.

Well, and I may I I just want to remind everybody that these criteria don't mean you get denied, they just mean that you get looked at, and we chose to make the the violations.

I I don't read it as being only open, you know.

I I think it's anything and everything for as long as you've owned the property, and the reason for that is that's when we want to hear from the neighbors, that's when we want them to come before us so we can get that feedback.

We generally, as a commission didn't feel the need for that when you're a good neighbor and you've never caused any problems or any of that.

But even if it was five, 10 years ago, if you've got a history of not being a good neighbor, we want to hear from your neighbors before we give you permission to operate.

That's that's all it is.

It's not a close off, it's a these are the cases that we want to see.

If that makes sense.

Okay, now I did want to speak a bit towards both the density of the 300 foot spaces and how that applies to administrative approvals.

Well, I'm not, but you gave me the opportunity to speak, so I'm gonna speak.

Uh I was just gonna point out there's there's a third factor in the conditional use, it has to do with schools.

That's something we've talked with legal, and there's a little concern about um some of the implications with that or the application of that.

So we're not gonna discuss it tonight, and we'll have some more information, I think if it gets back to council.

So just to clarify that.

So as far as the administrative approvals, um, did you want to feel that?

So I think you're asking if there's administrative approvals right now, currently, how that would factor into this new conditional use standard or factor.

No, I'm going to make a comment about administrative approvals and density, and why that didn't apply with the previous ordinance, and my concerns about it applying now.

Um in previous research and then looking at what other cities have done, um having a principal resident was a major factor in how other cities framed their ordinances when they are dealing with available housing.

And we kind of have two things that we are considering in this ordinance.

One is, are you a good neighbor?

Are you causing nuisances?

And the other one is is this putting an unnecessary strain on housing availability?

So if there is a principal resident, it's an administrative approval, and if there's a principal resident, it's not necessarily putting in its strain on available housing because there's a principal resident there, it wouldn't have been available for a long-term rental or for sale, and also by being able to participate in short-term rental market, it you're lowering the cost of home ownership.

So that type of participation in the short-term rental market is viewed as pro affordability, and also not depleting availability.

Now, the reason why we have 300-foot um spacing was to prevent over density in certain regions that may deplete locally available housing.

And so when this was considered whether or not it should apply to administrative approvals, the thought process was that we don't have a concern for the administratively approved ones in having that local depletion of housing, but we do for the ones that were not administratively approved.

And my overall concern here is that A, we're not seeing enough of the tier ones or even the primary resident tier twos because we've made the burden of participation too high for the people who would benefit from participating in that marketplace.

And B, my big concern is that if we move in this direction, we're now applying more factors to that group than we previously did.

And the spacing is one of those things.

No, you spoke too soon.

You didn't reset.

That's kind of question.

Good.

Yeah, quick question in talking about this, and we go back to Mr.

Zerf's point about the vendor that's coming on board that will help us identify it where everybody is.

How long is the license valid?

So they might where I'm going with this is we have one that was administratively approved.

You didn't look at the spacing.

Now we have a C UP where you did, and going forward, they're all going to be spacing is going to be a criteria.

So if we have two existing ones that we didn't acknowledge that to begin with, when they come up for license renewal, is that now suddenly going to become an issue?

It's very and maybe we don't have any like that.

I don't know.

Oh no, we do.

Um, and so uh this is a very good question, Mr.

Waterman.

Um so I mean we do have administrative um approved short-term rentals that are, and I'd have to we'd have to go and dig deeper into the actual data.

Um there will be referring to the two, like the two that are so off of McBain, if we look at if we look at McBain, for example, both of which were conditional uses, uh, because they are not owner occupied, they will both come up for renewal.

So let me get to the first question.

A license is valid for five years before it is required to be renewed.

If it follows the almost identical process to renewal for long-term rental, um rental license, so the rental license process, um, and it would be generally it would be renewed.

Um provided there's no violations, there's nothing else.

They do not transfer with sale of property, and so that is a very, very specific provision in the ordinance because if it ceases, uh it is it it has to be reapplied for in instances where we use McBain where we're one, we're 70 feet apart.

Um, if one of those properties were to sell, that short-term rental would cease to exist without reapproval.

And so um the problem extinguishes itself at that point or the make recognition, and they have to come in for the conditional use at that juncture, and we'd have to re-evaluate the uh the needs in the neighborhood uh sediment associated with it.

As far as for those that we do have that are um that are administrative, again, I'd have to look at the data in much greater depth to find out administrative approvals in comparison to our CUP approvals.

Um we have not gotten to the point administratively yet as to how we will approach those that were administratively approved at 120 nights.

Obviously, if that tier is eliminated, uh I believe the uh the belief that we would have to discuss at greater depth is is that license potentially will convert uh to the current regulation, which means those 120 nights would become 210.

Um, and they would be what we would classify as non-conforming.

So if the if the license were to cease to be operated prior to renewal, either by a sale or the operator just decides that they want to withdraw from the short-term rental market.

Again, it's just not a provision that is included within the existing regulations.

If they were to extinguish their short-term rental usage, um that may be a sign then at that point that that permit needs to be uh cancelled, uh extinguished in our system as well.

