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Sunday, April 10, 2016

Short Term Rentals In County

Bobbie Bicknell Coray, Reporter
Rich Civic Times

RANDOLPH Utah.  April 6, 2016. “Short term rentals will be a headache,” said County Treasurer, Kim Wilson, “don’t allow them in the county and let the cities have them.” County commissioners asked about whether or not the county should allow them in the county.  It was pointed out that both Bridgerland and Sweetwater Hillside do not allow short term rentals, yet there are some who are not following their CC&R regulations and renting in defiance of their rules.   Commissioners asked if the county was missing out on tourist tax and other taxes that could be levied on these businesses.  Commissioners reasoned that there would have to be regulations and rules written if they were going to allow them to rent and that meant that there would also be problems with enforcement which might mean more personnel.   Commissioners asked for more information and further discussion.

1 comment:

JSSox said...

I can understand the fear that can go along with Short Term Rentals (STR), and they are probably similar to the fears that go along with Long Term Rental areas. In some areas of the world rentals have a bad reputation. Fortunately in Rich County rentals do not exhibit the same problems in some areas of the world.

I know there were several members of the Garden City community who probably thought STRs were a headache, but this past summer the code enforcer, Bob Peterson, found that STR rarely ever caused "headaches." More home owners caused problems than guests in STRs.

I consider myself a Libertaian Paternalist (read a book called "Nudge" to understand - it is available here http://goo.gl/RVzbsQ or I'll lend you one of my copies) and what this means is I believe property owners ought to have property rights to do as they wish with their property just so long as what they do does not have negative externalities on someone else. For example, if I am a home owner and decide to have a party all night with loud music that disturbs my neighbors, this would be a negative externality and infringes on my neighbors rights.

So regardless of whether it is a home owner, a Long Term Rental guest, or a STR guest that is negatively affecting or infringing on someone else's rights they should be treated as equal.

In other words all "good neighbor laws" (which are in place to reduce negative externalities and these include noise ordinance, trash abatement ordinance) should be applied equally to all persons whether home owners, guests, or whatever.

To do otherwise is discrimination. As a reminder discrimination is to "make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people or things".

Short term rentals can do a lot of good for our economy and increase the standard of living in Rich County. I never want Bear Lake to lose it's charming aspects, but I am in favor of positive growth opportunities that make Bear Lake a better place for my children to live.