The Putnam County Board of Commissioners may not have made any final decisions on a short-term rental (STR) ordinance during a Monday morning work session, but enough general consensus emerged to direct the staff to draft a new version.
The new ordinance will be up for fine-tuning at another work session following the commission’s normal first-Friday morning meeting on June 2. It is possible that a formal public hearing and a final vote could be taken at its mid-month meeting on June 20.
If any themes came out of Monday’s work session, one might be about looking for a middle ground. Another might be “Enough is enough.”
Here are some key thoughts that County Attorney Adam Nelson and other staff members will be working with.
Arguing that the current situation is “out of control,” District 4 Commissioner Jeff Wooten sought to extend the current moratorium on new STR applications.
“We’ve got to balance it out,” he said. “We have got to get it under control before we accept any more applications, and not constantly playing catch-up … We are way behind on enforcement.”
District 3 Commissioner Alan Foster, who has a lakeside home on Oconee, pushed further, arguing that at least in the R-1-R zone, STRs should be eliminated after three years – time for the owners to recoup their investment. However, the elimination idea did not receive much backing.
His recommendation for putting a permanent cap of 300 STRs seemed more agreeable.
District 2 Commissioner Daniel Brown did offer a variation – that once an STR is sold, it could not become an STR again.
He also introduced the notion of capacity, a limit on the number of people who could occupy a rental property.
“We are interested in people moving here,” Brown said. “We don’t want rock-and-roll parties.”
“There is a place for STRs,” said District 1 Commissioner Gary McElhenney. “I’m not for kicking them out.” He also raised the question of cost recoveries and backed Sheriff Howard Sills’ earlier enforcement recommendations.
Foster came back to the occupancy notion. “Most issues are concerned with occupancy, which leads to the greatest number of problems. Some owners are just adding more and more bedrooms,” he said.
He suggested a formula that would set a maximum of 12 people per property, a maximum of five bedrooms times two people, plus two more.
On-site parking would have to be provided for one car for each bedroom, and he pushed for no amplified music after 10 or 11 p.m.
“What is going on now changes the character of a neighborhood,” he said.
County officials who deal with inspections were also asked for input.
Putnam County Fire Chief Thomas McClain spoke of bunkbeds lining hallways and windowless basement storage rooms turned into “bedrooms.”
He asked that a new ordinance require annual re-inspections and the power to return to the property at any time.
The Health Department’s Catherine Hill noted an often-overlooked situation: septic tanks. Construction permits involving septic tanks are based on the number of bedrooms.
“If six bedrooms are going into a four-bedroom system, the tank and drain field can’t keep up and become overtaxed,” she said.
Obviously, work on the ordinance remains to be done.