A public hearing regarding the city’s development code and comprehensive plan turned into a debate about proposed restrictions on short-term rental properties at Tuesday’s board of aldermen meeting.
David Buchanan, who owns several rental properties in Starkville, approached the board with a list of his concerns both aloud and on paper. The city has scheduled four public hearings for the unified development code, but Tuesday’s hearing was about how the land within the city limits can be used, and Buchanan said he wanted to discuss how the code seeks to restrict the use of residential land.
The city’s final draft of the unified development code includes a $300 yearly license to host a “short-term residential rental” in a single-family home. That includes, but isn’t limited to, weekend rentals, Mississippi State University game day rentals and listing such property on websites like Airbnb.
If a homeowner pays the fee, the proposed code only allows renting a property for up to 30 nights or 10 weekends per year and requires owners to live in the houses they offer for short-term rental.
An Oktibbeha Gardens resident brought the issue to the city’s attention in May when she told the board that roughly 17 guests had stayed at her neighbors’ house via Airbnb in a six-week period, raising concerns about noise and safety.
Community Development Director Sungman Kim is holding daily meetings at City Hall this week to answer any questions from the public about the proposed requirements. The first public input session with city leaders is Thursday at the Starkville Sportsplex.
The code will not become effective until the board approves it in December.
‘Apples to apples’
Airbnb and other short-term rental services have “disrupted” the hotel-motel industry in the same way corporate retailers like Walmart and Target once disrupted locally owned stores and ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft disrupted local transportation, Buchanan said.
He lives in Madison but spends a great deal of time in Starkville for work, and he disputed the proposed permanent residency requirement for short-term rentals.
“Am I being discriminated against just because I don’t live within the city limits of Starkville? Yes,” Buchanan said.
Additionally, stays at apartment complexes and other long-term rentals are only a matter of months longer than short-term, so Buchanan said the two should be regulated equally.
“You’re comparing apples to apples, but you’re charging one set of apples a $300 tax plus prohibiting me, as an American and as a landowner, from using my property as I see fit that’s not injuring anybody else,” he said.
Airbnb hosts have to keep their property well-maintained in order to get good reviews and continuous business, while long-term rental owners do not have the same incentive, Buchanan said.
The difference between the two types of rentals is the lease agreement between a landlord and tenant at long-term rentals, giving the landlord more control and awareness of who is staying at the property, said Ward 5 Alderman Hamp Beatty, who supports the proposed regulations.
“We just wanted to put some type of minimal framework (and) regulation around something that’s really proliferating in the city of Starkville,” Beatty said. “It’s not an attempt to collect taxes. It’s not an attempt to keep somebody from doing business, except when they do business at the expense of somebody’s neighborhood.”
Spruill told The Dispatch after the meeting that short-term and long-term rentals should not be on a “level playing field” as Buchanan wants.
“I understand what (Buchanan) is saying, but I don’t think they are synonymous with one another or that they are a proper comparison,” Spruill said.
Additionally, short-term rentals take customers away from hotels, and Spruill said she wants more hotels in Starkville to accommodate visitors in town for sporting events.
Aldermen’s opinions
Not all aldermen agree with Beatty. Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn said regulating how people use their land makes “no sense” to him, and Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver, who rents out his house on MSU football game days, said he receives far more complaints from constituents about long-term than short-term rental properties. About 150 people have called him to say they oppose the regulations, he said.
He added the $300 license fee is too stringent and $20 should be the maximum amount.
“If we’re looking for a registration of record, I think $5 to $10 is enough,” Carver said.
Ward 2 Alderman Sandra Sistrunk said to keep in mind the $300 license fee is not set in stone, adding she is “almost positive it won’t be the final number.”
Buchanan is not opposed to all regulations on short-term rentals, and he said in his written list of concerns that that “reasonable regs are welcomed and respected that help maintain property values.”
His debate with the aldermen was “very productive,” he told The Dispatch.
“I think when people listen to the pros and cons of what short-term rentals can do for Starkville and Oktibbeha County, as opposed to what these regulations could then end up thwarting or prohibiting, I think (we will) see people consider short-term rentals to be a good thing,” Buchanan said.
Other business
Later in the meeting, the board voted unanimously to take the first step in converting the railroad that bisects the city from southwest to northeast into a biking and walking path.
The city will ask for permission from the federal Surface Transportation Board to work with Kansas City Southern, the company that owns the railroad, to remove the rails and turn the route into a trail. The railroad has not been used in several years, but KCS would still hold the easement over the land in case it decides to use it for rail transportation again in the future.
“If they decide they don’t want to do that, this would give us the option to capitalize on that right of way that runs right through the center (of Starkville),” Ward 4 Alderman Jason Walker said.
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