Short-term rental discussion 4-16-24 - City Council and Planning Commission

[0:00:00] a.m. on this 16th of April 2024, we will officially call this special joint agenda meeting to order. And I will hand it over to Travis to call yours to order. Get this to work. Here we go. Good morning, everyone. Uh we do have a quorum. There's four of us. I think we're expecting two more, but we can proceed. Okay, let's go forward. Thank you. The joint meeting agenda, and I will start by reading items A and B, and then I'm going to turn it over to the city attorney for some comments and some direction as it relates to how this meeting will be conducted. Discussion and possible action on an ordinance amending chapter 12, planning and development, exhibit A, zoning ordinance, article 4, specific use standards, section 406, bed and breakfast establishments and short-term rentals, regarding approval, renewal, and revocation of a conditional uses authorizing bed and breakfast and short-term rental establishments, as well as revising distance limitations with respect to short-term rentals. One, for the planning commission to consider a recommendation of proposed ordinance amendments to section 406, and two, city council first reading and public hearing of an ordinance amending section 406. Section B, discussion and possible action on an ordinance amending chapter 12, planning and development, exhibit A, zoning ordinance, article 3, use regulation, section 313, use table regarding item A above revisions requiring that short-term rental establishments obtain a conditional use only in specified zoning districts. One, planning commission consideration of a recommendation of proposed ordinance amendments to section 313, and two, city council first reading and public hearing of an ordinance amending section 313. And again Aaron Van Noy will be presenting the information but first um

[0:02:03] Teresa, would you like to make any comments? Yes, ma'am. This is a kind of a unique meeting in that we have both boards here and both boards are going to take action. So, the process should be that Aaron's going to do one presentation. During that presentation both city council as well as the planning commission can ask any questions and ask for clarification as much as you want. But when it comes to the actual discussion, the planning commission should be discussing what their opinion's going to be without the input of council. They'll make a decision and then council will discuss without the input of the planning commission and make their decision. Just to be clear cuz typically these items go to the planning commission first. Once they make a decision on the item, it then comes to city council on agenda and then we discuss it. So, that's the same process even though we're doing it all in one meeting today that will be following. So, we, the council, will not be making comments as it relates to the initial portion of this meeting. We'll leave that in the hands of Travis Stribling and the planning commission and then we'll move into the city council and our questions etc. feel free to ask any questions of Aaron while he's presenting though, both boards. Perfect, thank you. All right, Aaron, you are on. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, City Council. Mr. Mayor Wheeler, thank you, Chair Stribling and planning commissioners. Uh my name is Aaron Van Noy, director of planning and development services and I wanted to just say welcome to the citizens that are here in the in the meeting as well as those that are listening. This is our joint meeting to discuss the short-term rental and bed and breakfast ordinance. And we want to just start out just very basic but we're going to get into the details very quickly. So, really we have three options before us today. Um option A is a no regulations, let's remove the ordinance. Option B, adopt a full ban via the ordinance. And we all know the pitfalls that could be there and I'll explain that a little bit further. And option C, adopt changes for a health for health and safety reasons for our community while promoting the growth of short-term rentals and bed and breakfast as a regulated community partnership. And I use those terms intently because they are a community partnership, but we

[0:04:05] do know that we want to regulate them in some manner. So, the risk of not having an ordinance. Um, we know we have citizens requests for an ordinance. Um, the risk is of not us not having one is that we're really not listening to our citizens at times. And so, we want to make sure that we're having an ordinance that listens to our citizens. What can be done? The short-term rental and bed and breakfast community have also said, "Regulate us fairly and evenly across the board." They don't want pick and choose type of regulations. They want something that's level for everybody in the playing field. Um, we do have nuisance regulations. We do have hot codes, but this zoning ordinance is a land use ordinance that protects the land use of the property. And so, it goes a little bit beyond just the nuisance and the hot tax. This is a land use item for our community. Um, if we didn't have an ordinance, we wouldn't be able to have some kind of buffer, particularly in our in our residential areas of single family, two family, three family, and a ranch in a state. Um, and also if we didn't have an ordinance, we wouldn't be able to buffer around schools. And I know that is a critical item for several of the members here. The risk of banning them completely, um, we could just stymie growth. Um, we we do have growth because of short-term rentals. We have seen that in some of the areas. We have seen some revitalization in some of the areas that someone has bought and has bought a property and renovated it and then the neighbors around start renovating some of their properties. And it makes a good impact in a neighborhood. Um, if we choose to ban them, it could shift stuff out to the ETJ, which is much more difficult to plan for in the future. How are we going to grow into that ETJ? Um, though that extra territorial jurisdiction. It has consequences for infrastructure and we all know the cost of infrastructure. That's one of our highest items for our community is infrastructure. And so regulating these,

[0:06:10] we need to be able to do that so that we're protecting our interest in the future. So again, some more risk of banning them. Uh, obviously short-term rentals and bed and breakfast are very critical to our local economy. I put rodeo. I think everybody has rodeo on the mind right now. Um, surprised that Tom Thompson's didn't say we all needed to wear cowboy hats today. Tired of it. Okay. He did say so and we rejected it. it. All right. But the rodeo is a key economic factor for our community and short-term rentals and bed and breakfast are part of that economic vitality that brings people to our community. Water. Water is an attraction in West Texas. Our community has water. We have a river. We have lakes. So we have things that are attracting people to our community. We have historic downtown. We have Fort Concho and other sites around town that that those draws people to our community. We have festivals, special events. Then we have the education and medical community that utilizes short-term rentals and bed and breakfast. And then another risk of banning them is that hotel occupancy tax goes away from those entities that are paying it. And all of our short-term rentals and bed and breakfast are required to pay that. And so I just want to make sure that's very, very clear. So communities in our in our state that don't have ordinances, I checked in with Tyler. They've not had an ordinance, but their community is saying, "We need an ordinance. We have to work on these. So, they are working on regulations. Houston has been that way and then they have started working on regulations as well. El Paso is also working on an ordinance. They've all tried to go without ordinances. And they're realizing there's too much conflict. We have to set fair rules for everyone in our community. Well, can I just make a comment on that? Yes, ma'am. Well, it tells you how complicated the issue is because for Houston and El Paso to be working on this ordinance since

[0:08:12] June of 2023 tells me that it is not a simple thing to regulate and there's lots of opinions about what to do. Otherwise, they wouldn't be 10 months later still trying to figure it out. But, I also think we should talk about the cities that have created ordinances and some of the complications that have happened or the lawsuits that have happened because of their attempt to regulate. Yes, ma'am. That's a great point. Um there are several communities in Texas that have been working on regulations or have established regulations. One of the the ones that comes to mind is the city of Austin. They have had a number of cases that have been challenged in court and have really proceeded in saying, "All right, cities, this is how you have to operate." They There's been a court case and of course Brandon and Teresa have a lot more information, but essentially, they said that short-term rental uses are residential uses. So, they're compatible with residential areas. Um they are one of the cities that actually kind of has a three-tier system of regulations from if you are the actual owner and live in the home, they don't have a lot of regulations. If you're kind of a uh I'm going to say corporation, but really if you own multiple homes and you don't you're not the principal that's not your principal home, you have to have a buffer distance. And then there's those that are just in that are big big properties that have lots of other rules of where you can be and how you can operate. All of those things and it seems like Austin, Dallas, Houston, those big cities always get challenged because there is enough constituents to challenge rules that are made and those get filtered down to the other cities and impact how we are able to regulate um in this case short-term rentals and bed and breakfasts. So, there there are some challenges out there to going to that full ban. City of Dallas has has tried that and they have an injunction against them saying no, you cannot implement that.

