Rural short-term rental move forward

Rural Fayette County farmland. Source: Flickr

In October 15th’s General Government and Planning (GGP) Committee, Councilmembers voted to advance recommendations to the full Council for how to regulate short-term rentals (e.g. Airbnbs, VRBOs) in rural Fayette County.

These recommendations, developed by the Rural Land Management Board, have been presented twice to the GGP Committee this year. No revisions or changes have been made. Some recommendations include:

• Requiring all rural short-term rentals to obtain a conditional-use permit from the Board of Adjustment.

• Only allowing hosted short-term rentals (”hosted” meaning that the operator lives on the property).

• Setting an occupancy limit of two people per bedroom.

• Require a one-mile spacing requirement between all units.

The Committee made two amendments, proposed by 12th District Councilmember Kathy Plomin, to the recommendations for rural short-term rentals before they were advanced by the Committee:

• Allow short-term rentals on properties ten acres or less in size in the Agricultural-Rural (A-R) zone to be unhosted with a conditional use permit.

  • The original recommendations did not allow any unhosted units in the A-R zone.

• Lower the spacing requirement for rentals from one mile to 500 feet for unhosted STRs on ten-acre properties.

Unhosted units were not recommended in the original proposals because of fear that guests staying on large parcels with farm equipment or livestock might injure themselves if they explored the property. While most land in rural Fayette County is active farmland, there are some smaller parcels that are purely residential where those safety concerns aren’t as relevant.

Here are the next steps for the proposed regulations:

• First, the full Council will vote to send the recommendations to the Planning Commission.

• The Planning Commission will discuss the proposals, make any changes they see fit, hold a public hearing, and then return the proposals to the full Council.

• Once Council has received the (potentially revised) proposals from the Planning Commission, they will take a final vote on whether to pass them or not.