Um, but if they just decide that they don't want to operate a short-term rental for let's just say a year, and they still have three years left on their permit, and then they go and they reactivate and they're paying their accommodation taxes.

That's still what we would consider a legal non-conforming short-term rental.

It met the standards at the time that they were licensed.

And as with many of our non-conforming uses within the city, if you do not expand it, we allow those non-conforming uses to exist.

And so uh what I would tell you without having the actual data, we probably have very few 120 nights within 300 feet of each other or within even 300 feet of another CUP approved.

And so we moving forward in this ordinance, we are correcting, we would be creating an opportunity to correct a concentration issue that potentially could become a problem.

Um, but I I think as some would say is if it's owner-occupied and run as it is today, it's not an issue.

But again, part of the principal change in the ordinance that is before that would be coming before council is is the differentiation between the occupant and the operator, there is no differentiation anymore.

The impact of a short-term rental is in our mind not necessarily different.

Uh, normally the impacts to a neighborhood may not be any different because the neighbor may be just as equally impacted by somebody that lives in the property but it's never there when it's offered as a short-term rental, because they don't have to be by our regulations as they would be by an investor that may own that property and never be there either and have a property manager.

Now, so that that that's part of what the rationale was as to why the extinguishment of the differentiation that's part from a staff perspective, that's part of why we we have suggested what we're suggesting.

Now, the commission may have had a different thing.

Kind of do a reaction first, and then Don, I see your hand up.

I I just want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding and maybe I misunderstood the question.

The 300 feet doesn't apply to 120 nights today, it does not.

It doesn't apply going forward.

Well, I think it does.

It would have to be a conditional use permit.

Right.

If you if you are asking for 120 nights or less, and you have four transient guests, you don't need parking.

And even if you have more than four, if you have the parking and you want 120 nights, the 300 feet doesn't apply to you.

Because it doesn't trigger the conditional.

Because it doesn't trigger the conditional use permit.

That's right.

I apologize.

So that's right.

Okay.

So my question was the scenario where long term nothing is extinguished either license.

Right.

They come up for renewal.

So those those 120 feet.

If they're 120, it's still they're going to be okay to be within 300 feet, 120 in a C UP.

As long as they don't ask you.

It's not going to be a matter of who get who applies to renew first.

As long as it they're not asking for more, right?

Am I missing something?

That would be correct.

And that that would mean then the statement I made that we would automatically convert any 129 to 210 would be an inaccurate statement.

Yes.

They would all stay where they're asked.

They would have to get a conditional use permit.

Yes, at that point we would work, we would require them to go back through the process.

My apologies.

Can you that would trigger the 300 feet?

Can you speak to that?

Why that choice was not um thought to be applicable to that tier one to the 120 ninths, the requirement over 300 feet in code violations to not be considered for the 120 nights when looking to make these administrative because again, then tier one at the way that this is written would be an administrative process.

Why wouldn't why why aren't we concerned over the code violations for just 120 days?

I think the the so when we get to the A, what we see with most of our 100, all of our 129 ones that we have today are all owner occupied, and they have basically owner-occupied or tenant occupied.

That right now is the lowest bar of the lowest bar of um compliance with the highest number of nights before you step into the conditional use.

So most people will, as Mr.

Smith pointed out, they will weigh seeking a conditional use permit as a primary resident versus I can live with 120 nights.

And yes, I have enough parking to get my maximum number of guests that I want.

So you have a primary resident.

So the reason why we would not apply the conditional use to um other licensed ones at the 120 level, uh, or look at the violations is because the it's the likelihood of a non-resident seeking a 120 night licensure is probably higher than an investor wanting to say, well, I'm only gonna use the property for a third of the year when I have it as an investment property.

They're gonna want the maximum number, and what we will what I at least anecdotally have seen through the applications and hear from a lot of folks is yeah, I'm gonna ask for it all.

I want I want as much as I can get in order to be able to maximize my return on my investment.

There most investors, I don't think I have had an investor-owned property that has ever agreed to only go through the conditional use process and self-restrict to 120 nights.

They want the 210.

Yeah, Pierre.

So I I understand the idea that the investor-owned properties might not go for 120 nights, but then it it sounds like there is also an implication there that in the principal residents are are we just not seeing code violations if it is a principal residence?

Is that not something we're concerned about in the 120 nights?

Well, I I think the we're just addressing, I think the proposed amendments.

I think we're not changing that from what we have now, and so we can we can I think certainly have the conversation, but right now at 120 nights and less, there there is no evaluation of code violations, there's no uh evaluation of um the 300 foot rule, right?

And so we're really trying to keep I think that structure enrolling the one and two into the new tier one, right?

So I don't think there's anything um specific about it other than that that is consistent with what we're doing now with that time frame.

That's correct.

But yeah, Sand, but I think I think without changing the whole principal residence to then others, um if if if we're looking for, you know, you to have a checkbox, right?

We want to make this easy for staff, right?

For administrative process, so it seems to me there's no harm in adding that to the 120 day.

I and I don't know, Sharon, if if it was discussed at the commission, because what you're trying to do is is to you say, you know, you from who you hear on the issues.

