STRs will not be allowed to operate in R1 and R2 zones as of Sept. 15, 2027
After more than two years of wrangling with the future of short-term rentals in Highlands, the town board of commissioners voted on Thursday night to amortize the use as part of a zoning amendment to the unified development ordinance.
The vote to put an end to STR’s in R1 and R2 residential zones was 4-1 with commissioner Jeff Weller the dissenter.
As part of the approved amendment, currently operating STR’s will be allowed to remain in operation until Sept. 15, 2027, at which time they will be shut down as a non-conforming use in R1 and R2 zoning districts.
Highlands becomes the first town in North Carolina to amortize short-term rentals.
Prior to the vote, commissioner Amy Patterson delivered an impassioned speech about why ridding the town of short-term rentals was a necessary move.
“We have residents of Highlands who have helped build this town into what it is today and they are no longer happy here – they’ve lost their sense of place,” Patterson said. “Our residents helped start the Highlands Biological Station, they helped build the library, they gave their time, money and effort to build Kelsey-Hutchinson Founders Park, and the list goes on and on. I know I’m not the only one on this board who has heard from our longtime residents that they aren’t happy. They should be able to live in their homes, in residential neighborhoods, without being directly next to a business.”
Patterson added that she didn’t want to see Highlands become overrun with short term rentals like has happened in other popular vacation spots.
“I’ve heard from a number of people who came to Highlands because the short-term rental people ran them out of Charleston, or ran them out of Clearwater, etc.,” Patterson said. “Highlands has been built on the backs of our residents and they want to be able to live in peace in their residential neighborhoods, and I don’t feel like that’s too much to ask.”
Prior to the vote to amortize STRs in R1 and R2 zones, mayor Pat Taylor asked for a resolution that the town would not take any private funds to support its legal defense of the amortization amendment. That motion passed 4-1 with commissioner Eric Pierson the dissenter.
Pierson asked the town’s legal counsel if there was any reason the town could not accept donations to help cover the legal fees associated with defending the amendment which he said, “is almost certainly going to wind up in court.”
Town attorney Bob Hagemann said the town can accept donations for any number of things, but he encouraged the board to consider the “optics” of taking money to fight for a UDO amendment in court.
Taylor agreed and compared the UDO amendment to a scenario where the town could possibly be incentivized to pass an amendment on behalf of a developer or a specific group in exchange for legal fee reimbursement.
“If we are going to do this as a town, and as a board, we need to be willing to take on the cost that comes from any forthcoming legal proceedings,” Taylor said. “If a developer came to us and asked us to make a UDO change, and offered to pay our legal fees related to that change, we wouldn’t do that. I don’t think we should take private money in this instance either.”
Despite the amendment vote being the only new business on the board’s agenda Thursday night, there was almost no crowd in attendance and there wasn’t a single public comment. The town hosted a public hearing on the UDO amendment earlier in the month that drew dozens of commenters and brought in hundreds of written comments from people on both sides of the STR debate.
With an amortization date of Sept. 15, 2027 in place, it means that STR operators will have had five years to recoup their investment prior to amortization. The town board approved a UDO amendment in Sept. 2022 that stopped new STRs from opening in R1 and R2 zones, but has allowed those grandfathered in to remain in operation.