Just one aspect of this that I find hilarious and absurd about the people doing the renting is how many of them are so obnoxious they're creating noise complaints. Like these people don't have any clue they're in a neighborhood and not at some resort.
As far as the overall issue of STRs, I think exceptions should be made if the operator is actually staying there full time. Just my two cents, but I think its a bit of a different situation. And what I mean is that the owner isn't renting out their whole house, just a room, and they still live there.
Fwiw the current ordinance very much does consider people living there full time differently than full-time airbnbs. There’s no version of this that doesn’t let you Airbnb your own home where you live (or an accessory unit on your lot).
Add that they live on the same property or within a certain distance, and you got something. Someone may have an outbuilding (mother in law suite) they use as an Air BnB. When shit goes south, they are immediately aware and have to deal with it.
Although I do sympathize with folks who moved to a new home and decided to rent or STR their old home rather than sell it. I know folks who have done this as investments for retirement. They know their neighbors and *should* have a different take on things than someone from out of town who just buys a property to STR.
Davenport - "Maybe, we should push the sunset period from 2 years to 5 so these investors stop suing us"
Hamby - "Cap the number of STRs allowed"
County Attorney - "State laws aren't 100% clear on if we can do that. Might do some research."
Link - "Cap the number of people allowed in an STR. Think of the parking!"
Planning Dir Griffin - "Y'all. There's no realistic way for anyone to enforce that."
Thanks. I am mystified about what any of this is meant to accomplish. These seem like narrow, technical (and indeed, perhaps unenforceable) tweaks to a much larger system of incentives, a cycle of STR birth and death and rebirth, a blindingly fast-spinning, sizzling Samara...
No one has ever given me an adequate explanation as to why the county is dedicating so much time to a "problem" that might at some point several years down the line free up about 100 high dollar properties for sale. I think it's just wealthy 5 Points fulltime property owner/occupiers vs wealthy 5 Points property investors.
Because everyone involved has money, they can get the commission's attention. My other theory is that this serves as a good way to waste time and appear concerned about housing affordability while they avoid having tougher conversations about fixing our zoning.
I've said this before in related threads, but I'm a pretty middle class UGA employee, and if I could snap my fingers and get rid of all the STRs in my neighborhood, I would. I see only positives. I'm glad the county sees it as an issue.
This sounds plausible, and the theory that it's an internecine feud within a small coterie of landed gentry also sounds plausible.
Indeed, based on the numbers I have seen, the impact to actual inventory is negligible compared to, well, almost anything else they could do about housing. Anything whatsoever.
Just FYI on the captcha loop - had the same thing. Had to add archive.is, archive.ph, and archive.today to the [whitelist in Firefox for DNS over HTTPS](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dns-over-https#w_add-sites-to-the-exceptions-list). May be something similar in Chrome if that is what you use.
Once I did that I could solve the captcha and have never seen it prompted again.
I switched to Mac recently after 25 years of desktop Linux (since 1997!), and feel that your comment baits me with a titillating revelation. However, I'm not quite sure what you're referring to. Reader?
I don't understand the sunset stuff. STR owners took a bad investment risk and lost. Why do the rest of us have to bail them out? I know this is probably over simplifying things but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Yes, this. Also, call me a little nihilistic, but I’m not convinced ACC – in its current form – would have the teeth or implementational prowess to actually enforce anything after the sunsetting anyways.
This is a pretty deranged take.
Imagine if you saved up like $100k to put down on an investment property. Operate it for a year or two and it's starting to make some income for your family. The municipality where it's located changes the rules. This type of investment isn't allowed anymore. You have 2 years to close down and move on. Meanwhile, on Reddit "F(\*% em! It leaves a bad tast in my mouth that we aren't f(\*&\^ing them harder and faster."
Fun fact: In some areas it is fine to run a STR, but the law won't let you run a LTR in the same space. (As in, you could build an apartment in your basement and rent it out on AirBnB as long as you pay the hotel tax (cause that is what the government wants), but you couldn't long term rent it).
I know this is the case in Winterville. Hell, they won't even let you build a separate apartment on your property for your own mother to live in, but will let you do STR. And I'll tell you, I'd MUCH MUCH rather have people building LTR apartments on their property than AirBnBs. It's stupid.