I mean, I I think we are always looking for we're hearing issues with code violations.

We want to have mechanisms of which to have sticks to enforce, and so parts of that, yeah, prosecution with other, but the other is there's potential you can't have your short-term rental license because you want to be a good neighbor.

I think some of those examples where they only rent for a third of the year, I think of the ones who only live here for part of the year, right?

Or their grandparents who have the property, you know what I mean?

So yes, they might only have done the 120 nights because this is their only property here.

Um, but I just I just I think to make it easier, it seems to me it would be easy for you all to have that checkbox that there's no violation and um the density question.

I I think the I think the other side of that coin is that now we would um whereas before if you were doing it less than 120 nights, you didn't have to worry about a conditional use process, but now that opens up the door to anyone really for whatever nights having to go through conditional use.

And so if you're an owner who maybe had uh a tenant that left uh garbage can out too long, that that's enough to probably trigger you through that process.

Could be right.

And so I think I think we deferred a little bit to those who were using it not to the maximum amount possible, um, with the recognition that uh you know there would be as significant of an impact on that neighborhood if they did have some code violations.

That doesn't mean it's not important, doesn't mean we want good operators, but we did have to, I think we drew a line there and said, okay, if you're less than 120, that's not quite the primary concern.

And honestly, it wasn't a concern either, the code violations uh prior to the amendment.

So that's what we're adding now to make it a little more direct.

And so could we add that?

Absolutely, but I think that's that's kind of the other side of it.

Just to know, right?

Is it an and if it's not an issue?

I don't know, but I think that's uh if it if it's we're trying to go with this administrative rule path.

I think being very clear on what our expectations for operators are um seems to be something that we would want to see.

I guess my hand up.

Um yeah, you know, I had my hand up a while ago, and now so many things have come back that I have a whole new batch of questions, and I've lost track of the ones that came up when I put my hand up.

Um I want to say we weren't originally, to my knowledge, flagging and evaluating um violations for the principal residents.

They likely didn't have a rental certificate because they were a principal residence.

Um, although they could have if they have a long-term tenant.

Um, I you know, I think that's reasonable.

There's fewer um, I guess, junctures for those code violations to get flagged, um, is one of the things.

Um, you know, I I feel like there's a core ethos here that was mentioned by Mr.

Zenner while back, and that's that uh the idea that um whether it's a principal, whether it's an investment or a non-investment type, which I call a principal residence, they're all still investments that it would have the same impact to the neighbors either way.

Um, and I think what people are recognizing and the way a lot of cities have modeled their codes is that it's not the same impact, there's different types of impacts and investment properties tend to have more impacts to housing availability than um and that's why there's a difference.

So um, you know, when we're talking about again the code violations um and lumping them together, I I'm finding more ways that we are making this harder for the ones that are less investor.

Um, and already we're seeing mostly investment types because we're seeing mostly CUPs.

So um I I'm concerned that we're seeing mostly CUPs, and I'm concerned that people aren't pursuing it.

So just to be clear, we're at 39 administrative approval licenses and 39 CUP licenses.

Right, but we when we were talking about that just a minute ago, we said that those 37 that with the other one or the other two.

Right.

We were drawing the line elsewhere.

I'm asking why are we not?

I think that I'm speaking more along the lines of what you just said.

I I think that what I'm what I am looking at when we're talking about the 120 versus 210.

Having now set through 75 plus of these hearings, I can tell you that people come before us and they say, I only rented it for 90 nights the last three years.

I'm asking for 210.

And I think that there is that natural tendency of if you are using it in the way that you know uh Fisher Stanton always says is the green book original model, right?

It's my house, I have an extra room, I want to rent it out.

Those folks are gonna go for the 120 because they want it easy, they're not looking for you know, any kind of real profit necessarily.

They're looking for a little bit of a reduction to their cost, they are fine with the less than four guests and no parking, all of that.

Those folks are looking for the easiest path.

120 is still the easiest path.

You don't have the extra evaluations.

You come in and say, I want 120 nights, here's my parking, here's my bedrooms, whatever, and you're done.

If you ask for the 210, that's when all the other questions get asked.

And the impact difference between 120 nights and 210 nights to me is vast.

That's where we were at all along though.

Is the impact?

The 120 and 210 being the break.

Right, which is which is where it will still be.

But now we're applying spacing and review parameters to that that we didn't use to only on the 210.

Okay.

Can I just share what you say impact?

Impact in what regard?

Impact in both housing and in uh neighborhood disruption.

But not necessarily in the process itself.

In the process itself, I think that there is you know, that that's not under our purview of chapter 29 and I uh of the ordinances.

I think that the process itself, the way we envision it with 210, the planning and zoning staff is going to have to do a lot more evaluation to determine whether you have to come in for a CUP than they will for 120.

What happens in licensure and taxation, I can't speak to.

Well, you know, the the point that's an that's an important word impact.

And I think that one of the things that a lot of people are concerned about is how these changes will change the impact of STRs in their neighborhoods, uh, places next door to them and so forth.

And so if as we're over and over again talking about these things, it's running through my mind.

