Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I will officially call this meeting of our short-term rental ad hoc committee to order, and we'll open with the invocation. Either one of my colleagues care to provide the invocation for us this afternoon?

I'm feeling Christian today. I'll do it.

Thank you, Mr. Farmer.

Let's bow our heads. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for giving us this day to do work for our citizens. Please help us make the right decisions today that benefit the entire county in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen.

All right, our first order of business this afternoon is the approval of the minutes from our June 15th meeting.

Motion to approve.

All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. And they stand approved. All right. So we have, first of all, I want to thank staff and thank my committee members as well. I know over the course of the last month or so, we've had meetings with citizens. We've read emails. We know staff has also engaged with citizens, both owners and community members. What we have before us is a compilation of those efforts. So happy to have a conversation. And maybe to staff, I don't know if there's anything that you'd like to say before we start our deliberations. But again, appreciate all the work you guys have done on us to get us to this point.

I'd like to just say a couple of things. One, I want to just point out there are still some, I noticed today as I was going through, just some housekeeping errors where one section authorizes something that another section prohibits. And that's just, that's an error whenever I was piecing it back together that I still haven't fixed. So the ones I'm going to talk about right now are just errors. They're easy, but they're just things – I just want you to be aware of it, of not necessarily this exactly passing through because there are some minor, like, just reference – we ended up obviously – For the last one, the section numbers changed. I just found one that I did not catch, for instance, where it's a reference to the wrong section number because each one, as you know, it changed substantially in terms of length. And then a couple of other things that I just wanted to put out there for, hopefully, y'all's deliberation would be, you know... One right now is we have this age limit thing in there, but because of some concerns about what do we do about licenses and stuff, some of the language about how you would actually verify it is out. And from my perspective as a lawyer, when I'm looking at that, that seems like a restriction without any enforceability because what's the requirement then? It's like, yeah, I asked, is that it? I don't know how, you know, if you really, if 21 years is something you really care about, when I say care about, it's really something you want to target in this thing. I don't know how you divorce it from some sort of verification that, in place for the person responsible for making that verification, whatever that verification may be. Just a point from a standpoint of actual enforcement, if it ever gets down to it and you wanted to regulate the age thing. Parking, I think I've been looking at it a little wrong, and maybe that's that. The citation is supposed to go against. We don't have a citation. It should be against the parker. You know, like in the end, it's going to be that vehicle later on. There's a right to cure here, which arguably would come into play as to, you know, owner. But meanwhile, the car is parked and they say it's blocking a driveway. Now, that may otherwise violate some other ordinance-slash-statute out there, but if it's going to be in here, probably should change it to where the owner may be in Ohio by the time we do anything about it. If we don't, we should probably make it so that if it's there and somebody goes out there to enforce, whether it's a sheriff's deputy or whatever, they can issue a citation to whoever the title owner is and or whoever's using the vehicle and put it there. Like you would if anybody gets pulled over in another state or in this state from another state. They get a traffic ticket that says, hey, we got you here. This is it. And that would satisfy due process.

Anyway, that's just a couple of points that I wanted to get in there.

There may be a couple of other things that are worth discussion, but those are just some. Lower hanging fruit that, you know, maybe just what path the committee wants to take and push is kind of important there. It also, last one, designated agent. Right now we moved it to 24 hours of somebody. And it's just the whole idea of this is somebody who's here or close to here that can deal with, certain things that may occur at the property relatively soon in time. And I think there was some thought that having somebody who could respond in an hour was a little, or whatever we had was extreme. But 24 hours, I mean, you get on a plane and be somewhere else too. And I'm like, I don't know what that accomplishes either currently. So that's just another thing to just put out there.

Okay, thank you. Committee, thoughts, comments, questions?

I'm wondering if we should do something like a workshop or something with the attorney to go through this more tediously so that these kinds of things can be brought to light. I know that we usually don't have the time for that. And it's not really our role. But he's bringing up a lot of good points. And I used to refer to things similar to what he's bringing up in other places as unfunded mandates where we're told to do something, but then the money is not there to make it happen. So we have stuff in the ordinance. that doesn't have the teeth behind it to make things happen, so to speak. And I don't really know how to fix it, so I'm asking both of you if you think we should do something in addition to what we've already done before we thought about this.

