Norris Council holding workshop on short-term rental implementation
The Norris City Council on Monday will take the next step towards implementing a short-term residential rental ordinance for the city with a workshop at 5:30 p.m. in which councilmembers will work on writing a final version for passage.
A proposed ordinance that’s already up for viewing on the city’s website most certainly will get some tweaking as the council tries to incorporate some restrictions residents and council members have suggested.
As it’s now written, the proposed ordinance would allow the short-term rentals in certain zones – including R-1 – after the property owner obtains a city permit, pays a $100 annual fee, appoints a property manager, agrees to collect hotel/motel and sales taxes on rentals, and complies with city health and safety regulations.
During a Jan. 8 town hall-style meeting, council members and some of the citizens who spoke suggested making the ordinance stricter, including limiting the number of rental properties in densely populated neighborhoods.
Unlike the recent town hall meeting, the council workshop next Monday will be focused on writing the ordinance rather than hearing from residents, Mayor Chris Mitchell said.
“The format of this workshop will be the council writing/editing the ordinance while the public watches,” he said in an email.
“I expect each council person will bring proposed edits for consideration based on their own research and public comments,” Mitchell said. “I do expect the current proposed, already restrictive ordinance to be edited significantly during the process; I am encouraging the result to be even more restrictive.”
The mayor had a couple of concerns he said he would like to see addressed by the ordinance that are not in the current draft.
“In particular, I will be encouraging additional controls that prevent the renting of recreational vehicles in homeowners’ yards/driveways and require any participating home to pass current building code on bedroom egress,” Mitchell said.
What’s next? The city will send the proposed ordinance to the University of Tennessee’s Municipal Technical Advisory Services unit for an opinion on compliance with state laws.
Then the proposed ordinance will be brought back to the council.
“The resulting edited ordinance will then be discussed at the February City Council meeting, where we will engage the public again for comment,” Mitchell said.
The ordinance must be passed on two readings, with a public hearing in between the two.
Allowing the Airbnb-style short-term housing rentals in Norris might not be good for the community, many of those attending the town hall meeting seemed to agree.
Most who spoke at the meeting said they believe allowing such rentals would be detrimental to life in Norris, and would negatively affect property values.
Short-term rentals are defined by Tennessee law as being overnight accommodations, other than hotel and bed-and-breakfast lodgings, of at least one night, but no longer than 30 nights. They have become popular worldwide through such online services as Airbnb and Vrbo (Vacation Rental by Owner).
The draft ordinance, submitted to the City Council in October by the Norris Planning Commission, would regulate such rentals, including imposing allowable taxes on them and putting some limits on them.
Stephanie Wells, Anderson County’s director of tourism, told the group during the town hall meeting that there already are about 80 listed short-term rental properties in the county, among about 25,000 residences.
“We have seen them in Norris,” she said. “This is happening. And your ordinance is your best chance of regulating it.”
During the October council meeting, the council voted to table the measure for further study after Mitchell and Councilman Will Grinder expressed opposite views on it. Grinder told fellow council members that he believed the proposed ordinance was too strict, while Mitchell said he felt it was too lenient.
The current draft ordinance can be found online at cityofnorris.com.