How do we best communicate the impact of this on the people who are most concerned about it?

And the people who are most concerned about it are the people who live next door and nearby to the SDRs that are being approved.

So to me, that's a significant issue here is what impact is it actually have in that regard.

Yeah, and that's that's what I mean when I say neighborhood disruption.

Yeah.

Um and you know, when we talk about how how do we explain this to people, I know we are talking about eliminating tier one, but I really see what we're doing as expanding our original tier one, 30 night supposedly easier path to include it in the 120 nights that we already have.

I I think it's more we're allowing those folks who it's their home, they just want to use it occasionally, they can now go all the way up to 120 nights with a couple of fewer rec uh requirements than for someone who is really using it as purely a money-making proposition.

But are we eliminating are we eliminating the principal residents from that equation?

We're eliminating the evaluation of whether or not it is your principal resident residence in that accommodation in that evaluation, however, I really do think that with the 129 cap, those are still likely to be long-term housing who are asking for that because you I cannot imagine given all of the people that we've seen, and I know we're talking about self-selection, but between the people that we've seen coming before us and the people who are still not coming before us, the ones who are gonna ask for a lower number than they could possibly are the ones who we don't need to worry about.

They're not they're the ones who already live here, they're the ones who are already using it as something else uh for you know their home for half of the year or whatever it is.

120 nights self-selects for people who are not going to have a large neighborhood impact, in my opinion, and experience.

Well, we had to just so you're I want to be sure I understand you then to do it that way in the expansion of the of the tier one won't have a noticeable impact in regards to its experience in the neighborhoods of which they occur.

That's because it's essentially still a principal resident, if not a principal owner in that in that space.

Yes, that is that is my belief.

And that's and that's how we discussed it when we were discussing it around the commission table.

Can I can I ask really quick on that one?

Um, and and this might be more for Pat.

Pat, you you mentioned a few minutes ago that the majority of people coming to you, you know, when asked about the process for going through this, they were almost encouraged to go to the 210 because they were gonna have to do a conditional use permit for so many of the other things, or you because they were in residential zoning and it was more than 30 days and it was not their principal, you know what I mean.

I am just trying to I I I don't want to use the word encouraged, right?

They were told they had to, because that's how the ordinance is structured.

You're not the principal resident, or if you were, you were not self-selecting to do 120 nights.

And so the only route that we had available on that amendment as it related to principal resident, if you all recall those that were here when we adopted this, that was made from the dais on the night that the ordinance was adopted because we had realized because we had realized that we were giving preference to investors over primary residents by allowing an investor to automatically drop into a 210 night area.

And so again, I think by it's just again what I have identified and what I have noticed through the conversations I have with our applicants is everybody, regardless if you are a primary occupant of a home or if you are an investor, you are looking for the greatest level of return and usage as you possibly can get.

The reason we take so much time to explain to a primary resident the advantages and the disadvantages to going one route or the other is to ensure that they're not expending resources of their own or time of our planning commission and time of theirs to go through a process that they may not necessarily need to go through.

So the encouragement is more are you sure you really want to go through the conditional use?

How about you just take the 129?

Can you really truly live with that and not have to go through all of the additional evaluation of the planning commission, the staff, the fees for processing that application and then involvement in a community setting?

And most people that we do talk with that are reasonable and they realize they only have used their home for 90 days of the prior year and don't want really to use it much more than that, are like, hmm, that makes a lot of sense.

I'm just gonna go through that.

So I I mean, we when we have to explain to the individual that you have no route other than the conditional use, um, because they want more nights or they're an investor, they are, you know, they they they understand why the ordinance is set up that way, they just are very adamant about how complicated it is to get to their end objective.

Yeah, beer.

So you said that the uh one hundred the people who are self-selected into 12 nights are typically the people that we do not need to worry about, they're more of our like model STR people.

Um, so I'm wondering on a couple slides ago, the chart showing us um applications that were approved and that approved on those 12 nights under tier two as it currently stands.

Do we know where that difference is between the 46 applications versus the 37 that got licensed?

Did we see nine people not make it through the process at that 129 level?

Did they choose to withdraw?

Uh I I could say I I looked at the information.

I mean, the the reasons could could be varied.

We don't necessarily reach out to individuals who stop in the middle of the process.

So I really can't give you an answer of why did those nine people not go through to the completion of that license.

So it's but it wasn't that we stepped in in any capacity and said, you know, this isn't.

No, they have to get uh rental compliance certificate, they have to get a business license, and there's there's reviews during those steps.

So either something came up during that time, they changed their mind, uh, or they're just waiting uh for the opportunity to move forward.

So there's a lot of reasons again.

Um, and it'd be it'd be difficult to kind of summarize what all those would be.

That was that was the information I was looking for to now.

You had your hand up.

Yeah, I want to form this as a question, but you lost me here big time.

Um, this whole conversation before that one about the 210 nights and that now being the only route for compliance for those that are not a primary resident, and therefore everybody being ushered into there, not convinced, but that's their only route.

So we have to allow more nights.

Um this doesn't make sense to me because it's a non-resident, and that doesn't make sense in light of everything that Sharon just said about if they're a resident, they're probably asking for less nights.