I'm totally in favor of doing that. And if you want to make it like a stakeholders meeting where a bunch of Airbnb people come in and give us their two cents too, I think that'd be good. I know that's something that they've wanted in the past. I just have a few questions about nitpicky stuff in here.

Sure. So I'm happy to consider that there's a part of me that also says we're at a point, I mean, we've been taking input all along and there's a part of me that says, do we feel comfortable about where we are to move it forward with whatever changes we might bring here today to at least start the process so that we can have public hearings? I definitely hear what you're saying about a workshop, but I do feel like our staff and ourselves have gotten a lot of input that we've been trying to incorporate all along, and if there are a few areas that still need some work, I'm not sure. I worry that we've been at this a while, and I certainly don't want to rush the process, but I also don't want to get us stalled in a place where we're not moving anything forward either. But certainly, we'll have the committee. I'm obviously just one voice, but Mr. Farmer, if you've got some sections you want to talk about.

I've got a bunch of different little documents I've got to pull up. I've gotten bombarded all day today. There's a section I'm sorry I wasn't named, outlined, but it's Why is it that if you're only renting one room that the property owner has to be physically present?

Yeah. Yeah. Section 2.2. Section 2.2.

That came from the staff, like actual from experience. So I'll let them speak to it.

One thing that we've encountered is someone converting their house into essentially more of what we consider a boarding house, where it's room rental individually. So it's not me and my family renting the whole structure and staying for a few days and whatever. it's renting to six or seven different people. They might have converted the basement into a bedroom and they've got, it was already a four or five bedroom house. And so it's not so much as what it would be if you were going in with three friends and renting a dwelling and living as a one, you know, family unit. Uh, it was more of individual boarding house type, uh, almost a hotel. And so that's why we, we incorporated that aspect into it to be able to just make it remain as the single family dwelling. It essentially, that's what it's supposed to be is a dwelling.

Okay. Well, I just, you know, I kind of wonder with, you know, places like Judson mill, um, pretty hot topic today. Um, Judson Mill, I know they Airbnb several of their units in there, and I don't think the owner of Judson Mill lives in there. That's a... different case from most that we're talking about.

So that's an apartment building. Right. So that would be, I mean, each individual unit is its own separate dwelling unit. It would meet the definition of a dwelling unit. If you look, so a dwelling unit is one or more rooms with kitchen, sanitary facilities, used or designed as a place of residence as further identified by Greenwood County zoning ordinance and LDR. So essentially a dwelling unit is going to be one unit that has living, you know, bed, bath, kitchen. If the individual rooms don't have that, then essentially it's just you're renting out just that bedroom and you share all the remaining features of the house on a continuous basis. So it's not like four people have signed a six-month lease or a year lease and they've all went in together and we signed this lease saying that I'm going to live here for six months. It's a continuous turnover of individuals. So it turns more into that hotel or motel atmosphere. Where Judson is going to be, I've signed a lease to live there and within the walls of my unit, I have all the things that I need.

So can I just follow up on that too? So then if there's like a mother-in-law suite in an attached garage, that still would be fine? That doesn't...

If it's attached. So the way we treat attached versus detached is if it's an attached garage to a house and you've got a room over it that's got a bathroom in it and you want to rent that out or you want to have, we've got a couple ways to look at that. If your child is coming home from college and they want to stay up there, that's nothing more than a bedroom with a separate bathroom. Now, renting that out as a dwelling unit, you do not meet the building code requirements for being a dwelling unit because you do not have the kitchen aspect of it. So if you want to put that kitchen aspect in it, then it's going to become that dwelling. So then we're going to look at it as, okay, yes, that would be a short-term rental, even if it's attached versus detached. Gotcha.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rowe.

I've got more unless people want to interject.

I think we probably have some of the same, so I'll let you work through the list. All right.

I wish I just numbered these out. So what is considered a violation other than things related to the registration itself, parking issues, or repeated attempts to contact the owner or the agent about an ongoing issue?