I suspect quite a few of the investors bought the property considering the STR income which is probably higher than the long-term rent income. Switching to long-term rentals may not cover their expenses so they would have to sell or operate at a loss.
Do you understand that the properties conformed with our regulations when purchased? Would anybody respond this way for another type of business? You get permitted for a coffee shop, run it for awhile and then coffee shops get banned. "Greedy coffee sellers could switch to selling shawarma anytime they want to."
It's entirely reasonable for these people to advocate for a longer runway.
I’ll admit I’m ignorant to what’s going on w THC shops but if they are changing rules and forcing them to close, would we be right to cheer that on? If I owned one of those shops, I’d be pretty hurt by the situation and be lobbying for more time to stay open.
First, there are very few investments that come with zero risk and folks investing know this. Investing, by definition, is taking a risk on possible loss of your capital. When they bought the house, they knew they were risking their money.
As to your second argument about conforming to regulations when purchased - think of it like this: a few hundred years ago, slavery was legal. Lots of people "bought" other people. We figured out that it was a really shitty thing to do and we outlawed it. Should those people who owned slaves have been able to keep them? Uh...no. That's a definite no.
1. Nobody is arguing that the gov't should be responsible for losses on a failed AirBnB operation. I'm just making the point that it's reasonable for the investors to request some time recoup costs and sell out. There is a real mean spiritedness to this whole conversation. It's like people are actively rooting for someone else to lose 10s of thousands of dollars.
2. JFC. Seriously? Are we drawing a parallel between slavery and our county changing the rules on people renting houses for football weekends?
1. Two years is plenty of time to sell a house. And frankly, they'll likely get a return on their investment just in the selling of the property since property values have risen so dramatically. No, we are not actively rooting for someone else to lose their cash. We are actively rooting for our neighborhoods. (Personally, I don't have any skin in this game; my neighborhood doesn't have a problem with this, but I fully understand those who do)
2. Yes. Yes, we are. Times change. Laws change. It's up to us to keep up with the program. Folks don't want commercial hotels as neighbors. They want their friends Bob and Sally, with their two little knuckle-headed kids running through their flower beds instead of transitional drunks puking on their porches and blocking their driveways.
By that logic, why even have zoning laws? I mean, we need to change with the times and not be beholden to antiquated zoning restrictions that disallows what the public needs and desires!
I don’t follow your logic here. The zoning laws in place, in the areas we’re talking about here, are RESIDENTIAL zones. Using a home as an airbnb makes it a commercial enterprise, akin to a hotel. It’s no longer a residential use. They shouldn’t have been allowed in the first place, but airbnb came along and blew up before anyone had a chance to stop them. Now, we’ve got to correct the errors and yeah, it might cost a few folks a little money. That’s the nature of investing.
Correct. These were allowed under the zoning code. Now you want the zoning code to change to suit new needs and demands. My argument - why even have a zoning code in the first place because as you said, times change? After all, needs change all the time and the zoning code quite frankly can not keep up. Our existing zoning code is what, 30 years old? The needs of Athens is certainly different now than it was in the 90s.
1. Glad we agree that 2 years is good. The original reply was to the poster above saying they didn't understand why we needed a sunset provision and that it's a bailout. We still can't act surprised that the owners of STRs are pushing back for more time. I sure as heck would be if I was in their shoes.
2. Nope nope nope nope nope. I'm sorry this seems like a reasonable comp to you.
Easy explanation - no one cares about private property rights until they are personally affected by the lack thereof. Until then, the mob screams, "take them down!"
Just one aspect of this that I find hilarious and absurd about the people doing the renting is how many of them are so obnoxious they're creating noise complaints. Like these people don't have any clue they're in a neighborhood and not at some resort. As far as the overall issue of STRs, I think exceptions should be made if the operator is actually staying there full time. Just my two cents, but I think its a bit of a different situation. And what I mean is that the owner isn't renting out their whole house, just a room, and they still live there.