[0:10:14] You have to do something different. So, you can't go no regulations and you can't go completely get rid of them. We've got to find somewhere in the middle and I think that's where we have worked as a community to work with staff, to work with uh the constituents here as well as council and planning commission to find something that works for our community. What works for our community cuz that's what's important to us today. So, here's some stats as of the 12th um You can see that very top line. Now, when we do some research, we can find up to 200 at times of short-term rentals and and bed and breakfast offerings in the San Angelo and San Angelo area. Some of those might be close to the ETJ or somewhere like that, but that's a very significant number. So, as we kind of look through different weekends throughout the year, we average about 150 plus offerings for someone to stay in a short-term rental or bed and breakfast. That excludes hotels. These are bed and breakfast and short-term rentals. Currently, we have 21 active with a conditional use and a certificate of occupancy to operate as a short-term rental or bed and breakfast. Those are the people that are doing it right. Those are the people that have gone through the process correctly. Uh you can see that we have um a number of them in processing, which we're saying 28. Uh there was a an audit um late last year that came out that showed here's people that are paying state hot taxes, but they may not be paying local hot taxes. We looked into the each property address, did not find that they had a a current conditional use. They came through, they may have done the conditional use process, but they have not finalized with the certificate of occupancy. And why those numbers and that process is important, that's part of the ordinance that we want to modify so it's simpler for operators and property owners to get the process correct. Because that's one thing we hear from the it's a

[0:12:18] it's a very difficult process. If we want them to participate in hot taxes and doing it right, we should make a process that's easier and simpler and clear for them to do. So and we'll get to that. I think the other aspect of that is also from an ordinance perspective and from a code enforcement perspective, how do we stay on top of and ensure that they are paying the hot tax money cuz my greatest concern is our our having the ability to ensure hot tax money is being paid. Well, it's a partnership with us and the short-term rental and bed and breakfast property owners and operators. City staff should be checking that anytime they come up for renewal. We've updated our processes where city staff are notifying those groups, you're you're about to expire. You need to make sure that you provide this information. We partner with our finance department who helps um do recording of that information. Sometimes they'll give us alerts that hey, we haven't heard from property A in a while. They work sometimes with trying to get audits back from different groups to say, "All right, what's going on?" But it is a staff-led effort, and then we turn that over to our team in code enforcement if there needs to be follow-up. Sometimes our legal division department gets involved, particularly with the hot tax item, and they are are very strong in enforcement and going after properties that are not paying their hot taxes. If I look and say there's 150 plus on a day-in and day-out basis, and I add up all those other numbers, um they don't come to 150. Uh no, they don't. And that is the the biggest challenge we have is really finding where these properties are because when you get on one of the websites, they don't really give address per se. They may give a an area. We are working with another group uh the chamber that has some information that's

[0:14:20] working with us to drill down to where exactly those are. So that we can do proper enforcement to the right property owners, the right operators to get them into compliance. It is a large staff effort. Um it is very taxing for us to spend a lot of time on short-term rentals and bed breakfast. But, as you look there, each one of those represents different things from application fees, renewal fees, um hot taxes, being good participants in our community, and making sure that the neighborhoods are safe. And so those are all critical things that we should be looking at. So I I put this up here to say that we do, and as as uh Chairman Stribling says, we've got some work to do. Yep. We do. Que- question, Aaron. Um do y'all have a uh software package that tracks this uh nicely, smoothly for y'all, or is it pretty much an Excel spreadsheet somebody's built? Currently, it's an Excel spreadsheet, um and then we use our mapping um our GIS mapping to help locate for our community. So, it is not designed for short-term rental tracking by any means. And we are doing the very best we can and we are going to continue to to dedicate ourselves to making sure that our citizens know what's going on out there as well. So, making an assumption, could be erroneous, but making an assumption there there likely is or you may have run across software that is robust and vigorous and would would be of help in in in a in better tracking, thus better oversight. Is that an accurate There there are there are software packages out there that are that help the enforcement and and staff keep clear what's going on as well as our citizens of what's going on. That is out there. We have not brought that forward. That'd be a discussion maybe in the budget process if that's a consideration, but right now we're we're wanting to get the ordinance set so that we have some ground rules for everyone to play by.

[0:16:23] And I think it's appropriate to get the the ground work established. But I also believe if it's taken that kind of time from our planning staff, which we're short on staff, and the workload that goes on in the planning department, we have to find a way Yes. to do this because an Excel spreadsheet isn't going to work long-term. Maybe not even short-term. I'd say just from one perspective, mine, as you come to us in the budget process and you have identified something, at least present it to us and let us let us look at it. Okay. Just one thing to add to that, Tommy. One of the things the mayor brought up was of course the the lack of staff. We have been short-handed there. So, Uh, you will see as you bring on duties like this, that's more and more to try and accommodate putting in the system, making sure it's accurate. So, during that process, you may also see some things coming forward from the planning staff that's creative in trying to uh, put people in positions that can actually make sure that is input. So, that may be a sharing of a position between some of Charlie's inspection type needs that were lacking on and a combo of this, trying to make combined positions that is more efficient. So, you'll see that coming forward probably, too. Thank you. Continue. All right. So, here's where our goals when we started out. Um, and obviously it was to protect the health and safety of neighborhoods. Um, with citizens vision and particularly an emphasis for child safety around school properties. That's was one of the genesis of of us coming forward with some revisions. Uh, we certainly wanted to streamline the review process and renewal process. Uh, and we believe we've brought forward something that does that, but it also provides for continual growth in areas that uh, particular commercial multi-family as well as a regulated growth within our

[0:18:25] residential areas. So, why do we want to modify it? Um, we talked about these the last time. And it's really, to me, it's establishing a process that effectively effectively and fairly applies regulations and standards to this of this zoning ordinance and respects the rights of property owners and the interests of citizens. It is a combination of both. Everybody that owns property has certain rights and we want to not be so oppressive, but we also want to regulate so everybody is playing fairly. And so, that is always a challenge for planners to bring forward, but that's what we have before us today. So, we should talk about private property rights at this point and and Teresa, you can add to this, but the first thing that was always brought up was, but I that's a neighborhood. I bought into this neighborhood because it was the neighborhood I liked and I saw and I really enjoy it. Now my neighborhood's changed. And the question mark is who has the biggest right for property pri- property rights? And that continually will be a challenge because the neighborhood doesn't stay the same forever. Property rights belong to everyone. Not just the person who lives there full-time. Is that correct? Teresa? This is a whole class in law school, just just so you know. Um but basically what the courts are saying is that each individual who owns a property has the right to operate that property or do with that property as they see fit until it imposes basically on their neighbor in such a way that it needs to be regulated by the state. So there are competing property rights. There's property rights to the person who owns the building who is wanting to operate the STR. There's property rights to the neighbor and the purpose of these regulations always for zoning is to kind of stand in the middle and try to find some middle ground to help them both operate effectively while maintaining um those property rights.

[0:20:28] The courts clearly say that there is a right to lease your property. And which is why so much of the litigation is going against regulations on STRs. Um I don't know if anyone wants to add anything to that or not, but Yeah, I would just say I think part of what the courts have identified is the struggle for cities um to regulate STRs in a way and justify why those regulations are needed over and above other regulations like noi- noise ordinances, parking ordinances, things like that. And so if cities aren't able to justify uh specifically why STRs are different from your standard residential use then they've been leaning towards striking those down. And I think to add one more thing, there are also private property disputes that can occur over property rights. People often come to the city and want us to intervene in a situation that's really not ours to intervene in. It really is a dispute between neighbors that is litigated or handled outside of the purview of the city's responsibility or regulation. And those options are always available to property rights to citizens when they are disputing their own property rights. So for example, if I was transferred with my job to move to another city but didn't want to sell my house, I would have the ability to lease that house, my house, for whatever time period. And so that would be the same analysis for short-term rental regardless of whether it's for 2 days, 29 days, or 6 months. That's right. And Go ahead. And then if you were to long-term lease your house, there is no ordinance, but you could just do that without any oversight whatsoever. Correct. Oh, sorry. Yeah, the other thing I wanted to clarify, when Aaron started this discussion, there were three scenarios. So scenario one, no ordinance, would would be to show favor to short-term operators.