Okay, well, what would be a violation as drafted might even take out that because the last thing you said is because, again, we've got a 24-hour report thing. So, you know, I mean, I guess we could add back in the language that says they've got to promptly return a call so that we hit. Because I just noticed the way it's drafted now, it kind of is, well, I called. and it rang, there's a working number, but nobody felt the need to answer it, then there's no violation. But violations include, one, not providing information that was required of them and then obtaining the short-term registration. A violation would also entail anyone who operated a short-term rental without the registration from the county, what we're calling the short-term rental registration. And another violation would be, you know, individually, yes, the parking in front of somebody's driveway. Now we just said block. Basically, it was moved to blocking egress and ingress to another property, you know. That's a violation, but I pointed out the infirmity there with regard to who should be getting the ticket kind of thing because, you know, the violator, too, whoever's parking shouldn't be parking there anyway. It's pretty obvious not to park in front of somebody's driveway, for instance. But that's it. And then let me think. What else is also...

It's kind of like section 13 on page... Caught up with that. What I'll have on page 10.

The... mean technically would be any of these section 9 operating standards aren't met that is you've read for you know to somebody who is 20 19 18 17 I mean that would be a violation here you This would be difficult to enforce, but you fail to provide the guest with the name and number of the designation. The things you're asking them to do affirmatively and they fail to do them, that would be a violation. Failing to annually re-up. Now, one that right now, this is civil infraction that is in there, is failing to provide the information necessary to DOR and or the county, depending on what the reporting mechanism is, for purposes of the accommodations, which kind of was one of the bigger things that started the discussion. That would also be it. Although, again... we're requiring proof that you've done whatever you're supposed to do with DOR, because DOR is not just sharing things with the county as a matter of course. I mean, they just have their own records. But that would also be it. And then, obviously, just misleading or lying on these application-type things. All of these would be infractions that would be – violations that would subject you potentially to the civil as well as at some point for things that could be cured over time and weren't to revocation of your registration.

Okay. So we're going to play the what if game a little bit. So if someone lives next to an Airbnb and on the Airbnb property a bear comes over and knocks down the trash, that neighbor gets really upset about it and they call us and they're complaining about it, would that count as an infraction?

There is nothing in this ordinance that would cover that.

Great.

As an infraction.

That's good. It's legit.

It's legit.

I don't want to be in the business of trying to chase that bear down. Yeah, I know.

I'm worried about the act of God slash act of nature defense to that anyway, but yes.

Right. One of the questions that we got asked was, how is this being handled? With long-term rentals, they understand that tenant rights in South Carolina make the process of dealing with complaints more difficult and also to remove liability from the landlord to a significant degree. If anything, neighbors should be more concerned about these nuisance long-term renters. We are concerned that the zoning authority seems to be given the latitude here make arbitrary determinations about health safety, which again could be based on only the neighbor's complaint. Does that zoning authority make these determinations of violation based on the existing Greenville County Business Registration Ordinance 4277, which lists numbers of potential violations for businesses in general?

That's a lot. So I'm going to go back to try to remember the beginning of that part, which had to do, remind me what the first part you said was. I'm sorry. Long term. Right. We do not, this question I asked of staff just to confirm, other than use restriction by zoning, that is where you can have a long term, like long term would be like. hotels like things um those are not regulated i will point out they're not also i mean we have a captive audience over there right it's not they're not going anywhere they're not this is not going to be you know so but the long-term rental we don't have any additional um regulation of them that although there's probably some state law stuff because I remember some stuff going on with that days in over by Congaree and all that stuff where we got to be a mess and some things shut them down somehow or got that changed but nothing in this ordinance does and we don't in the county currently have any other directed at a long-term rental type restriction ordinance where you register and do all these things um Some of the stuff you asked for dealt with – I should have taken notes. I'm trying to think. I lost my train of thought on the next one. But you're going to kill me. But go ahead and remind me what the next other stuff were.

You're good. I'm not going to kill you.

Metaphorically, I hope. I know. I know.

I metaphorically was not going to kill you either, just for the record. Let's see. Does the zoning authority... make determinations of violation based on the existing Greenville County Business Registration Ordinance 4277, which lists a number of potential violations for businesses in general.