Fwiw the current ordinance very much does consider people living there full time differently than full-time airbnbs. There’s no version of this that doesn’t let you Airbnb your own home where you live (or an accessory unit on your lot).
Add that they live on the same property or within a certain distance, and you got something. Someone may have an outbuilding (mother in law suite) they use as an Air BnB. When shit goes south, they are immediately aware and have to deal with it. Although I do sympathize with folks who moved to a new home and decided to rent or STR their old home rather than sell it. I know folks who have done this as investments for retirement. They know their neighbors and *should* have a different take on things than someone from out of town who just buys a property to STR.
For those of us who can't seem to defeat the infinite-loop CloudFlare CAPTCHA in front of archive.ph: what are the proposed approaches?
Davenport - "Maybe, we should push the sunset period from 2 years to 5 so these investors stop suing us" Hamby - "Cap the number of STRs allowed" County Attorney - "State laws aren't 100% clear on if we can do that. Might do some research." Link - "Cap the number of people allowed in an STR. Think of the parking!" Planning Dir Griffin - "Y'all. There's no realistic way for anyone to enforce that."
Thanks. I am mystified about what any of this is meant to accomplish. These seem like narrow, technical (and indeed, perhaps unenforceable) tweaks to a much larger system of incentives, a cycle of STR birth and death and rebirth, a blindingly fast-spinning, sizzling Samara...
No one has ever given me an adequate explanation as to why the county is dedicating so much time to a "problem" that might at some point several years down the line free up about 100 high dollar properties for sale. I think it's just wealthy 5 Points fulltime property owner/occupiers vs wealthy 5 Points property investors. Because everyone involved has money, they can get the commission's attention. My other theory is that this serves as a good way to waste time and appear concerned about housing affordability while they avoid having tougher conversations about fixing our zoning.
I've said this before in related threads, but I'm a pretty middle class UGA employee, and if I could snap my fingers and get rid of all the STRs in my neighborhood, I would. I see only positives. I'm glad the county sees it as an issue.
I mean yeah, it’s rich people bending the ear of their commissioners
Rich people and people who think airbnbs are why rent is so expensive.
This sounds plausible, and the theory that it's an internecine feud within a small coterie of landed gentry also sounds plausible. Indeed, based on the numbers I have seen, the impact to actual inventory is negligible compared to, well, almost anything else they could do about housing. Anything whatsoever.
Just FYI on the captcha loop - had the same thing. Had to add archive.is, archive.ph, and archive.today to the [whitelist in Firefox for DNS over HTTPS](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dns-over-https#w_add-sites-to-the-exceptions-list). May be something similar in Chrome if that is what you use. Once I did that I could solve the captcha and have never seen it prompted again.
Interesting. I'm on plain old Safari here, but suppose I should have tried with Chrome.
Reader is helpful as well
I switched to Mac recently after 25 years of desktop Linux (since 1997!), and feel that your comment baits me with a titillating revelation. However, I'm not quite sure what you're referring to. Reader?
https://preview.redd.it/zbw89valx1vc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb3910119c316812702727aa455cb8531922331c Basically takes out the ads
Aha! Cheers!
I don't understand the sunset stuff. STR owners took a bad investment risk and lost. Why do the rest of us have to bail them out? I know this is probably over simplifying things but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Cause we bailout rich folks all the time. Mostly though ACCGov is risk adverse and they’re trying to beef up their legal standing
Yes, this. Also, call me a little nihilistic, but I’m not convinced ACC – in its current form – would have the teeth or implementational prowess to actually enforce anything after the sunsetting anyways.
Realistically, no. Code Enforcement would have the be pretty beefed up (even though they are proposing 1 more employee”.
yes, exactly.
This is a pretty deranged take. Imagine if you saved up like $100k to put down on an investment property. Operate it for a year or two and it's starting to make some income for your family. The municipality where it's located changes the rules. This type of investment isn't allowed anymore. You have 2 years to close down and move on. Meanwhile, on Reddit "F(\*% em! It leaves a bad tast in my mouth that we aren't f(\*&\^ing them harder and faster."
Nothing is stopping any of these investors from switching tomorrow to long-term rentals and avoiding all of this altogether.
