The agenda for the Dec. 17 regular meeting of the Chaffee Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) includes a discussion of whether to consider a fee waiver for Chaffee County short term rentals. The agenda item follows the county’s research into the true cost of permitting and regulating short term rental (STR) business activity across the county. The county has allowed STRs, sometimes called vacation rentals by owner (VRBOs) and bed & breakfasts (B&Bs) since 2014.
Those costs include the personnel staff costs to directly manage the permitting and licensing of STRs and the cost of STR regulation such as building inspectors, planners and engineers, and an allocation of the County Administrator and department supervisor costs. According to the county, a first time Administrative Review Application takes just under three hours and forty-five minutes, but can take up to eight and a half hours on the high end, with the majority of the review time hours attributed to the building department and the planning and zoning department.
Image courtesy of Short Term Rentalz.
County costs to process a typical first time application run between $180 and more than $400. The average administrative cost devoted to regulating STRs totals $597 per week, and can run up to $1,221.
The administrative cost analysis includes the time required to run and manage the LODGINGRevs software (implemented in June 2019) but does not include the cost to license it. The county currently pays $14,400 per year for a software license from the company MUNIRevs.
The recent survey has revealed that the current Administrative STR fee of $500 “does not achieve 100 percent cost recovery”. To recoup the cost of administration, the county would need to charge a fee between $830 (the most typical cases), up to $1,740.
The full STR cost survey can be accessed here .
In other business, the county will hold a public hearing to consider a special event permit for the 2020 Seven Peaks Festival. It will also hear the introduction and reading of a proposed ordinance extending the current ban on retail marijuana establishments and consider an agreement for Cooperative Wild Fire Protection.
It will hold two public hearings related to Heritage Water Subdivision Exemptions; the first for the Moltz Heritage Water Subdivision and the second for the Loeffel Heritage Water Subdivision exemption.
The BoCC will end regular agenda items by considering a request from Nestlé Water North America, Inc. to set a public hearing on Tues. Jan 21 202 at 12:30 p.m. at the Buena Vista Community Center to consider an extension of its 1041 permit application.
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