[0:22:30] Scenario two, to ban them, would show favor to the homeowners that are impacted in the neighborhoods by these short-term rentals. And option three, an ordinance, is essentially a compromise. It's a meet-in-the-middle between those two extreme viewpoints. Um and I think that's a big part of the reason why settled on an ordinance. Well said. So let's get into some of the regulations that we are doing. So um, as I think I've mentioned before in other meetings that we are removing the reference to required license and instead referring to the required conditional use in certain districts. So, that is a land use designation, a conditional use. That land use has conditions to be used a certain way. In residential districts of RS1, 2, 3, and Ranch and Estate, it will require a conditional use. They must apply and come before the Planning Commission to get approval. We're also, um, bringing forward that in those same four districts, there would be a 500-ft separation between properties, from property line to property line, the nearest measurement that that is done, as well as a 500-ft separation from public schools. In that area, it's also saying that neither of those distances are variable per the ordinance, which means they would not be eligible to go to the Zoning Board of Adjustment. And if the property was 495 distance to another property, they would not be eligible for a variance. That is basically a pattern of controlling density in a neighborhood in those RS1, RS2, RS3, and Ranch and Estate districts. The question then, of course, you say 500 separation, feet separation from public schools, but what about private schools? What about It should say all schools. So, I think we need to be very clear here. Yes. And and expand on that public schools, cuz you're going to talk about child

[0:24:33] care, you're going to talk about private schools, you're going to talk about church schools, you're going to, right? Just to be clear, the language of the ordinance as it's drafted just says elementary or secondary school. It doesn't have the word public in it. We removed that. public schools. So, that's our residential districts. And you see number three, our commercial districts, no conditional use is required. It would be a basically allowed by right, a land use right, in our general commercial, our general commercial, heavy commercial, our office warehouse, our office commercial, our heavy commercial, our light manufacturing, and heavy manufacturing. Need to add the CBD. We do need to make sure that that's in the CBD. Currently, the CBD is exempt from requiring a conditional use, but yes, that does include the central business district as well. Thank you for bringing that. That's a good point. Very good point. Thank you. So, here are some of the items that um one and two are things that we have modified. One was eliminate requirements that are no longer allowed through court cases that have come up and said, "Okay, you cannot limit the outdoor gatherings." If you can have a Christmas party at your house, you can't limit the gatherings at a short-term rental rental. Um that's the genesis of that, and must be on a road width of at least 30 ft width and pavement. Uh that was placed in there trying to regulate where some of them could go. It's been shown that that's not a good evidence of Well, if you're allowing houses to be on a road less than 30 ft, you should be allowed to have short-term rental and bed and breakfast on a road that's um less than 30 ft wide. We have clarif- added and clarified the process and requirements for appeals to city council, and shorten the appeal appeal period to 15 days instead of 30 days, and that is to expedite the process so that the two property owners or the two groups that are there, the bed and breakfast and short-term rental operator property

[0:26:34] owner, can have their case heard, as well as the citizens can have their case heard in front of city council instead of delaying that. We want them to make that decision quickly, and then we bring that forward to you guys to make decisions. And that's if there is an appeal from the the planning commission on a conditional use. And the last is we've actually beefed up our ordinance in this area where we provided a revocation of the conditional use process by Planning Commission at the annual renewal process. And I'll get to that in just a minute a little bit more. But we we currently can revoke conditional uses. This puts very specific rules of why we can do it for short-term rentals and bed and breakfast. And we think that's very important. One for transparency for those property owners and operators that are out there doing short-term rentals and bed and breakfast. They need to know the rules. And two, our citizens need to know the rules, too, of these are things that are violations that I need to contact somebody with the city to say, "This is a violation that's continually happening at property AB, you know, wherever that property is so that there is a documented case of what's going on so that we really truly have some numbers to see what's happening." So, in residential, they maintain the 500-ft buffer between short-term rentals. They RS1 and Ranch and Estate only allows for one short-term rental and bed and breakfast per property. That does not mean multiple structures. That means one structure that is allowed to have a short-term rental and a bed and breakfast because their underlying zoning of RS1 and RNE are only limited to that. They're not It's not RS2 where you can have a duplex. That's a different situation. Um RS3 could be a triplex um or townhomes or things like that. But the RS1 and RNE limit those to just one per property. And so, some of those properties are very large and some of them are smaller, but it is just one.

[0:28:37] It's not multiples. It's not an accessory dwelling in the back that has a short-term rental or a bed and breakfast. It's That is not the scenario for those. In residential, conditional use is required, we are changing this to that they would have a permit and an inspection from our building permits. Currently, our fire prevention team is in our ordinance in that capacity, and they simply have they are great fire prevention and safety experts. They deal with commercial and fire and all kinds of things all the time. Our building permit staff, while they do commercial inspections as well, they deal with residential all the time. It makes sense that we're not duplicating services and that we're getting the right people in the houses to look for egress and safety with smoke detectors, carbon monoxide, um making sure 911 address is posted correctly, all of those things. And so, that's a change that we we need to make because we're getting the right people at the at the right time to go and do that um inspection. And then they will have an annual renewal. Um it will be an administrative process. If there are things in the revocation process that are triggered, then that will come before planning commission um for a hearing to determine whether they can continue with their conditional use, it needs to be modified in some way, or it needs to be completely revoked. So, here's that new process. So, if you're looking left to right, an applicant's going to come and apply for a short-term rental uh with planning. They are going to check the buffers immediately. As soon as they're standing there, we're checking the buffers to make sure that the buffers are correct. They're going to walk them over and schedule an inspection with building permits. They're not going to let them leave with before they go anywhere. And then as soon as they have that done with building permits, we're taking them over to city finance to register for hot taxes. If they don't have any of those three things done, they do not get to go to planning commission for a conditional use. We are making those requirements before they can get their conditional

[0:30:40] use. As you saw with those numbers before, we've been letting people get conditional uses, but there hasn't been the follow-up. And so, this is this is a control mechanism to say, "If you really want to be a short-term rental or a bed and breakfast, we're going to have you do these things first, and then we're going to go to planning commission for the conditional use." And how are we controlling to make sure everyone's on board with understanding um the 500-ft rule, meaning I bought a building. You said there was nobody in within 500 ft. By the time I went through these processes, somebody else bought a building and started the process within that 500 ft. We need to make sure we don't get caught up in this process, and then we've approved three of them within a week. Correct. And I think there's there's two things there, and one is us setting up a process and being diligent in-house of making sure we have an accurate and correct list and map. And two, it is a it's a public notice to anyone choosing to buy a property or put a contract on a property, they should make sure they know exactly what they're getting into before they make that contract and make it contingent on getting their conditional use, cuz there could be some reason they may not get their conditional use. So, they shouldn't assume that they're going to get their conditional use. They should be protecting themselves and their interests by doing that. My My advice to anyone that was buying a property exclusively for a short-term rental would be to make the contract and purchase contingent on receiving the approval from the city. Don't Don't buy the house. Don't close on the purchase of the house until this has been approved. That's the foolproof Agreed. way of of doing it. And I think to Aaron's point, it's a There's an education component. We We need to get the word out to the to the the brokers and realtors in our

[0:32:42] community that uh for the that for for Excuse me, for clients that they're working with uh that want short-term rental properties to advise them to to maybe make it contingent on the purchase. Well, that's why I want us to make all these public comments because for people who watch Channel 17 or follow this um on YouTube, we need to make sure everybody understands that that won't be able to be an excuse going forward. Right. So, we need to make clear what they should or should not do. Well, Mayor, I'd also like to add that just the appeal timelines within this ordinance is 75 days. So, something could be denied for 75 days and then go to court and however long that process takes then become allowed. So, it's really difficult for staff to be able to give that answer. Um and again, what Travis said I think is really good advice, but it there's 75 days in the year that we're really just unsure even after one's been denied. And and Mayor, your point is well taken is that we have worked with staff and staff has learned we do not staff can't give approval for a short-term rental. So, we should never say the words you're good, you're approved, you're ready to move forward. Our words are you can apply for a short-term rental, go through the process, and we will see if you're eligible to become a short-term rental. That's the best advice what you just said. Well said. So, we talked about the revocation process. So, here are some causes of the revocation of the conditional use for short-term rental and bed and breakfast. So, the first one's pretty strong. Um and these are major violations, basically citations or criminal complaints of the owner, the operator, or any occupant. So, when city staff go back and look on a biannual basis, two times a year, has there been any criminal activity at that property that's attributable to the owner, the operator, or an occupant during that time.