We don't have non-residents that would want less nights, and we don't want less nights for those that are non-residents, because that ensures that we have an empty property because there's not a primary resident there.

So there shouldn't, I I don't feel that we should have a desire to have fewer nights for the non-residents.

Um I guess I see the impact.

The impact of having an empty property is pretty high, too.

I that people being ushered into 210 because it's the only option available to them, doesn't make sense to me because we're that's not a pathway.

I mean no one's selecting that.

No one's selecting that.

Your comment then is focused on the the 129 tier, right?

And the 210 nights.

So I think the comment was made along the lines of from our old ordinance.

That's I guess from our current ordinance.

Now the only option for them is to seek two 10 nights, and that should somehow be less preferred or more impact since there is no lighter use for them or less number of nights were automatically pushing them into two 10 nights.

Um I don't see anyone.

I mean, I think I less than two 10 nights, and I don't think I don't think that's less of an impact.

I don't think we want a property that's vacant 90 more days.

Um, the goal of the nights is to encourage more long-term tenancy not to incur it it's to encourage a particular usage style, not to encourage the number of nights.

It's it's not less impact.

And they weren't seeking that route.

We're not ushering them in a direction.

So it's or we're not lacking a direction that they could otherwise take.

I guess is we were never ushering, but we are not lacking a direction that they could otherwise take.

So under the current ordinance, a principal resident has the option to administratively obtain a permit for 120 nights.

If they would like to seek a permit for 210, they have to go through the conditional use process.

So let me finish here.

And with our current ordinance, any non-primary resident only has the option of 210 nights.

What we are attempting to do with this ordinance is to unitize the total number of nights available to either category.

And if the owner resident of that property chooses to not use the full extent of their license, that is a self-selection.

And what we're trying to create by creating the 120 night as an administrative option with no additional parking, is still leaving basically an expanded tier one for that primary resident, but we are allowing the opportunity for that same primary resident, should they want more than 120 nights, should they have enough parking to be able to obtain up to 210 without having to go through a conditional use.

Now, if they trigger any of the conditional use criteria, they go through the conditional use just like they would today.

But we are trying to simplify from 100 and from 30, 120 to 10 and 365 to 120, 210, and 365.

We are trying to simplify what the layering is to the ordinance, but by not forgetting that we want to create a lesser uh difficult tier to achieve for a primary resident, which is the 120 with no extra parking, and then basically allowing the conditional use process to continue to exist for those that want 210 nights that may have other factors.

That's that's that's in an essence a nutshell of what we're what the ordinance does.

So I do have a question, and then I'll I'll step in for Barbara while she's gone.

Uh and Clint, this whoever under factors, tier one, 210 nights.

What's the differentiation in terms of factors between tier one with 120 and tier one with 210?

It's just the parking.

It's just the parking lot.

It's just the parking.

So if you own a house and say I I've got parking for two spaces, and I'm happy with that, uh, you can self-limit to just four guests and get that uh at 100 129, right?

But if you want to go above that, then can you go to 210 night, you're gonna have to provide the the minimum park.

So there is a there is an additional factor then that's just not listed there.

And that's it's a removal of that factor, right?

So 210, you just provide the the required parking.

So it's not really a factor other than it's an evaluation that we do to make sure you're even offering the things that you're required to.

Okay.

Any other questions at this point?

Yeah, I have a question.

Um, one of the things that we saw as a as a common thread in some of the public comments that we received with this report, but that I'm not seeing up here is uh STRs in relation to proximity to a school.

Uh so can you talk about how that plays in and what the thought process is there?

Yeah, and I touched on this a little bit earlier.

Uh it's something that I think our legal team is going to be looking at whether we can actually put a restriction on the distance from a school.

So again, I don't want to I don't get a lot of details there.

I think uh my predecessor, Mr.

Teddy had mentioned possibly looking at a distance from schools uh due to you know a desire to kind of make sure that housing is protected since it's close to a school.

Uh I think so.

There's some other kind of components to that restriction as well.

Uh, but again, I don't know if that's something we're gonna bring forward, so I'd hesitate to spend a lot of time on it tonight.

Well, that's indicative, isn't it, that we're still in process here.

And I assume at the end, I'm I'm looking at we're at 6:30 now, so we could go till 7 30, I'm sure that would upset a lot of people.

Um, and I want us to be careful about what we're looking at in terms of process following this meeting, but I'm gonna guess step in pretty hard here.

Clint, I don't know what else you've got to present tonight, and I want to make sure I think we'd all want to make sure we've got room to talk about those things before we get to the place where we're gonna talk about next steps.

Uh I think that this is really the the kind of the meat and potatoes.

There's some some kind of specific changes we're doing that, but they all revolve around really making this structure work.

Okay, so any any questions then, Valor.

Thanks.

I'm gonna ask one more question about something we haven't gotten to yet that came up in public comments.

Um, and that was notification.

Um, the new proposed amended um ordinance.

How would neighbors be notified for a property that was under um administrative approval?

So this is a question that has come up multiple times as we began this process.

