The Putnam County Board of Commissioners (BOC) reversed direction last week on how best to get input for a possible ordinance regulating short-term vacation rental properties, mainly on Lakes Oconee and Sinclair.
Instead of a study committee proposed in January and with a debate over its composition in February, the commission will hold two public hearings with dates soon to be set by BOC staff.
Complaints of loud and late-night and overcrowded parties, plus careless boating and even bus caravans, have been on the rise, especially in the last couple of years during the COVID pandemic.
Also recently, a surge in sales of larger homes with hefty price tags has created what nearby neighbors call “commercial enterprises in a residential zone” and “lakeside hotels.”
The study committee idea ran into a February buzz saw when it became apparent that the appointments were not being limited to each commissioner’s recommendations, and the expanded appointments were tending to lean toward investors, some of whom lived out-of-county.
Rick Brantley, president of the Water’s Edge homeowners’ association, told the commissioners that 94 percent of the polled members of the association opposed the “devastation” brought by the creeping commercialization of lakeside homes. He asked for an outright ban on such uses and added that “violations without enforcement is useless.”
On the other hand, Mark Willett, who rents out a large property in Great Waters, said he had not had a single complaint, also pointing to the economic benefit to the county.
“Last year I paid $60,000 to the county (in hotel-motel taxes),” Willett said, adding that guests “have no effect on the schools. They come, and they do spend the money.”
Controlling the use of such properties “boils down to owners,” he added.