[0:34:44] Minor complaints of nuisances, which of those are those trash, high grass and weeds, noise, etc. We also do that twice a year. Are there any things that have been verified that those were issues that weren't resolved? Maybe they resulted in a a citation from code enforcement or something like that, but you know, what is going on there is that we have documented proof that something has happened. Then failure to timely report hotel occupancy taxes. We are checking those with our finance department. We're going to be doing that quarterly. That we're checking with them to see if our our list is matching. Are they paying? Now, there may be a reason why they didn't, and that's for us to contact the operator or the property owner say, "Did you convert it to a long-term rental? Did you you know, what did you do? Why are you not paying hot taxes?" And then you see the very next one kind of coincides with that is no hot taxes submitted for more than two quarters during any 12-month period. So, if they've really converted over to a long-term rental, then they're not a short-term rental anymore. They need to come off of the list, and that would be a reason to go before the planning commission at the revocation process and say, "Are you going to be a short-term rental?" Cuz if you're not, then we need to pull you off the list because that buffer impacts other properties. We don't want just somebody static there not being a short-term rental operator or bed and breakfast operator. They need to be able to have that right for everyone. If you're not going to operate, then we just need to let you be a a long-term renter or whatever you're choosing to be at that time. And then failure of safety inspections. So, when our team goes out and does that annual inspection from building permits, did they fail something that was significant that they can't fix, repair, whatever it may be. Did they Did they fail significantly? That would be a reason to bring forward to planning commission some revocation cause of that conditional use. Few others. An endangered to the public health, safety, and welfare. Had they had a sewer leak for a very long time

[0:36:46] that they have not taken care of, so they've got raw sewage on the ground. Had they've got mice and vermin. You know, is Do they really have significant health and safety and welfare issues? The property is unsafe. It's a dangerous building that they have not maintained. That's a reason to revoke. Failure to keep the local operator information to the city and the site. So that the site itself, wherever the short-term rental is, that local operator information there, as well as keeping the city staff up to date. And I'll tell you why that's important just a moment. Well, obviously, I think you all know why it's important. City staff has the right information. Someone calls in, says, "Who is the operator for that area?" We give that information so that they are able to contact them and say, "Here's the issues." It is required in the ordinance for us to still send that information out to the local area so that they know when this property is becoming a short-term rental or bed and breakfast, they know who the local operator is. And then failure to respond to related emergencies, operational concerns, or complaints from the public. If those operators or property owners choose to not respond, that could be a reason for us to bring forward for revocation. They can explain it in front of the planning commission, and then they may have a very difficult decision to make, but at least it's given it a process to those other property owners, as well as the short-term rental and bed and breakfast property owners, venue to talk about what the issues are. And say, "Can I continue, or can I not?" So the commercials are are are fairly straightforward, um but I don't want to just skim over them like they're straightforward and and if you have questions, I say we certainly discuss them. Commercial districts in multifamily, RM1 and RM2, that the short-term rental and B&Bs are allowed without a conditional use. They would be allowed by right. If their change if their standard

[0:38:48] occupancy needed to change, they would have to apply. If it's still going to be a residential use, say if it's a residential structure in a commercial area for some reason, and maybe they've got a conditional use or allowed by right to have that residential structure and it has a residential occupancy, nothing more would need to be to be done except for the permit and inspection to go out and and look at it. If it was a commercial building and they wanted to change to a residential type, they would have to do a change of occupancy and then that brings um fire prevention and those those groups that kind of look at those things. In the commercial area, short-term rentals and B&Bs, the density is different. They can have more on one lot, depending on the density for that zoning district, and they can be adjacent to each other. There is no separation distance. So, that's kind of the main thing on the commercial and the RM1 and RM2. Go back to that and then Yes, ma'am. So, number four can be multiple STRs or B&B properties on adjacent lots or same lot, no distance requirement. Give me an example of that. So, that we're talking about commercial. Yes, ma'am. So, if you're let's say you're along Chadbourn, maybe North Chadbourn, and there are some residential style houses there, but they happen to be in a commercial district. And someone chose to buy all three, they could run a short-term rental adjacent to each other. Or if you have a very large lot and the density allowed it, you could have multiple structures on one lot that could all be individual short-term rentals to rent out under like one company. Uh we've seen that in a number of cities where particularly on the outside, think about Fredericksburg, where they have multiple short-term rentals on one lot. That would be the scenario, but we'd

[0:40:51] only allow it in our our commercial districts. They still have density regulations, they still have setback regulations, and things like that, but it's in a commercial district so the density can be higher. Okay, thank you. Another common occurrence in larger markets is apartment complexes that'll dedicate a handful of units for short-term rental. Yeah. Furnish them. They're The one The biggest difference in a in a regular apartment complex and a short-term rental is that short-term rentals are furnished. Yes. Okay. So now we're going to go through some maps. Um This is a very big and busy map. There's lots of colors on there, but essentially the green colors are commercial districts and the RM1 and RM2 districts. The pink areas are our residential districts in R&E. And you can see and as Mayor printed pointed out earlier, we are a community of neighborhoods. We have significant neighborhoods and we cherish our neighborhoods in our community, and I think that's a great thing. And so you see the commercial is is really just accessory to our neighborhoods in our community. Um All the little dots, there's there's a legend at the bottom, but I think we're we're going to drill down just a little bit deeper so that we can really understand what all those things mean. So, here's just one neighborhood out in Lake Nasworthy. These are showing short-term rentals with the 500-ft buffer. If you just happen to look at the end in Nasworthy, you'll see there are two of them that are very close. Their buffers overlap. One of those properties established, and then the other one was granted a variance and established. This ordinance would not penalize them unless they became non-compliant and their conditional use was revoked, then one of them may not be able to go

[0:42:52] back. So, I want to make that very clear. And so, if you're currently operating, you are going to be legal, but you got to keep operating correctly, or you become illegal, for lack of better term, and could have your conditional use revoked. This is the Santa Rita area. As you can see, Santa Rita and Lake Nasworthy are two of our hot spots, not with just with complying STRs and bed and breakfast, but with non-compliant STRs and bed and breakfast. And so, those two neighborhoods are going to be impacted by this ordinance. Um And so, you can see there's a some of those that have received variances in that area where the overlapping uh are. But, you start filling that in with circles, it's going to get uh pretty dense pretty quickly, but that's kind of the point of the buffer is to limit the density in our residential areas. So, those in Santa Rita, for example, there's obviously two areas where they overlap. Were those approved before the 500-ft rule went into play? They were given variances to the 500-ft to become compliant uh in those areas. I think if I remember one was like 487 ft or something. Yeah. So, you can see that the the buffer zone gets very very close to some of the actual property lines. So, all because the buffer zone overlaps, it's the property line to property line for that 500 ft. And so, that that's the real key there. So, here's some of these school impacts. So, we've we just tried to pair this down. We still got the the green and the pink that talks about our two zoning district, but the red are short-term rentals with the 500 ft, and then the blue are schools that have 500 ft.

[0:44:58] And so, you can see that say Lake View, you don't see any short-term rentals that are currently on our our active list, but there's a number of school properties up there, both public, private, I mean just just schools. Um and then as you see through our our downtown area, even down Knickerbocker, uh down Sherwood Way, all of those areas, there's schools in our community. So, I've got a few more drilled in areas um that we'll discuss where there's some kind of conflicts maybe. So, this is along Sherwood Way. You can see the blue uh are schools, and you can see where our short-term rentals currently are. Right now, there's no there's no impact. Um but you do see that the school some of them are on the edge of they're kind of that dividing line between commercial and residential. Um and I just show this as y'all for an example of how the school buffer can impact some neighborhoods. So, I that's the reason to to show this. This is further down just north of Knickerbocker. There's a big school sports complex which also has a middle school and an elementary school campus. And there's those that would be that close right now. And then these are the downtown school campuses. You can see the green is our downtown district. You can see there's it's very difficult to see but there are some red rectangles on there. We don't have the buffer on them because they are in the commercial area. But you do see that large pink area between all of the schools school campuses I should say. That is our medical district our Shannon medical district that has a planned development so it it shows up just a different color. I show this one to say

[0:47:01] if we have a buffer in around schools in some of our commercial areas it is going to come impact the rest of that commercial area. And so I I think that is a challenge for us when I believe we would all agree that if a property came in and wanted to build a hotel or convert one of the buildings to a hotel we would allow that. Where a short-term rental right now if it's within that 500-ft buffer of a school in the downtown area we would say no. So I think that's a an item for discussion consideration of how do we want to look at that? Cuz I think that is that is the the challenge we have with buffers around schools in commercial areas. Our neighborhood schools that are in residential I I think it makes complete sense. In our commercial areas we might have to make some decisions there. How is that addressed in the ordinance that you're proposing? Right now, it would say that the schools in commercial areas do not do not have a buffer. Okay. But I want to make sure that's very clear if we need to have a buffer. So the 500 ft separation between other STRs and schools only applies to the residential zoning districts. That is how it is written currently, yes. Okay, thank you. Ready to move on? Go ahead and use that property or building. Sorry. That's a great clarification. The way we have it written is wherever the the children or youth will be on the campus. So there's sometimes there's athletic fields involved, but it's really based on what the structure is. Is there a gymnasium? Is there a band hall? Is there these other accessory buildings? Some of the some of the properties, and I'm going to go maybe if I can get it to go back the right way. To this one. And if you look right down there by the railroad south of the loop,