Um, and we have not implemented it at this point, but what we are uh giving great consideration to is is upon licensure or upon approval uh by council or administrative uh notification uh to the regular notification radius, 185 feet from the subject site would be sent out, identifying the property to which a conditional use approval has been granted, or in the instance of an administrative approval has been granted, and that that property is subject to an additional set of regulatory requirements.

Um, and they will have contact information by which to contact the city, contact the STR uh complaint hotline, potentially as it relates to violations.

Um right now we are not doing that, but it would be a notification very similar to what we do when we send out notification for just the regular conditional use process for the public hearing.

Um it is something that we have talked about that unfortunately adjoining property owners that may, if it's an administrative approval, they're not going to realize that a license may have been submitted, and they don't realize that that party of 20 people next door is actually not permitted because of the status that that dwelling unit is now under.

And therefore, they just think, oh, well, the neighbors are throwing another wild party.

I guess I got to get accustomed to it.

No, that's not the case.

The effectiveness of the ordinance is to inform those that are impacted by our actions, and we believe that this is the appropriate way to do so.

I will tell you that we have gotten feedback back from our operators that they really are caring for that.

Unfortunately, that's not the way that this ordinance works.

This ordinance is driven by the fact that if you see something, you need to say something, and you need to know you can say something because it is under a status that's different from what it was as a ritual residential loan.

Okay.

And to be clear that I mean that's not in the ordinance, the notification, that's something we discuss as an administrative step.

And we recognize that there's inherently uh some things about short-term rails that people won't understand, like Pat had mentioned, but we also recognize there's some sensitivity also to notify.

So that's something we'll we'll I think contemplate as we go forward.

Vier, you had your hand up.

Yeah, I I appreciate your response.

I think you brought up one of the main concerns that I have, which is a lot of people either don't know what the violations are that they can report, or even if they know the violation is occurring, one of the most common things that we hear during public hearings during public comment about STRs is I've had these complaints building for years and I haven't known who to report it to.

Yeah, or even I've tried to report it and it's it's felt like it's been blocked, and that report never actually makes it to the place where it's trying to go.

And I know we have this new system in place, and also knowing that that system will not be perfected and 100% used by the time that this is in place if ever we live in that perfect world.

Um, one of my concerns would be that the notification doesn't happen until after the administrative approval has gone through, because so often we hear, well, there have been violations, they just haven't been recorded, and they might be they would be the violations that would cause that tier one two ten to go into a CUP.

And so I wonder if there is a way that we can think about the notification process happening sooner, so there would be the opportunity for those red flags to cause the CUP process to go into place.

Because I don't even know what that would look like after the admin approval has already been in place.

You're asking if notification go out ahead of time to allow people to submit suspected violations prior to the issuance, so then that could be used to trigger the conditional use process.

Not necessarily an invitation for like here every grievance in the world, but a notification that this is being considered, and here is how to notify if you haven't previously known.

I feel like a lot of what our notification process does now is inform neighbors that there has been a way for them to notify, and they haven't known that that existed.

So I I so I think what we I think we have given consideration to how that particular process would play out.

Um the ordinance right now, uh, chapter or chapter 22, Article 6, which is our rental conservation law, already has and uh the provisions within it that um a licensed short-term rental has only the ability to have two verified violations within a 12-month period before the license is revoked.

And so the fact of the matter is is I think from the perspective of giving notice of a pending application being or a pending property being licensed, will only result in probably the effort of trying to get people to come in to license because of a more simplified process to then recoil again back into their turtle shell because they don't want to have to be basically beat down before they even get an opportunity to operate.

Um it is unfortunate that our citizens do not know the means by which to reach out to city government to uh make calls for complaints.

Uh, given the fact that we did not have regulations until 2024, there really was not a way of being able to address this.

And so, as we have moved forward in the regulatory cycle, um we have relied on the fact that our our neighbors that are negatively impacted by a license facility, regardless if it goes through an administrative approval or through this council process, now has the ability to call, and we have that registered property now under a set of rules.

And I think what we would like to see is that enforcement procedure applied across all licensed properties.

We have our nuisance reporting process, and what Ms.

Cottwitz and I and neighborhood services are basically dealing with is we are in taking calls today, and as they come in, we are basically registering them into our code violation system.

And so we are following up on calls that we were getting for unlicensed or licensed uh facilities.

And so I think just by giving notification, even if it is post, if a neighbor is that agreed because they have watched for years violations, that neighbor may be more inclined now that they know how to report to report, forcing action to be taken on behalf of the city because it is licensed.

That is unfortunately not maybe getting to one of the principal concerns that I think I have also heard that people want to be able to participate before a license is issued.

But given the fact that we didn't have regulations prior to February of 24, what has happened in the past was very difficult to enforce, if not track.

Now that we have regulations and we get them licensed, we have the ability to enforce upon the regulations we have, and if they have two verified violations in 12 months, their license is revoked, and we have addressed that concern of that neighbor that may have had to have been living with it for years.

That is that is the way that I think there's a benefit to notifying post versus notifying pre um when you are looking at an administrative approval.

Clint, were you gonna say something before I go to Valerie?

I'm just gonna say I think there's some there's some conversation to be had around the notice, and we're gonna have that conversation.