This is something that's kind of out there. The reason why is, as you may or may not know, our business registration ordinance is not the model of perfect drafting. It's contradictory internally. It has been. for years, but also right now excludes enforcement as to commercial activities, commercial functions. And the question that's not fully answered here is there has been some school of thought that we treat these as residential and not commercial, yet our business registration defines commercial as offering a service profit which it's hard to say this isn't happening when I mean logically I mean you're offering your room is a and your facility in part or in whole if it's the whole thing for money so this is a transaction and whether or not in the question that I've struggled with throughout this thing is And then our business registration has another reason why suddenly it may or may not be applicable. We think it probably is, but we're not confident about that, by the way. But second about that is that is this something we can carve out? It's not commercial. And what would be the rationale that causes it from an equal protection standpoint? That is... normally equal protection we have to have a rational basis for treating something similar differently. Okay? And that's a short, short term. I don't want the public to run with that because I'm going to tell you it's an extraordinarily complex area. The law we spend like years on and still don't get it right because it's a difficult thing. But here, you know, we'd have to figure out a way to make short term rental to be avoiding the non- business registration type violation regulation as not commercial, per how that defines it. Can we come in here and just define short-term rental as non-commercial? I don't really know the answer to that sitting here today because I haven't figured it out yet. I mean, we could try it and see what happens, and then when somebody on whatever side of the stick decides to challenge it, we'll have to deal with that. But to answer your question, if it's commercial, then no, the business registration doesn't apply to it, and therefore all those things, the violations under that would lead to Enforcement or loss of registration, no, they would not apply. But if it is, then yes, but we could also modify it in here.

Well, then I'll ask one. So if a guest of one of these STRs is causing a nuisance and – they get codes or the cops or whatever to issue a noise violation, is that going on to the STR owner or is that going on to the actual perpetrator?

There is no noise-related violation in the confines of this ordinance right now. And the answer to that question is if it's somebody illicit, it would probably be, I think, and I don't have the business registration, I mean the noise ordinance in front of me right now. It would probably be the perpetrator. I don't think it would fall under that, but mainly because right now we've excluded commercial activity from it, so it's not like you go to the owner. But anyway, the point being is that I don't believe that it falls into the person making the noise. not necessarily the person providing the platform for the noise.

So we've absolved the STR owner of the nuisances that the guests are...

Well, do recall, though, that, like, if you, I mean, depending upon, there's other laws that aren't this ordinance and that are state laws that deal with people behaving certain ways. Now, probably the answer that would be thrown back out at me is, if that were the case, then, you know, where's the sheriff, where's this get, you know, where that line gets drawn on when those things come into play. But they do exist. I mean, you can get... Anybody who grew up here and went to a high school party has seen them broken up by the police and people getting in trouble and getting arrested by them. So it happens. So there's state laws against it. It's just nothing is targeted like in here the way, again, that we do it. And the question would be also go back to enforcement. And one of the things I'm going to quit. Bogart and this thing is that that really dovetails into a real issue, which is we can put words on paper, but eventually boots at the ground they actually have to do this thing. And what does that look like and what is the county's resources for doing that is another question, too. And I think that the staff has some things to say about that to provide you information if you want it.

Well, I'm guessing the answer is we don't actually have the staff that could enforce this should we run into a situation where there wasn't enough going on.

Well, I think it's more than just whether or not we have the staff or not. That does play into it. First off, in zoning, I've got one enforcement officer that covers all of the zoned areas of Greenwood County. But it's more of when the violations are occurring. So when these violations are occurring, I'm not going to say every time, but I would say probably the majority of it are going to be after hours that staff is here at the office. So we don't have the ability, like the sheriff's office does, of coming back out and doing any enforcement because that falls to noise ordinance and stuff falls into their purview. So that could be something that we would need to work through on how, you know, we would look at the enforcement because by the time we get there, we get the complaint the next day, we get it to somebody to go out, it's been 48 hours possibly, those people are gone and if we're not going to hold the platform or the person who owns the property liable, then how are we going to get the people that are not there any longer? So that's kind of a thing we've got to really think through on how to do that enforcement.

An 18-year-old can own a short-term rental but can't stay in one. What's the deal with that?