[0:49:06] and you see that large blue that is uh the school that's down there that owns a very large piece of property. This and it's that's Lamar. Uh there is an STR that's very close. Now, most of that property is not built out, and so we would say it's where the the buildings end, we would have that buffer from around that school from where the buildings end. Now, SAISD may have future plans for that property and may choose to build on it, so it may change our buffers over time, but that's something we'll have to be flexible with to to work that out. And Aaron, just to clarify, we also have in here a fenced area around the school, so Yes. is that something So as as many of y'all know, the school district the state required schools to start fencing their campuses in certain ways, and so we are working with SAISD and other school districts to um see where their fences are going to go, so we have that proper boundary for us um so that we know what that is. Tommy, did you have a question? I don't want to get us way off track, but this this sticking in my mind. I watched one of the planning commission meetings a couple of months ago, and um I think this specific problem may be addressed, cuz I think the it was in the central business district, but it it still raises a question for me. You you mentioned earlier that sometimes uh maybe more often than not when somebody uh buys a property and wants to turn it into an STR, it helps others in the neighborhood to do some things to their property to spruce up their property. Is any consideration given in here in the zoning districts RS1, RS2, RS3 where you can have STRs, but by conditional use you they can they're allowed there

[0:51:08] that if there's an area that it would help the area if somebody worked uh to be able to buy three or four properties which were much closer together than 500 ft, but it would help re-vitalize the area. Is there any consideration like uh given to something like that in the ordinance? Well, I think we're very specific in our ordinance about RS1, RS2, RS3, and ranch and estate. Those all require conditional use and have the boundaries. Now, in our other areas that are commercial in nature, and that includes the RM1 and the RM2. Now, RM2 uh that's usually what you would consider maybe three story and up apartment complexes. RM1 is what we call low-rise multi-family. However, it has a wide variety of structure types all the way from single family to duplex to town homes. And so, you'll see in some neighborhoods there are RM1 designations. What I would suggest is that if someone wanted to redevelop an area that we would look at our our zoning land use codes and decide what makes sense for that area. We know our central business district is a mix of commercial and residential. It allows those things and so, short-term rentals and bed and breakfast would be allowed by right and it doesn't put a cap on density. And so, maybe if it's close to our central business district, that makes sense. If it's closer to one of the neighborhood areas, but also adjacent to commercial, maybe RM1 makes more sense for that for that area. So, you would then work with the applicant possibly suggesting a zone change to accommodate an STR that in fact may help revitalize the area. Yes, that is true. Okay. We would look at our comprehensive plan and our zoning ordinance to see how does that fit in with that that area. Okay. Thanks. Yes, Tom.

[0:53:13] So, piggyback Aaron, speaking back in on what Tommy just said, there are some streets where I think he's people would like to have multiple STRs. All right. And I have seen that in a couple in the north side, North Tavern type, they would love to have two or three. I get it. Everybody loves an an STR when you need one. You don't know if you want one when it's next door. Okay, I'm just we all get that. It's it's something we We to talk about, but that's It's the way it is, but there's lots of us that look at that as potential ways to make property. What I would wonder if it would make sense is if somebody was waved that if they owned the adjacent STR. If you waved the 500-foot rule and said, "I'm going to buy I have an STR here and I would like to have another STR in that neighborhood, could I get the adjacent one?" And therefore wave that fee, I've got two together. You would drive up the value of the one Say I'm there and I don't like the STR beside me, but I want to move. If it was available as an STR, that would certainly go The pricing would improve the property. I don't know if that's anything you want to look at, but as I look at what people want to do in the future and the growth of STRs, sometimes when they're adjacent and I'll I'll rent one in San Antone, I've got one in Longview. You You see the rules, but you talk to people and they're like, "Well, I have three in this area." It's great if the the closer they are, the better. Don't know if that's a rabbit hole we want to chase now, but I don't think it would damage adjacent property. If somebody was not happy with it, they could sell the property to the adjacent STR, get rid of the problem, and probably get increased value for their own. That's That's my one question there. Um Well, could you ask for a conditional use? Planned development? Could you go to the forward to the planning commission or to the zoning board and ask for that? I see Teresa grabbed her mic, so I'm going to let her answer first. I always default to an attorney. All

[0:55:15] right. Somewhere an attorney's going to be in here. Brandon touched his mic, too. His is also on green. Oh, now we got two. I would I would say as we've worded it right now, no. I mean, we've said that those buffers aren't variable the way it's been worded. how it's written. But, I mean, is it possible to do that? Sure. And I think I think I I the concern I'd have about applying that city wide is that that that might impact areas where there's a lot of pressure and objection already. Understood. Um and perhaps the the better way to tackle this comprehensively is to look at maybe different zoning for some of the areas, different residential zoning. Um where you remove the 500 foot requirement and have the same density classifications that we've got with our current zoning, but it allows the Absolutely. That's why that's why I take it out of my wheelhouse and throw it back in y'all. I mean y'all are put there and appointed there because you have a better understanding Right. as a group and y'all deal with that all the time and I appreciate that and I I applaud y'all for that, but it's it's something that I look at and as as we as Aaron brought up earlier during the rodeo, I have I know contractors that are staying on in VRBOs Yes. because of their adjacency to each other. Some are in a commercial property that work and other one's ex 500 or 800 feet away, but there are people that would love to develop some of that. I get that. So, while I have the mic, I don't want to turn this off. Um I have a a couple questions here. I have seen people approach home owners and say I want to lease your property and I'm going to run it as a VRBO. The city of San Angelo can't keep track of it. You're the owner, I'm the lessee, and I'm going to run it as a VRBO. And and I think those people have made word that it's it's um difficult for them to track me. I'd like for you to have a focus on

[0:57:18] running those down. And I think you probably need to have a more severe penalty if somebody doesn't request the conditional use. And I mean make it a severe penalty. Yep. If you're out there knowing that you have one of these and you're skirting around the edge of it, if you're and I I think I discussed this with Teresa once on a phone call. If you're the one that should be requesting that you know, change and you haven't, you need to lower the hammer on them. Okay, I I don't like people running around bragging about, you know, hey, we made a a fool of the city or planning because we're sneaking around the sidelines, but to me that's something where you need to go get them and you need to encourage people that are skirting around, you know what? I need to get on the list and get down there. And I agree with you 100%. I will back you. I'll have your back on that one if you pursue that. If somebody calls, I mean, if you're breaking the law and you know you're breaking the law, you need to come in and fix it. Right. All right. I'm good. Any other questions from council at this point? I I told you I didn't want to go down the rabbit hole. Sorry, we went down the rabbit hole. Got it. No, it's a great discussion, especially for our citizens to have. Well, if you don't rezone those lots that you're talking about, couldn't you um apply and ask that it become one lot We're code commercial. instead of three individual and then you would then be able to do what you just said by just changing But there's only There are some some mechanisms to go through to combine lots, um zone change. There are some mechanisms out there. Um maybe they're I wouldn't say arduous, but they are there in purpose so that we correctly investigate. Does this really need to be that way? Uh I do think it is part of our neighborhood vi- revitalization at some point. How do we allow this maybe in future areas? But I think that comes back to what is our comprehensive plan say of our land use? What does our zoning ordinance say about our land use and how does it impact

[0:59:20] these areas for the long term? And so I think that's a bigger discussion than what we're trying to to accomplish today. So, this map um simply shows a couple of different areas. On the right side where it says Goberlin and Prizer, that is RS2 residential. So, you must have a conditional use there and you must have a separation distance. In the yellow and green areas, that's RM1 and commercial. I tried to make it a little light so you can see that several in the RM1 are single-family structure-style homes. And it just happens to be they're zoned RM1. So, in that area, there is no buffer for the 500 ft. So, someone could as Councilman Thompson mentioned, they might own three or four of those lots, they could develop that area. Now, this is just east of downtown, just past Emeric, and so that kind of makes sense because you're close to the medical center, you're close to downtown, you're close to Chadbourn and and Main and could get anywhere in town. And maybe that's how we look at that for those folks that want to develop areas. And I think we would all say that this is an area we want to continue to redevelop in certain ways. Um we do have one active short-term rental there as of right now. This is an area uh off of North Chadbourn. You can see the property outlined in red. Uh it's a very large property. Our current ordinance prevents him from placing or building more structures on that lot because we have a rule right now, you can't have more than 500 You have to You have to have more than 500 ft. And in this lot, uh he wants to continue to add some structures to have more short-term rentals. It's a an important part of our town up there at the Grape Creek and Chadbourn. We all know that that's close to the Coliseum