I think once we work with our vendor to find out what they can do too, then when we come back to council, we'll have a little bit probably better recommendation on that.

Can you tell us really quick the status of that?

Yeah, and I was gonna bring it up here at the end if we had time.

So essentially, uh, I think we're uh we're going to vendor right now.

We've got our uh training scheduled for staff.

We're probably a little bit behind schedule where we'd like to be, just given I think some circumstances, but uh, I think in the coming month or so we're gonna get trained, we're gonna have the conversation that need to happen as far as uh what those next steps look like as far as rolling this out.

So we're we're getting, I think, close to that stage, but we still we still have a little bit more to do.

Yeah, yeah, no.

Yeah, towards the notification, and I'm looking forward to what the vendor says and how you come up with working with that.

Um, I want to say that on the comment end as they come to council, I think what we're hearing um is not that our citizens don't know how to complain, it's that they didn't know where to and how to get it registered previously.

Um, so it was common for them to call the police for a noise disturbance, and that would not get registered because they would follow up and the people would be gone by then because it's a short-term rental and nobody knew it was a short-term rental.

Um, and I think we all know this.

Um, I think the notification as to this is a short-term rental, and here is the new hotline number that you called to report this and have it registered is the piece that we really need to have in process.

And and I do, you know, what Vir is saying, I take that to heart because those complaints prior to people knowing what the heck is going on with this property, uh, weren't getting registered.

And so, you know, if we are now looking for a history of violations, and they don't have a way to register those complaints, and maybe we need to let them know, hey, this review is coming, and this is the hotline tool for short-term rental related complaints.

And granted, that's maybe only a month of time that they have to respond.

I don't know what that is, but um, it's it's a way to get those properly recorded.

Um, and towards the um discussion around two violations and getting your license revoked.

I'm wondering, um, you know, to me, having worked on um the zoning code um part of this, but not the license or enforcement at all.

Um, I'm wondering if you could walk us through um what that enforcement looks like, what the process is between two violations, or even between noticing an unregistered um str and prosecution.

I assume that there's like some engagement with staff to say, like, hey, did you know we have this ordinance or oh, you're in violation on this?

How do we engage with them?

What departments do that go through?

Do we have tickets?

Do we have violations?

How does that escalate?

Can I recommend?

Can I recommend on this?

Because now we are getting closer to our seven o'clock regular meeting that we look to schedule a second work session to continue part of this conversation, maybe with the additional data, and then also the next steps, like what happens once this approval process, what would that look like then?

I think that would be a good use of our time rather than trying to quickly get everything done.

Yeah, we also give you directions.

We invite might invite our our uh uh Office of the neighborhood service neighbor service join us for those conversations too, and that way they're a little prepared for that conversation.

And they can also talk to how um what we currently do to educate people on the how, the where, the where, the what to um register complaints and and what are the things that they're looking at, I think would be part of that conversation.

Thanks.

Yeah.

When is this planned to come back?

So we wouldn't come to schedule for it to come to regular no, because we haven't given them any direction this evening.

Okay.

Well, uh you're not putting this on the next slide.

I'm a little new at this, but it has gone through planning zoning.

So I think this was an opportunity for us to explain it in a in a more informal setting.

But my my intent would have been to put it on a council agenda.

But I think the feedback we're getting here is we need to come back and have more discussion.

So that will be the next step.

And I think that's gonna happen.

I think after we've got more of our onboarding done, and we can answer some of those questions.

Uh, and so maybe here in in two months or so, we we could sort of go back, depending on the agenda for more sessions already, maybe longer than that.

We'll have to see what that is.

But um because by then we'll also have more data will be a full year from like not just it's 24 June of 24, but also June of 25 is when we officially started looking at that.

So I think you'll have more data for that.

Hopefully, yeah, you'll have your vendor at least closer to this piece and we'll know more about the the concerns that we're hearing from neighbors so that we can answer that and you have a clear process.

Yes, Dick.

I hate to ask you this, Sharon, but is planning and zoning done with this?

Or I one of the things I was struck by, I mean, I'd heard this already within reading three minutes, you all were very late at night when you when you took a vote on this, you had several members that were new.

And uh, so I'm wondering it's it's gotten past that point now.

Is there any desire?

Probably not much, but any desire of part of planning and zoning to look at this again in light of the fact that they've lived with their decision for a little while.

Uh I I would just say, you know, if that was council's direction, I think uh a voted the whole council to authorize it to go back to B and Z would be an appropriate step.

Um I don't know.

But Sharon on the spot for that, but I can let her speak to the helpful.

I'm just wondering where they are in terms of what they did.

I can tell you while I don't speak for the entire commission, I would feel comfortable moving forward with these amendments and continuing as we do with the entire UBC with dealing with things as they come up.

The the questioning, or when we first got the first few uh applications through, they would take half hour or more.

We're now to a point where I don't think there are any questions unless there's just something glaringly obvious in that application, you know.

Um so I think from that perspective, I think we feel pretty comfortable with where things are at with our short-term rental criteria.

I think these amendments reinforce that criteria.

I don't know if that answers your question.

But yes, I don't know.

