-
Brevard is a small mountain town one hour away from Highlands. The elevation for the town is 2,231 feet and the population is 7,744 according to the most recent census data.
Editor’s note: Highlands is not the only town struggling with an influx of people due to COVID-19, lack of affordable housing and a short-term rental issue on its hands.
Resort towns across the United States are scrambling to find ways to house employees and appease both sides of the isle when it comes to short-term rentals.
In “Short-Term Rentals Causing ‘Peak’ Problems”, The Highlander is taking an in-depth look at different resort mountain towns to see how different local governments across the nation are dealing with these issues.
This is the fourth and final article in the series.
Moving a little closer to home, Brevard is a small mountain town one hour away from Highlands. The elevation for the town is 2,231 feet and the population is 7,744 according to the most recent census data.
Brevard votes to allow STRs in residential areas
Back in 2017, the Brevard Town Council voted to allow short-term rentals in three of its zoning districts including general residential, neighborhood mixed use and downtown mixed use.
The approval included the amendment that instead of seeing an application to have a short-term rental the property owner must present their tax records.
To find out how many bedrooms a person who rents short-term rentals has, zoning officials will be allowed to defer to the tax records, which also indicates how many bedrooms a person has.
The process began in 2014 when the Planning Board got a call from someone claiming that a neighbor was renting a room for the weekend. The board started informally consulting a retired land-use attorney, and, originally, they classified a short-term rental as residential, which, then Brevard City Planning Director Daniel Cobb said, the standard zoning regulation classifies as someone living in a house or apartment for 30 days or more.
“Then, a year later, as Airbnbs started picking up, we started getting more of these calls, so we got another interpretation for a short-term rental as a ‘lodging,’” Cobb said.
According to zoning regulations, Cobb said a “lodging” classifies as someone living in the dwelling for 30 days or less, but he said there wasn’t a clear place to state that in the ordinance.
When council was ready to vote on a final draft in 2016, the state law passed preventing local governments from regulating short-term rentals, so the planning board had to make more changes, said Cobb.
Recently, Brevard mayor Maureen Copelof told The Highlander they have gotten concerned about STRs because there are so many of them popping up.
“It is really impacting the availability of workforce housing and housing in Brevard is really at a premium right now,” Copelof said. “Houses come up for sale and they are immediately turned into short-term rentals or landlords are canceling the lease on long-term rentals and converting them to short-term rentals. It makes it really difficult for members of the community to find housing.”
But, as of right now, Copelof said the restrictions on STRs are very minimal.
“The only thing really is that you can’t have signage out there advertising it as a short-term rental, it has to look like a house,” Copelof said. “Limiting the number of cars that can be parked there is another restriction, but that is truly the extent of our regulation on short-term rentals. We don’t control the number. We don’t limit them in different areas. What we are doing is looking at under North Carolina law, what tools do municipalities have and the tool that we have is our zoning tool, but the council has made no decision on that at all right now because we need a lot more facts before we take any action.”
Instituting a Short-Term Rental Task Force
To make sure the town gets a hold on the short-term rental issue, Copelof said they formed a task force to learn more about short-term rentals in the town.
“This is not a clear cut issue,” Copelof said. “I mean, there are benefits to short-term rentals and there are definite disadvantages. So, we want to be very careful when we go forward that whatever we do, its not going to have some unintended consequence. We want to make sure we understand the current situation, what exists right now. We want to make srue we understand what our community is telling us they want in terms of short-term rentals. Then, if we do decide to change our ordinance concerning them, then we are doing it from a position of knowledge and understanding.”
One thing the task force is set up to do is start an economic impact study on short-term rentals.
“Short-term rentals do have a very big economic impact on communities,” Copelof said. “They bring in a lot of funds. So, what is that impact? But we are also looking at the impact on housing availability, housing prices, the impact on the community. If you have so many short-term rentals that you no longer have permanent neighborhoods of people that know one another, then you are really starting to undermine the real core of the community. That is happening in some areas. There are more short-term rentals on some streets than actual full time residents. So, we are looking at the impact and also creating a survey where we are going out to our residents and asking them about their thoughts on short-term rentals. Do they like them? Do they have them? Do they rely on them for income? Because there are people who use that as a way to bring in income to support their families. We want to understand all of that before we take any steps forward in terms of changing the ordinance or incorporate any restrictions.”
Education is one of the main things Copelof said will help residents in her community.
“A lot of residents think that if they switch the house they own to a short-term rental, they can make a lot more money,” Copelof said. “But, they don’t understand the impact that it may be having on our community as a whole. So, I think having people really understand these impacts to be very important. We are finding that some are saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to turn that into a short-term rental,’ so we are encouraging people to really get educated on the impact, not just to their finances, but the impact to their neighbors and community as a whole.”
With talk around Brevard about what the town should do about short-term rentals in the long-term, Copelof said there is no consensus.
“You have a portion of the community that really feels they need to be strictly regulated,” Copelof said. “They feel that STRs are contributing to our lack of workforce housing and they are contributing to undermining the community character; turning Brevard into a tourist town and not a real community of workers. On the other hand, you have people that view this as a personal property rights issue. It’s their property and they want to be able to use their property the way they want. If they want to use their property as a short-term rental then they feel like they should not have any restrictions limiting that. Then there are people that look at the situation and see that there is a lot of good that the short-term rentals bring. They bring more visitors, they bring more sales taxes and in a lot of ways they also ensure that houses are maintained. There is no consensus, which is why we are going to do a survey to get people to tell us what they really think and to tell us what they want to see happen with short-term rentals in Brevard.”
Advice to Highlands Town Board of Commissioners
Copelof said the main thing Brevard’s town council is doing is waiting to take action from a position of knowledge, which she advises the Highlands Town Board of Commissioners to do the same.
“The last thing you want to do, is to take action that has consequences you didn’t anticipate,” Copelof said. “So, I think it is really important that you understand the role that the short-term rental is playing, both positive and negative in your economic analysis of your community and the social fabric aspect of your community. Then, take a look at really getting some good numbers. How many short-term rentals are there? Are they owned locally by people who live here? Are they being bought by institutional investors from out of town? To me there is a big difference there. I think you have to understand what you have, what the impact they have on your community before you can make an informed, good judgment on any actions that you will be taking.”
- By Christopher Lugo