[1:01:23] and most weekends we have activities at the Coliseum and on the the the grounds up there. So, he has done very very well. His property just to the north, the four 4007, can only be used right now as a residential use. Well, he would like to use both of them as short-term rentals. Our ordinance would allow that. That's giving more flexibility for our um short-term rental property owners and operators to have some areas that they can improve the density and continue to use structures that are that are existing, that they don't have to come in and completely renovate something. This is a big slide for me and this is the education of our short-term rental and bed and breakfast allegation uh regulations, excuse me. Uh so, from this day moving forward, if we continue to adopt this ordinance or keep our current ordinance, all STR owners, operators, citizens, staff should know if you want to operate one, there are rules and regulation and come to the city. Plain and simple, come to the city and we will get you through the process. If you don't, then you're going to be in violation of something potentially and that's probably bad. So, we want to create and we are working on creating some updated materials for this ordinance. We've heard from our uh planning commissioners as well as citizens of it needs to be clear on application forms what's required, when it's required, how the process is going to go. Um we want to maintain and work on a actual website, part of the city's website that is for citizens and for STR and BNB property owners, so that they know the location of an STR BNB, they have the contact information of the local operator, they have the date of the approval of the conditional use or the renewal, how to make a minor complaint which

[1:03:25] those are those kind of nuisance complaints, and then when to call SAPD for criminal activity. How do we streamline this? How do we educate our community, not just the operators and owners, but citizens alike. Here's your ways to contact the city to resolve an issue with a short-term rental and bed and breakfast. Um I I think myself as as we need to grow in this area for our staff. We need to make an effort as staff to get this done. It does take time and effort, but it is clear from our community and from our leadership that this is important. And so we want to make sure that y'all hear that we're want to dedicate ourselves to making it important to our community. So today Speaking of that, what about the ones? So we say if you didn't get approval and you have operated and we find out that you have operated, what's the fine? I'm going to look at Brandon to make sure I say this correctly. If it's a nuisance type item, that's probably going to go under our nuisance codes and could be a citation up to $500. If it's a health and safety and welfare issue, it could be up to 2,000. Is that correct, Brandon? Yeah, that's right. Okay. Now the hot taxes have their separate because that's a tax item and I might let Brandon speak to that a little bit better than I could. Yeah, so for if they're not paying hot taxes, there's um number one you can do a citation that would be the 500 up to $500. Uh two, there's a penalty provision which is a one-time 15% penalty on the amount owed. And then um there's also interest that gets tacked onto that um that's continuous and that's up to 12%. So. Thank you. Just for clarification, can you guys what what is the local hotel occupancy tax rate? It's 7%.

[1:05:28] Yes, it's 7%. The state is 6%. Okay. 6% to the state? Correct. Thank you. I want to make one addition to the penalty provision that um, violations of the zoning ordinance can be up to $2,000 per day as a fine. So, not having a conditional use, we could probably go under that and have a higher fine than if it's just a noise violation or some other sort of violation like that. $2,000. Is that per day or is that per violation? Well, it's per day, but whether or not that's actually what will come out on the back end of the process by the time they get to municipal court is, you know, not within our control, but we can issue a citation every day for a violation. Want a report, yeah. Well, let me get to my recommendation. So, our recommendation from from staff to planning commission this morning and to city council is adoption of the revisions of section 406 and section 313 of the city of San Angelo zoning ordinance for a second hearing to be heard on May the 7th. And we're also asking that you support us in our public education of these changes, and that you also support us in the field enforcement and hot taxes. And that's that's not asking for dollars of anything, just that when our team goes to do these things, it's very challenging for them, and we're just asking for support for that team to say, all right, they did clearly have a violation. We've spoken about the rules. We've talked about them and we we need to do things to to make sure everybody's playing by the same rules. We have local operators and property owners that are doing it right. We have out of town property owners and operators that are doing it right. Everybody should be doing it correctly and that's that's our big thing that we want to push across today and to make this a simpler process.

[1:07:32] Any other questions for staff? Lucy does. Aaron, I just have a quick question. This ordinance is it going to interfere with anyone that already has an STR or No, it will not. It will not change their statuses. They will be in compliance. What would change is if they became out of compliance because of their failure to renew or to follow the rules. Okay. Thank you very much. I want to clarify that. Um Are you Are you referring only to those that have been approved by the city or correct. Those that are know that we have a lot that are not operating legally that have not contacted the city in any manner, form, or way. They're They're They're not They're not exempted from this ordinance. That is correct, Chairman. That is a great point to make that Councilwoman Gonzales said these are ones that have gone through the process, obtained their conditional use, kept up their renewals, been paying their hot taxes, and doing it correctly. They will not see changes. Those that have not done those things, this will be a new ordinance for them and they must follow the rules. Got it. Thank you. Mayor, please. Yes, Harry. Just a couple of real quick comments. First of all, I want to say thank you, Aaron. That was very, very good presentation. A lot of work went into it, so I know you and your staff want to say that. Also, want to say this. And and we're getting ready to start talking about budgets for this next year. And I'll say this publicly. I didn't think I was going to be able to talk during this time, but say this publicly. I want to make sure that we support whatever it takes for additional staffing and software to make sure that we make this so that every citizen has an opportunity, but for those that are not complying today, we hit them with as Mr. Thompson said, a big hammer. $2,000 a day could

[1:09:34] with as many out there that are operating in non-compliance could help us in a lot of areas. So, that's what I want to say. Thank you. And and and do we need an approval here or down there? The commission has to go planning commission goes first. They have to recommend to us. Well, I do just want to say before you all start discussion or if you open up for public comment so that everybody can have public comment. I do want to just say there was a very large staff effort. I just want to point out Ray Lineberry and Brandon Dyson. They did a great job of working together getting the basics down and then there was lots of volunteers with different groups having input and say and so I think this has been a group effort. I just happen to be the one gets to stand up here and speak about it, but it's all the people behind the scenes that really made this happen today to get it to this point. So, I thank them very very much. Great. So, we should also call the public hearing at this point before planning commission starts their discussion. Okay, so the floor is open for public comment. If you will do the normal come forward, say your name, the district you live in, and your comments are limited to 3 minutes. Hi, I'm Jesse. I'm I don't know what zone it is. McMillan? I'm on Bird Street. It's over by Old Fort Concho. I guess technically now I'm in the commercial zoning, so the 500 ft doesn't necessarily apply to me. But when it comes to other properties, I have been wanting to buy multiple properties and have them close together, kind of how they were stating before. Whenever me and my family go out of town, we'll get several properties close to each other so we can all stay together. Um, so and that kind of aspect, it makes it really nice whenever everyone goes out, but everything else when it comes to the Airbnbs, sorry.