Well, because the concern that we heard expressed at some point, and it may have been, by the way, remember when we drafted the original thing, it wasn't intended as the ordinance. It was intended to capture a spectrum of different things that were said both up here and what had already been input into things. So it was the way too wide net cast just to get something started, right? So that was part of one of the things that one of you all said, that there was a concern about the age because of the – for lack of a better word, the party situation, I guess is what you call it. And I think at the time, if I was reading between the lines, although I was just told the age, would be that some higher age restriction as to the renter might, emphasize might, curtail that or help regulate that in some way. But that if I'm 18 or I'm an adult and I can own property, who are we to say you can't actually rent your property out? And again, that's not me speaking. I believe that was said. And so that was why the 18-year-old who could own dirt and do things with it There was no reason to stop them from doing anything with their dirt, but there was some rationale as to who was the identity of the renter and what their age might be vis-a-vis the things that y'all were concerned about or that were concerned about with noise, parties, and responsible renting of the property.

Um... The claim here is the county via this ordinance has no business dictating what type of structure can and cannot be used as a short-term rental infrastructure type is allowed under the LDRs or zoning and meets the standards of the International Residential Code. The draft ordinance should not attempt to override this, especially since many of these structures have already been approved for short-term rental use in the past and are widely approved around the world.

One thing I'll speak to with what you just said is I'm unaware of any short-term rental approval that's, I mean, that's the point of this committee. So the county hasn't been able, maybe it's been approved in the city or something like that. I can't speak to that. But as far as unincorporated Greenville County, there's been no mechanism to get a short-term approval because nothing existed. I know that the reason behind that language came from staff from a standpoint of People just throwing people into structures that have absolutely no permitting or anything and have all the things that are required to make them safe for that purpose. So I'll let staff speak to that, but I believe that that's what that language is trying to capture because it's not just – good actors who went ahead and got building officials out there and had maybe a non-traditional structure approved as a dwelling unit, which is what the requirement it would need to be, essentially, or part of a dwelling unit to be here, in here, versus, hey, I got this nifty container that I used to keep a bunch of debris in that's off a chassis of a trailer of an 18-wheeler. I'm going to just start renting it out to people. Which, by the way, was happening. I just was down in Dean Campbell's magistrate court. I happened to watch the case he has, and that's exactly what was going on. Somebody was renting out a storage container that had nothing else in it, and they were staying in the thing. But that was an eviction case, oddly enough. But it's happening, apparently, is what it made me think.

So what I'll also say is that, you know, Essentially, from a use standpoint, not so much thinking about the business registration standpoint. mind of zoning and building is that we're going to look at this as it's a house. It's, you know, regardless of how it's rented, you either rent it short term or long term or you live in an owner-occupied dwelling, it is a dwelling. And, you know, we always go back to the definition of a dwelling in the zoning ordinance, which says any building used exclusively for human habitation, including any permitted home occupation, but excluding hotels, motels, and rooming and boarding houses. So they would have to be built under the International Residential Code as being a dwelling and meet the requirements of whatever that structure may be. Now, we don't allow people to live in shipping containers. We don't allow you to go get a shipping container, bring it on your property and live in it. Now, what we do allow is if you hire an architect and the architect drafts plans and are submitted to Greenville County and we look at them, we review and make sure that these shipping containers are being converted into needing the International Residential Code, then yes, we can get you over that line of, no, you can't live in a shipping container, to yes, you can, because you've actually converted it into a dwelling that meets the International Residential Code. So, I mean, we've had people call us about... living in yurts. We had someone ask one time about using recycled tires as a building material to build their house. And so long as however you build your house meets the code, the International Residential Code, then you would be a dwelling. And however you rent that out would be determined, you know, we would look at these regulations if it's short-term or long-term. Does that help? I hope for that. Yeah.

Okay. I'm sorry. We're going to get in the weeds a little bit. So what about like RVs and boats?

