Buncombe County planning board tables vote on short term rental text amendment - WLOS

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — Monday night, the Buncombe County planning board decided to table the short term rental text amendment for 100 days to allow for further study and evaluation.

Public comment lasted around 75 minutes, many happy with the planning board's decision to defer.

“We are in the middle of housing crisis and I don’t think that when the house is on fire, you take a moment to step outside and think about it some," MountainTrue's Chris Joyell said. "I think that we have to act and we have to act as soon as possible.”

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Chip Craig, whose company manages hundreds of long and short term rentals, said he is pro-regulation but not if it's restrictive enough to feel like a ban.

“Jobs are going to be lost, restaurants are going to go out of business, they’re going to have to raise property taxes to cover the loss in sales tax," he said. "It will have a tremendous impact on our economy.”

“I know that I got a flyer in the mail talking about a ban on short term rentals and from what I can see, there is no ban," Joyell said. "They’re going to grandfather in existing units, they’re going to allow for homestays, they’re even allowing for new units to be added in the right places, at the right time.”

In the proposal, STRs grandfathered in will have to, among other things, apply for a zoning permit and renew it every two years.

That concerns Kathryn Clark, who has owned and operated an STR with her husband for nearly a decade.

“It’s a family business; it’s my husband and I that clean it," she said. "We work full-time; we’re middle-class people and we’re not getting rich by any means. It’s just supplemental income so that we can afford to live here.”

And throughout the evening, the issue of affordable housing in relation to STRs continued to shine through.

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“I know that solving the issue with short term rentals is not going to solve the housing crisis in it of itself," Joyell said. "It is not a silver bullet, there is no silver bullet to solve our housing crisis, but it’s a really important step.”

“I think the affordable housing problem is more the rich, retired, relocated, that have driven up the costs more than anybody else," Clark said. "It’s not necessarily short-term rentals.”

The planning board is next scheduled to meet in May, but county staff told a News 13 crew it is possible they will not get together again until June in order to allow time to look over options.

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