[1:11:36] Sorry. It's okay. You want to finish? Uh, no, I'm good. Well, your point is the same as what Tom Thompson brought up and and the discussion we had concerning that, so there are ways to accomplish it. A- and in that specific case, uh, the the gentleman came through a couple of months ago uh, for the for the short-term rental that he's got. The that property is located just north of Fort Concho. Uh, and just east of the museum. Um, it's an area that I think was probably uh, suitable for CBD zoning. Um, and if the zoning was changed, it would allow for multiple units within that area. Just something to think about. Well, I think what we want to do is take note of that and look at that. I mean, I think this is the opportunity to bring up issues that broader issues. Yeah, and so I think it's appropriate and I think it should be noted and looked at. Thank you. Where that gentleman's um, STR is located, there is um, two-story uh, apartment complexes surrounding there as well, too. So, having that rezone was and that that specific neighborhood does need some attention. You know, there there's homes that have either sat vacant for extremely long time or have just become distressed properties due to lack of funds to fix those. So, having some additional tax revenue coming in in that neighborhood I think Thank you. Further public comment, please come forward. I'm Jerry Lancaster. We own the property at 2250 Joy Road. And I wanted to make a comment about operating without a a permit because the house directly next door to us at 2246 has been operating since the 8th March

[1:13:39] 8th without a permit without a before hearing was able to be had. And the it was approved by planning and zoning and we have appealed it to the full city council. They're still it's been rented every day practically since March the 8th. And then I wanted to ask one question, is there any thing where you're planning to reduce the 500 ft to 200 ft? Or is is that what the ordinance says 500 ft. Yeah, I want to see it left at consideration for 200. Okay, good. I want to then I want to address that. The And then I I would like to propose one additional rule in on Joy Road our our properties are very close together and very narrow and they get even more narrow as you get close to the water. And I would like to see you institute a rule that would not allow short-term rentals on property that's less than 60 ft wide. Um because ours so So, like the 20 2246 uh Joy Road is only 43-ft wide, and ours is 56-ft wide. And the my many of them uh close to the water are very narrow, making it much invade your privacy. With um restricting the lot size, um that then will affect um not only townhomes, it will affect condos. It will affect um zero lot line properties, as well. So, I believe that would be a very hard affect because you are now impacting the entire city, not just lake property. You couldn't make it specific to lake property? Where is the time to make comments, not to have dialogue. So, do you have another comment? No. No, that's all. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Tim White. Uh

[1:15:46] I'm here on behalf of my daughter, Shelby uh Monty uh I was here 5 months ago. And I went through the process. I did everything by the book. I came to you guys. You told me I didn't have to be at that first council meeting at the planning meeting. So, I wasn't able to attend. You denied my approval. Then, you you approved the one 300-ft down the street from me that has more opposition, has less parking, has closer uh to their neighbors than I am. But, you disapproved me, all of you, almost unanimously. Only Ms. Gonzalez voted with me. I want to know why that one was a this one was approved recently, and mine was disapproved. I on a on a amount of fairness alone, I should be able to operate cuz I went by the rules. I put in the application. I haven't been operating one illegally. We spent $60,000 renovating and making sure that it would follow safety guidelines. Only Only question we had was could we asphalt our front um parking lot. And we said yes, we'd do whatever we had to. But you all voted against me. Yet the planning committee allows this one to go. And now it's within the Add insult to injury, it's within 300 ft of my place, so I can't even apply for another one. So, are you discriminating against my daughter? Who Who Who also doesn't live here in town, but she's from San Angelo. And our our property manager is less than 5 miles from this property. It seems to me that this is not fair. It's not just. And you guys are not acting um in a fair way for people who live on Joy Road. This one's right in the middle, so there'd be no other way for another person to have an STR on Joy Road. Lake property should be um treated differently because it's recreational. Most of the people who are out Mr. Lancaster doesn't even live

[1:17:48] there full-time. My neighbor doesn't live there full-time. So, we should have recreational property. It should be a recreational use that maybe we could uh wave this 500 ft. Well, the thing that irritates me the most is that you approved one 5 months after you denied me and our family. Yes, sir. And everybody on this board voted against it. Yet, there's no opposition from the board on the new one, except for you, Mr. Gonzales. You voted with us. I believe in free markets. I believe in fairness. It can't be one It We're either all the same or we're or we're or somebody's getting favorites. I want to know why this one got a favoritism and I didn't. We're not to mayor again. Uh this is for and not questions at this point, but uh uh, thank you for your we change that rule for the lake? For properties that are recreational primarily, not residential. They Those people don't live out there all the time, not all of them. Thank you for your comments and that will be noted and uh, we'll decide what to do with your comments as well as everybody else's comments today. So, it'll be taken into consideration. Uh, good morning. My name is Steve Hammer. I live on Fisherman's Road, 2310. Uh, and have have so for many years. I have two comments. The first one is I think uh, the presentation this morning was excellent. I hope It seems to me that all of the gaps will soon be filled in. But as a listener, I think a big gap that has yet to be filled in is how the monitoring is going to go. Since we know we don't have in place how to monitor effectively from this point on, it seems

[1:19:51] to me like we ought to start there before we do anything else. Or else we're chasing our tail like we are right now. The second thing is 2346, is that right? They're in violation right now. The trash has not been dumped for 2 weeks. There is no posting that says if you have a question, comment, need to contact somebody, none of that information is available. And according to the current rules, it should be posted at that site and it's not right now. So, everybody else pulls out their trash per the agreement from Republic. Right. But, that's not being done there. Thank you. Thank you for the information. Thank you, sir. More public comment? Uh Jamal Sumter, single-member district two. Um I was listening to the conversation and I got a little worried when you start talking about the low-income areas in the north, particularly because I think changing the zone so that realtors or property owners could fix up those properties that they're going to buy and short-term rent would would cause a chaotic uh view for the average person. If we're looking at the map and we're seeing this is zone commercial, this is zone residential, in the middle of a street, it'll be rezoned commercial or planned neighborhood just so that those three short-term rentals could be fixed up. Uh and then what happens after? We have to go back to the zoning board or go back to the planning commission get the zone changed uh if those short-term rentals were changed over to a different zone from the residential zone.

[1:21:54] Furthermore, it is seems a little predatory that y'all would target the north side of town to fix up multiple residences and turn them into short-term rentals. They actually need places to live and you're taking it away from them. So, I'm not I'm not sure if that that would be a good decision to change the zone so that you could fix up the house and short-term rent it. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Further public comment? Seeing no one else come forward, we will end the public comment portion of this joint agenda and I'll turn it over to Travis. Okay. Uh thank you. Um So I've got a couple of things that I've I wanted to share with you guys. The First, I want to address some of the the questions and concerns that were raised by the public. Uh Mr. Hammer talked about the monitoring and enforcement process. And uh I know some of you have talked about that importance. Uh I I think that that's of of critical importance uh going forward. Um If if we have an ordinance, we have to enforce it. Um And we've seen the problems from not enforcing it uh today. Um and so I I know Aaron touched on uh some of the changes. I was hoping that he might be able to elaborate a little bit on uh what the what the staff might be doing uh that's different uh in terms of enforcement. Well, in terms of enforcement, we're working with um our HR department, um my assistant director and building official Charlie Kemp and I have been working on an organizational chart plan for the planning and development services department. Uh currently, we have two vacant FTE positions there.

[1:23:59] We are going to ask to kind of reclassify one of those positions as a frontline employee that will help with compliance issues, particularly with short-term rentals and then building code compliance issues. Um we will have to get that approved and everything first, but that is one of our tactics of trying to get more people on the frontline to help us with this. We are going to be working through with our planning staff. They have been very diligent, I would say, in the last 6 months of of keeping track of our short-term rentals. We're training them to update our maps so that our maps will be updated very quickly. Um which is a a great new process for them. And then it's continually being diligent and and caring about our community. And I think that's the other thing that we're teaching with our staff, but we want to go through and do the process correctly. We want to be able to verify violations. We're still going to rely on our code enforcement team to help us with nuisances and with our SAPD team with criminal activity. And it is a collective effort from the enforcement side. To your point, Travis, as you know, I think that's one of the biggest issues. And what I would say to Aaron is the following. Do cities have software that they're using today? Is there some city that we say has a great process for enforcement or monitoring and is it software? And if it is and we like it, we don't have to wait for the budget session. You bring it forward. We can get it approved. We've got the money to do it. We can get that done. So I know we've got one. If you've got something that you think is the right thing now, let's move forward cuz we're dealing with the ordinance. Now let's do with the enforcement at the same point time as closely tied together as possible. I The other thing I wanted to talk about uh as it relates to staffing, that's obviously there's a cost associated with that.