So RVs are recreational vehicles, and in the zoned areas of Greenville County, they cannot be used for habitation. They are allowed to be used for temporary habitation while going on vacation and being recreational. You can have it on your property, you can store it on your property, you can plug it up to power to keep things charged, but that's the only utility that can be, you know, if you own one, That's the extent of what you can do. Now, if it's a weekend and you've got kids and small kids or whatever, they want to go play, yes, open it up, let them go play in the RV, have their friends spend the night. That's fine. But using it as a dwelling, we would not permit that in the zoned areas. In the unzoned areas, RVs are permitted as dwellings. You come and get an RV setup permit, and you're permitted to live in it forever and ever. But the zoned areas, you cannot. Got it.

And that points out probably a thing that would need to be split in this ordinance since we're covering both the zoned and unzoned areas. We're trying to catch her, be as consistent as possible, but that's an impossibility in Greenville County to some degree. And Mr. Henderson just pointed out one that's an infirmity in here that's fixable easily enough, whatever a definition that would allow RVs in the unzoned areas, provided they meet whatever the requirements are for that. But right now, it would exclude RV use as a short-term rental requirement. in the unzoned areas just as much as in the zone. Not that we think necessarily there's anything wrong with doing that legally if you still just wanted to do that, but just pointing out that that's one of those oddities of Greenville County zoning in the unzoned areas.

One of the asks was to provide an independent appeal. Let's say the zoning administrator can deny, suspend or revoke registration, but the administrative appeal is also decided by the zoning administrator. One of their recommendations is a denial suspension or revocation should be appealed to an independent hearing officer, board, or other county decision maker that did not make the original decision. That one, I guess. Sounds like BZA.

Before the zoning administrator explains how many things he does and how he really doesn't have time to do the things that have been thrown on him. I know he doesn't. But that's a different part of this. That's more or less, frankly, how the business registration enforcement goes. Sometimes it's been hired out, a third party will come in and oversee that. But, you know, otherwise it's supposed to go to the head of general services or Mr. Cornell. And so that was the idea there. The other idea there was recognizing that it would be nice if we had all kinds of things inside this county and be able to do them, but we're trying to balance giving somebody a review right Without having to go to court and spend all that money, first of all, and maybe get it straight because somebody has an explanation that fits within something that a reasonable mind could be changed on. But recognizing the real-world constraint of... how many people we have available to do the very thing we're asking them to do on appeal. So that's a very difficult balance in here to find yet another person without hiring them. I mean, if somebody has the budget and everybody to do that and all, but that's, you know, again, I don't think a hearing officer on appeals is going to be somebody that's gainfully qualified working i mean they're not working they're not going to be seven-and-a-half hours a day five days a week to do that job uh... that's something we could look at from another perspective i get understand the independence question there but also you know One point, I was like, well, I should look at who I dislike the most in the county right now and then point to them for y'all to go to as a joke, I'm just saying. But I'm just saying that I'm not sure where that goes. Frankly, we could find another person to be that reviewing person, but I don't know where that would go. Also, with somebody who had enough understanding of what this thing is doing in the day-to-day, that they could be an effective hearing officer anyway for that. So that's the struggle we have, and we don't have a very good solution for you that I can offer up from a, you know, You're aware we just run lean, and that helps a lot of ways, but this is one of the ways in which it becomes an impediment to some degree.

So the bottom line to all of this is the only thing that you can get dinged on is not registering and not being available in 24 hours. And what was the other thing? Parking. Parking.

Well, and, yeah, yeah. Right.

False information.

Yeah, I mean, yes. Which I will lump in with your registration as I am operating a rogue thing without a registration. I'm lumping that all into what I believe you meant as registration as a category. And, yes, that is correct. Those brought registration broader but not reaching things like the noise thing we talked about. not the Bayer thing necessarily, but other things that might follow into the parking thing, you know, has been watered back a little bit, a lot. So I don't know what else, you know. Yes, it doesn't, I mean, there's other conduct. I guess what I'm pointing at is like when you're talking about guest conduct and how it affects neighboring properties, I mean, I think that's where you're going a little bit with this, but in terms of what's missing and what's not, that would be the area that isn't. I think there's some thought that since we're introducing something so new as everything, that this is just a start, and at some point we can – revisit and add on as it goes along, that this committee maybe could be held together past just one year, that type of thing. But again, I'm not suggesting how to do it. I'm just saying I think that was some of the thoughts that were expressed.

