Cohousing-L Mailing List: Policies on short-term rentals?

[David Clements and Evan Richardson (evdavwes]

Hello, David,
We are beginning to have a discussion about this issue.  For a number of years 
(about 1997 to 2005 one of our members had a "B&B" with room to rent.  I think 
this was generally appreciated by residents.  However it was not strictly legal 
in our city (B&B's need to be at least 3500 square feet, was the main sticking 
point), and the limbo legal status was one reason the proprietor stopped doing 
this.  
I personally felt and feel that if members of the community want to do things 
which are not "legal" under the city code and are thus enforceable by the city, 
we need to have a more complete and ongoing consensus from the community (since 
an objecting member can ask the city to enforce its ordinance).  We allow cats 
to roam, we have a home business with an ungaraged truck, we have had a home 
massage business, all of which have failed to meet the city code in various 
ways.  And as of a couple of years ago, we once again have several people 
renting rooms short term through airbnb or on their own.  In our city 
apartments or rooms can be rented at most once per month unless the house is 
designated a "Homestay" or "B&B."  None of our houses meet the square footage 
requirements of either one.  
We have not had a full discussion, but one major issue is related to guests 
parking.  We have limited visitor parking and extra guests cause a crunch.  
Other issues are safety (having strangers in the community), and the need to 
get our work done, which theoretically suffers if transient visitors do not 
work for the community.  (I am omitting other important concerns.)
A related issue is that renters, as opposed to owners, are perceived to have 
less interested in making the community work.  
We do not have any policies limiting rentals currently.   That is a possible 
outcome of our discussions.  It is likely that the most effective way to 
implement restrictions on rentals is to do it when the community is founded, 
and to put that restriction in the CC&R or Declaration, where it is legally 
binding.  After all, such restrictions effectively cost the owners money if 
they are not able to use their property as they choose.  
David Clements 
Westwood Cohousing, Asheville, NC

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 23:40:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: heimann [at] TheWorld.com
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ Policies on short-term rentals?
Message-ID: <55011.24.128.27.8.1409197233.squirrel [at] www.TheWorld.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

Hello,
.
      One of our residents has been using a couple of spare bedroom to
rent out to short-term guests (less than a week).  This has resulted
in a stream of short-term guests, each staying for a matter of days
but in aggregate continuing for months on an ongoing basis.

      We have policies for short-term guests, but they were written with
friends or family visiting a community resident every once in a
while. We also have policies for long-term visitors and renters,
i.e., staying for 60 days or more, where we can get acquainted with
the person or household occupying the unit and incorporate them into
community life, and where we have a limit of 30% of the units that
can be so used.  However, we've discovered a "hole" in our policy
for a long-term flow of short-term visitors.  The flow is putting
some stress on various residents, and we're concerned that a second
or third or 15th household may do the same, with significant impact
on our community

      Have communities on this list had to deal with households running
"bed and breakfast" businesses in their units?  If so, what policies
do you have to handle or forbid them?

      Thanks for any information you may have.

Regards,
David Heimann
Jamaica Plain Cohousing
Jamaica Plain, MA



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