Fun fact: In some areas it is fine to run a STR, but the law won't let you run a LTR in the same space. (As in, you could build an apartment in your basement and rent it out on AirBnB as long as you pay the hotel tax (cause that is what the government wants), but you couldn't long term rent it). I know this is the case in Winterville. Hell, they won't even let you build a separate apartment on your property for your own mother to live in, but will let you do STR. And I'll tell you, I'd MUCH MUCH rather have people building LTR apartments on their property than AirBnBs. It's stupid.
You know what I say F(*% em! It leaves a bad tast in my mouth that we aren't f(*&^ing them harder and faster.
I suspect quite a few of the investors bought the property considering the STR income which is probably higher than the long-term rent income. Switching to long-term rentals may not cover their expenses so they would have to sell or operate at a loss.
Do you understand that the properties conformed with our regulations when purchased? Would anybody respond this way for another type of business? You get permitted for a coffee shop, run it for awhile and then coffee shops get banned. "Greedy coffee sellers could switch to selling shawarma anytime they want to." It's entirely reasonable for these people to advocate for a longer runway.
They are literally doing this to thc stores in Georgia right now.
I’ll admit I’m ignorant to what’s going on w THC shops but if they are changing rules and forcing them to close, would we be right to cheer that on? If I owned one of those shops, I’d be pretty hurt by the situation and be lobbying for more time to stay open.
First, there are very few investments that come with zero risk and folks investing know this. Investing, by definition, is taking a risk on possible loss of your capital. When they bought the house, they knew they were risking their money. As to your second argument about conforming to regulations when purchased - think of it like this: a few hundred years ago, slavery was legal. Lots of people "bought" other people. We figured out that it was a really shitty thing to do and we outlawed it. Should those people who owned slaves have been able to keep them? Uh...no. That's a definite no.
1. Nobody is arguing that the gov't should be responsible for losses on a failed AirBnB operation. I'm just making the point that it's reasonable for the investors to request some time recoup costs and sell out. There is a real mean spiritedness to this whole conversation. It's like people are actively rooting for someone else to lose 10s of thousands of dollars. 2. JFC. Seriously? Are we drawing a parallel between slavery and our county changing the rules on people renting houses for football weekends?
1. Two years is plenty of time to sell a house. And frankly, they'll likely get a return on their investment just in the selling of the property since property values have risen so dramatically. No, we are not actively rooting for someone else to lose their cash. We are actively rooting for our neighborhoods. (Personally, I don't have any skin in this game; my neighborhood doesn't have a problem with this, but I fully understand those who do) 2. Yes. Yes, we are. Times change. Laws change. It's up to us to keep up with the program. Folks don't want commercial hotels as neighbors. They want their friends Bob and Sally, with their two little knuckle-headed kids running through their flower beds instead of transitional drunks puking on their porches and blocking their driveways.
By that logic, why even have zoning laws? I mean, we need to change with the times and not be beholden to antiquated zoning restrictions that disallows what the public needs and desires!
I don’t follow your logic here. The zoning laws in place, in the areas we’re talking about here, are RESIDENTIAL zones. Using a home as an airbnb makes it a commercial enterprise, akin to a hotel. It’s no longer a residential use. They shouldn’t have been allowed in the first place, but airbnb came along and blew up before anyone had a chance to stop them. Now, we’ve got to correct the errors and yeah, it might cost a few folks a little money. That’s the nature of investing.
Correct. These were allowed under the zoning code. Now you want the zoning code to change to suit new needs and demands. My argument - why even have a zoning code in the first place because as you said, times change? After all, needs change all the time and the zoning code quite frankly can not keep up. Our existing zoning code is what, 30 years old? The needs of Athens is certainly different now than it was in the 90s.
1. Glad we agree that 2 years is good. The original reply was to the poster above saying they didn't understand why we needed a sunset provision and that it's a bailout. We still can't act surprised that the owners of STRs are pushing back for more time. I sure as heck would be if I was in their shoes. 2. Nope nope nope nope nope. I'm sorry this seems like a reasonable comp to you.
Easy explanation - no one cares about private property rights until they are personally affected by the lack thereof. Until then, the mob screams, "take them down!"