[1:26:01] There's also revenue that can be generated by enforcing this ordinance. So uh Aaron touched on fees. Uh there would be a an application fee and a renewal fee that would be paid every year. That is correct. So, that's a a sizable source of income. Um fines and penalties. Uh there's been talk about a $2,000 a day fine for for operators that are not in compliance. Uh and that we've also got the the tax penalties associated with that. Uh and then hotel occupancy tax revenue. Guys, this could be substantial. It could be hundreds of thousands of dollars that are not being collected. Um and if we have someone that's dedicated to enforcing this ordinance within the planning and and building department, uh it'd be great to get that revenue and and put it to work uh for the benefit of our community. Our code enforcement people are already taxed to the nth degree. I mean, I don't know how many more issues we can put on their plate, and that's the reason why I think this software, if it's available and someone's using it, it's a priority. Right. Well, I'm I I guess I'm hoping that part of the enforcement can be handled within the planning department. And I know that there's probably work with other departments like code compliance and legal to to send notices out for violations and things, but to me it would be it would be best and and most beneficial uh to have someone within the planning department that's dedicated to enforcing this ordinance. And I think the revenues alone would support that position and probably more. Um the the other comment I had uh Mr. Champert uh raised concerns about rezoning uh areas of the community and uh and attracting short-term rental investment uh into maybe some of our

[1:28:04] blighted areas. That that is not part of our discussion today with this ordinance. That that may be something that we consider or discuss down the road, but that is I I want to clarify that with with with Aaron. That's not in today's ordinance, correct? That is correct. That is it is not changing any land use designations that are currently out there at all. Okay. Thank you. Uh does anyone else Excuse me, on the planning commission have thoughts that they would like to share? Are Are we changing the time of renewal? Or is it just whenever they're approved at a year from then? In the ordinance it is. Apologize. In the ordinance it is to change to a one unified once a year renewal process that streamlines it for city staff as well as operators so that we don't have numerous ones coming through. People can apply every month to to get a conditional use and go to planning commission, but the renewal is annually. In our current ordinance it is suggested that that annual um uh time will take place January 2026. And I know that's a significant time from now, but that means there's a little bit of grace in there for operators to get moving, but as soon as this is enacted they would have to follow the new rules. And so the buffers would be enacted 25? 26? In the ordinance it says 26 right now. It was changed to 26. I mean, I asked the question. That's 2 years. The other option is as this moves forward um I have also thought about what about the uh June 2025 time frame as this would come forward in May for a second hearing and maybe that gives us a full year at that point. Um I would say that is something we can change in the ordinance if that is something to look at for the next reading. Well, the planning commission would need to consider that first and then take

[1:30:06] action on it before we can, but I think 2 years is too much. Okay. With that being said, too, for instance, if somebody got approval in December, are they going to be renewing in January, or would it be the following January? So, if they were if they came and got a conditional use during the year, they would renew the same they would renew with everyone else. Even though they might only only get 1 month, but that's a strategic thing for them of determining, based on the buffers, things like that, when they come and talk to the city, what is their best path forward. Okay. Anyone else have thoughts they'd like to share? When we did the original audit a few months back, um this to attempt to bring some of the non-compliant STRs into compliance, do we know how many actually fulfilled their duty? We as our current number sits, I think we're about 55. I would say 30 of those came into compliance since then. We still have at least 30 or more from the initial one that have not come into compliance, and then we know there are other groups or other lists out there that we have not contacted for compliance, which is going to be our next step. So, on the 29 that have no COs, we know that they're not operating, or we're We have not found proof that they're operating, but that does not definitively mean they're not operating. It's it's a we have to have proof one way or the other. But, we are in process of contacting them, letting them know their time is running short, that this ordinance could be passed, and they may have to start all the way over. Andy, you got any thoughts?

[1:32:12] Um protecting land rights, property rights is a is a big issue with anything such as STRs. Um we've gone over so many of the um uh original um short-term rental um documents that was done several years ago, and uh one of the big things was the 500 ft. Uh a lot of discussion on making changes, not making changes. We've left it the same in the recommendations, and um um I don't know that that's the big deterrent. I think that our big issue is the compliance and um education. I don't think that our community understands um what their responsibilities are if they want to purchase a property. Uh realtors don't have any idea about all of the ins and outs of short-term rental. They're uh they sell a house, and um and uh one of the things that they're not putting I think as we heard uh is a condition in a contract to um have the short-term rental approval. Well, that takes some time. Um so, education is a must to all those involved. Um we've got to make a little more effort in seeing that the public understands that we have regulations. We have a process and procedures. We have expectations. There is a tax to be paid on this. A lot of them don't understand that they they have to pay the hot tax. So, I think education is one of our big issues in a lot of areas. That would be my comment.

[1:34:16] Aaron, on the notices that are mailed to the public, when there's a proposed STR going in a neighborhood, is there currently a link to the city's website that breaks down all of the guidelines that the STR has to follow? Because I feel like, and I'm sure there's other members that feel the same way, that a lot of our negative feedback, or you know, people that do show up to the meetings in order to protest, don't fully understand what an STR is, and that kind of piggybacks off what Candy's mentioning. I think that's a great idea. I don't think we've fully given that education like you're suggesting, and we should. We are going to be creating, in fact, it's kind of been created a website link to get a lot of information, but I think we should also have some written information in with those notices to those surrounding properties that get the operator's information. I think that is being transparent and fair to those property owners, so we will make that as a note and we'll start working on that. When we were discussing this earlier, this last week, we brought up the education piece of it, and it was recommended that we make a presentation to the Realtors Association and the Home Builders Association. So, that won't solve it all, but I do believe that that outreach has to happen, and we probably can get some good information and feedback from those presentations to help on the education piece of it. Uh okay, I have a I have a kind of a last question as it relates to fines and penalties. Do you think that there are properties today that are operating without a conditional use that will be prohibited from obtaining a license because they're within 500 ft of an existing approved STR? I don't know of any specific, but I would hedge my bet that yes, there are. Okay. And under this scenario,

[1:36:19] the only option is to shut them down. Yes, if if this ordinance is passed before they apply, they would not have the option per ordinance to get a variance for a separation distance. Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right, anyone else have other thoughts or want to make a motion? And Travis, um Yes, sir. So, we have two uh amendments today. 406 is the STR ordinance, and then 313 is the use table that would just change um that in those commercial areas they're allowed by right. And so, that kind of hinges on 406, so but we will need like two separate motions on those. So, you would you would want a motion to approve revisions to 406. Right. And then a separate motion to approve revisions to 313. Yes, sir. Uh and I have a note here about the timing. Uh I I think Aaron said that January 2026 is when the ordinance would take effect for the renewal process, and we've suggested there it's been suggested maybe June of 2025 instead as an alternative. Are there any other changes? If you want to put that in the motion, we can change that date for renewals, but just to clarify, the ordinance would go into effect on second reading of council. It's just that unified development ordinance. Yes, sir. All right. We're waiting for a motion from the planning committee. I I would like to make a motion to approve um the article 4 zoning uh exhibit A of section 406 of the bed and breakfast establishments

[1:38:21] and short-term rentals. And I would also like to add to that a unified renewal date to be June 1st, 2025. Okay. We have a motion. I will second. And we have a second. Uh all in favor, say I. I. Opposed? That is 4-0. All right, Mayor, you're up. Do you want us to make a motion on the other Get one. Use table. Does someone want to clarify what the 313 motion needs to be? So So right now in 313, the use table, it shows the different zoning districts and it has an A under it for allowed by right or a C for conditional use. And so the changes today are in all those commercial districts that we've talked about. It's changing from the C for conditional use to A to allowed by right in those areas. Anyone wish to make a motion? I don't think so. I'll make a motion to approve and are we ready? Yes. Okay. You just beat us to it. Absolutely. Um section um 313 um regarding item A on zoning uh that it be um from regarding item A uh revisions requiring short-term rental establishments obtain a conditional use only in specified zoning districts and

[1:40:25] we're recommending uh that amendment to section 313. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Candy and a second by Joe. Uh all in favor say I. I. Opposed? That is also 4-0. Do they need to formally adjourn their meeting before we take up our meeting? Okay. So with that we are uh council is now under consideration for these this new ordinance and we too will need to start with a motion to uh approve the 406 with the change of the date for renewal being June of 2025. May I have May I have that motion? Somebody said yes, Harry. Second. A second by Karen. All those in favor say I. I. Motion passes 6-0. Then um in item B which deals with 313, we would be changing from C to A. And may I have that motion? So moved. So moved by Karen. Second. Second by Tom. All those in favor say I. I. Motion passes 6-0. That concludes the special joint agenda meeting. And we will formally adjourn. Can I make one comment to the public before that? Um I know there are concerns about these joint meetings that people get one less opportunity to come and speak towards this ordinance. So I just want to be clear that this was the first reading for council. There will still be a second reading of this ordinance at council on May 7th, 2024. All right, thank you. With that, we are adjourned and we will take a break before we call to order the regular city council meeting.

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=QbCDlP6CqZs