I just haven't seen any language in what was proposed today that – would hold the property owner liable outside of not registering. It doesn't seem like anything the language is making the property owner liable for whatever his or her unruly guests are doing.

Well, I mean, the parking thing goes up to, I mean, that's what the designated agent thing is serving a dual purpose. The owner is responsible for all of the same conduct here. It's just a matter of the question being how do you reach the owner when the owner, there are some people who are here. Is there a neighboring piece of property they own or on their family plot or whatever? Or, you know, they're in the same community but just have other rentals around the same community. And there's some that are private equity groups or LLCs or, you know, things like that. And you have a double issue, which is... who's the natural warm body that you actually get the thing from versus, you know, the corporate shell that does it and what's the pursuit of that look like. But right now it's designed to – and, again, we can word it and make it more – direct so that it appears to be straight line for people on it that the owner whether they be an LLC or a person or private equity whatever would get they have to get ticketed in the way we're doing that and one of the reasons why criminal was taken off in addition to maybe being a little heavy-handed a lot of the stuff was it opened the door to us as a substituted kind of service type thing so that somebody is designated here and they when the owner and everybody registers they're going to have to also designate somebody as their person who can receive on their behalf service of process, service of a summons, service of thing, so we can get personal jurisdiction over that person whether they're from living in Alaska or whatever to pay the fines. Now, I will point out that civil fines, depending on how big the enterprise is. I don't know how rampant there is of like a PE that's buying up a bunch of stuff and has a bunch of properties. There's probably a diminishing cost of doing business where they're more liable to accept and pay the penalty without discontinuing the conduct versus the other. But that's why there's a revocation penalty as well. And that's the attempt anyway in the enforcement scheme of bringing them in. So that's still there.

I guess one of the analogies that I'll use, and I'll stop blabbing after this, I promise. Let's say Bob goes to City Arsenal, he passes a background check, and he kills somebody. Are we going to sue City Arsenal for selling him a gun? No. I yield.

So two things that I'm wondering that maybe run parallel to this too that you've mentioned. One, your concerns about our business registration ordinance. So would we be better served trying to parallel track that work with this as opposed to kind of pushing here and then fixing that on the back end. And then the same thing too, same with the noise ordinance. Because I think what we were saying last time too is that we wanted to rely on the other tools that we had to help support this particular ordinance. But if what you're saying is you've got concern about both of those as they relate to what we're saying here, Are there things that we need to shore up there? And I'm not sure, I mean, that's probably not our committee. So how does that work happen in relation to what we're doing here?

I've got ideas, but I would think that some of those ideas would probably be best handled in an executive session, too, because some of them have to do with actual how we would handle the litigation in the event that these changes were made and things like that. And so that would be something that I think would be, from my advice perspective, would be covered by the attorney-client privilege, which we'd waive in an open session. And I would advise against doing it that way. But, yes, I mean, there has been and there are thoughts about other ordinances that – touch on this as well as touch on other things that may or may not be something worthy of discussion and have come up periodically, as I understand it, over the years and then die back down for other reasons. Yes, but I think, and I hate doing that and saying, hey, I could tell you, but, you know, but not now. But I really do think that would be probably for that. And I do agree with you, too, although we can talk about it with this committee in an executive session. you know, that's going to have a spillover into other areas that involve council.

Right. All right. So I will also say, too, I hate that we, it's been the three of us for the last couple meetings, and I hate that our full committee also hasn't really had a chance to weigh in on this. And so I'm happy to entertain a motion to You know, we can hold it and keep it here in committee. I do think there's value in probably some additional work, especially if we do need an executive session that we would want to notice. But also open to other ideas if there's another path forward that you all see for this.

Madam Chair, I'll move to hold as you stated.

All right. Motion to hold on the floor. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All right. We will hold this. I don't know, staff, I'll work with you on finding a date. I want to get a better sense of what the other moving parts to these other two ordinances are and certainly want to reach out to our other colleagues to make sure that we, although I feel like we gave plenty of notice, but want to make sure that we have a full complement of committee members with us as we continue to deliberate. these efforts. So just one more item of business this afternoon.

I should do adjourn.

All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. We'll stand adjourned.