A lengthy public hearing on Chaffee County’s short term rental (STR) fees ended happily for short term rental owners on June 9, when Chaffee County Commissioners agreed to adjust the county’s fees for unincorporated county short term rental businesses. The policy decision balances the concerns of STR businesses battered by the economy and STR neighbors asking the county to protect their neighborhoods.
Cleaning checklist or short term rentals
The new fee (licensing) structure will be put into a resolution for review at the July 7 Commissioners meeting. The new “fair and equal” fees: $250 for the application, and a $150 annual renewal. If the structure is new and an inspection of the septic is required, or the STR results from a change of use, then an additional $100 fee will be charged.
The resolution came after nearly three hours of debate and public input about licensing, in a virtual meeting that included more than 50 attendees. After a variety of proposed structures, the vote was two to one; with Commissioners Keith Baker and Rusty Granzella voting for the new fee, and Chair Greg Felt voting against the licensing structure.
Felt clarified his vote, saying “I’m going to vote against it – 60 percent of our property owners have been complying. I’d rather stick with the $500 [application fee] and go down to just a $100 renewal fee.” He explained his concern over the licenses. “It’s to protect our visitors, protect our neighbors, not so much about the visitors while they are there. The intent was to create some minimum standards and a level playing field, not to manage to the lowest common denominator.”
“I go to the Land Use Code, yes the county has costs, but any small business in America has costs,” said Granzella. “We’re here to consider STR fees and renewal fees…I do feel that the government [is not here] to make money unless it does it’s an enterprise zone.”
The county has come under intense criticism over the past several months as it began to implement a fee structure to cover the cost of tracking short term rentals. Its timing didn’t help the acceptance of the fees. It notified STRs to register in late 2019. The county had already extended the inaugural $500 fee to include 2020 and sent reminder notices that payments were due when the coronavirus pandemic known as COVID-19 hit and the Governor issued “Stay-at-Home” orders.
“The whole reason this program got implemented was we were getting a lot of complaints from neighbors [of STRs],” said Chaffee County Attorney Jennifer Davis. “We were continuing to get concerns and there is a cost to the county for not doing the inspections, for not responding to public concern.”
As late as 2018, Chaffee County had no processes for monitoring the short term rentals operating in the county. Nor did it have any idea how many short term rentals were operating in the unincorporated areas of the county.
So it began by hiring the short term rental tracking firm RPI, based near Durango, to find out how many STRs it had. Then it did a fee analysis to assess what it would take in county staff time to run a licensing program.
As of this morning, unincorporated Chaffee County had 246 “Actively Advertised Properties”, mostly promoted via VRBO and Airbnb marketing, with 157 STR properties that have had licenses issued, renewed, or are in the process. That leaves around 90 that have yet to notify the county of their intent.
According to the county, the $500 application fee it came up with and implemented beginning in Sept. 2019 did not fully cover its projected costs. Those costs include the software program to license and manage them, staff time, and safety inspections. Those inspections are primarily for fire safety, including smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors and having egress exits.
Even at the lower proposed rate, some STR owners protested, many of them pointing out that the county’s fees were higher than the municipal STR fees:
Area Application Renewal
County $500 $500
Salida 470 270
Poncha 100 50
Buena Vista 120 70
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the reopening variance filed on behalf of STRs by the county, Chaffee County now has a requirement that every STR is required to get a certificate of safety from public health. “The county and public health are working with short term rentals to make sure they are aware of the processes,” said Asst. County Attorney Daniel Tom. “We looked at other counties – some have a $200 fee, some $1,000 fee, so right now staff is recommending that our fees stay the same at $500. We could drop renewal rates. RPI didn’t look at renewals, so staff thinks a certain percentage of this say at $300 – we’ll still be at a loss, but we’d capture some of our costs.
Obviously short term rentals collecting that lodging tax are bringing in a significant amount of money to the county,” said Dan Jones during public comment. “In comparison to other counties in the state, our fees are exorbitant.”
“I would also add that if many STR operators choose to go long-term rental, the county then loses occupancy tax from those sources of revenue,” said Meghan Schoonover. “Please consider that when deciding if it is worth the dollar amount of the renewal fee to lose the county revenue.”
“This is establishing the fees, the ideas about zoning impacts and land use impacts, some of those concerns, are separate discussions that might be entertained at a later date,” said Commissioner Baker. “We don’t want to be enforcing HOA covenants, but that’s a consideration.”
Featured image courtesy of Colorado Vacation Rentals
This was another article not posted correctly on Facebook. Only the tile no article attached?! Same with the Part 3 militia story.
Thank you Shann, There is an issue with Facebook dropping links at the moment. We will go back in and add the links manually.