Exactly, but I get a little bit.

Yeah, so I, you know, and appreciate the time and energy and years uh that staff and planning zone have put into this.

I don't think we're at the time where we're referring it back to them just yet, because I feel like council, this is now to a council level.

We just have some additional clarifying questions and some process that we need to we need to go through before we then make any recommendations for updates.

I'm just gonna I think piggyback on top of what she said.

I think she kind of hit the the nail on the head on on why we need to look at the conditional use standards because so many are coming through with no questions, and so many are coming through on consent, and we need to have a process that recognizes that and and moves them along.

So without having to go through that three-month process that takes several hundred dollars uh and time to do that as well.

Yeah, and I think that was why we originally did ask for you to come back to us with those improvements, but we're also conscious over the fact that I'll be interested to see in a couple of months.

Are you still seeing not as many questions, or is this ones that have more violations?

But then again, they'd go through the conditional use permit anyway because of that requirement.

Jackie, you had your hand up.

But I've been taking it all in.

The questions I have or more, since we're going to have another work session, um more kind of general data, because I'm worried.

Well, we we're working on affordable housing.

Want to make sure that we are protecting housing for residents.

Is there a way to either gather information or report on what percentage of our housing stock is currently running as a short-term result?

Like what that percentage is.

I don't know if there's a way, and you you don't need to answer me tonight.

I'm just asking maybe.

How many are operating even if they're not licensed?

Correct.

Uh that's that's the information I think the vendor will help us with.

So we should, by the time we get back to our next uh work session, we should and I I just did I did a quick Airbnb and there's search and there's lots, like over 500.

Yeah, I think um and I had looked at the AirDN DNA site recently, and and we're you know, we've had 140 applications.

It says we're we're maybe in the neighborhood of 300 operating right now, so you know we're at 400 400 area.

Yeah, yeah, and the number is a larger area than City of Columbia proper.

That's correct.

So you do have to take that into account a little bit.

Um, do we know?

Do we we have any kind of density map as far as where um if there's an increased concentration of Airbnbs and specific wars, licensed right now?

I'll take another one.

Um we can we can get you some information for license.

And I was pulling together some information and have it quite ready for this, but I had a request I think for some zoning and some ward information.

So I'll share that with everybody here, probably this week.

I think that would be a good idea again because I'm concerned that some of our wards, especially like ward one during game weekends that people will come in and take away that affordable housing four and six.

Yeah, six.

So I think it's important that we keep track of the concentration of where these STRs are and make sure we're protecting housing for all of our quick.

How many quit lists do you have right now?

Because I might also recommend because I think there's other data requests that we might have, and I think you might also want us to send in data requests to you so you have it.

So I just I'm being conscious over everyone.

Okay.

One is if you can if you would be able to report on what revenue has been generated from SDR licensing and lodging fees and how that compares with the administrative costs.

So are we making the money back?

Are we covering stack time?

Um if we were able to figure out how many current STR licenses are unoccupied for owner-occupied versus versus investor occupation.

I believe that's it.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I'll encourage council if we have you know kind of specific request or data.

If and we we know it might not be possible for some of these things, we might not know it.

Um, but let's make sure to submit that to council inquiry um so that then the next work session, once we have an idea of when that will be, um, we can we can then you you will be prepared for that if it is possible to get that data.

Okay, yeah.

And I know we have some information on ownership data.

I don't know if we ask if they are investor or not.

I mean, we can infer based on if it's an LLC, but it may not be back to your slide.

I mean your whole your slide of that line is a good slide is the clear indication.

The 75 that are in the tier two CUP, um and then possibly tier three um are the ones that you will have some overlap, some bleed.

Um, I would tell you that the majority of the tier twos that we have taken through um are not primary resident, and that is why they have uh shown up, but they may be local residents of the city of Columbia that just have multiple properties, and so we can drill down through the data that we collect on the intake side to get that um to be able to provide a little bit of additional light on that.

Okay, and just and this I think goes without saying the numbers that we report as to the total number of short-term rentals and those that are actually licensed seasonally adjusts, and so right now, uh as Mr.

Smith pointed out, if looking at our DNA, we are looking at about 300, and and that is seasonally adjusted throughout our entire process of evaluating these regulations.

We have peaked out at just under 500 total, and so it does have been flow.

Uh, and if we're looking at all unlicensed against licensed ones, that may be a little bit more complicated.

But if we look at the 450 gross uh that we have seen at the highest level, that is roughly less than a half a percent of the total housing stock in the city of Columbia.

And so I I don't think that that number's changed greatly.

Right.

I think the question was like, but of what housing stock, right?

It went to your point, location, types of housing.

We should be able to pull that as well.

Appreciate that.

Yeah, all right.

Last burning questions before I adjourn us so that you have time to make waters with the rest of your yeah, so there are a lot of them, but can we get your slides?

Absolutely.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I'll go ahead.

I appreciate this.

Appreciate the time.

Um, both the commitment from commission and staff on this topic, as well as those who showed up to a meeting that went till 1 a.m.

Um sorry, Sherry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well in our world.

No, no, I'll go ahead and adjourn us.

Thank you.