City Council - Regular Meeting

We're from a couple of city council meetings we had back in the late winter, early spring. Where there were some lingering questions and information that needed to make sure whatever decision that city council makes in the end is the best that we have for the city. So, tonight. How we're going to work this is we're going to have a little presentation from Nick armor of the zoning officer to who's our short term rental supervisor. We do have over here Patricia Reynolds from Planning, Theresa Crean, Resiliency and Sustainability, and our Deputy City Manager Mike Carrillo are available for questions. As we go through these sections, the City Council here will answer or ask some questions as needed, and at the end of the presentation, then we'll open up for public comment and questions, okay? So we'll start off, Mr. Armour, you wanna start off, please?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So just to recap, we had a resolution that was passed. It was Resolution 2035-88, so near the end of last year, that requested staff bring some ordinance changes around short-term rentals in the City. We had a first read of some suggested ordinances at the March 4th Council meeting, and then at the subsequent meeting on March 11th, there was a motion to continue and to request a workshop. So that's why we are here tonight. So at first, you know, we're looking at this kind of as an educational opportunity here for everyone involved that we have a lot of different types of rentals in the city of Newport. So just going through those, we have long-term rentals that are rentals of more than nine months are considered long-term. These property owners are not required to register with the city and must comply with the minimum housing standards. And these make up approximately 41% of our resident housing stock in the city. The next kind of tier is what we refer to oftentimes as seasonal rentals. These are one to nine month rentals. So anything greater than thirty days, but not greater than nine months. They have to file what's called a rental dwelling application. And again, these were oftentimes referred to as seasonal rentals, and were put in place many years back, primarily around the kind of party houses that we have in the city. Those are required to register with the city, and we have approximately 257 of those registered.

Then we get into the short-term categories.

So under our zoning code, under the definitions, these are called guest facilities, and they're broken up into four different categories. So we have transient guest facilities, which are commonly referred to as hotels or bed and breakfasts or inns. Then we have vacation guest facilities that's oftentimes used interchangeably with timeshare properties. That has to be a property with 10 or more units that can be rented on a short-term basis. They can include kitchens in them, which is different than in hotel rooms. They're not allowed to have individual kitchens. We have five properties that are technically called vacation guest facilities within the city. Then we have historic guest houses. These are primarily bed and breakfast and inns, but they have to be in a nationally registered historic property. But they can contain up to 18 units within them. And then the last category is called guest houses. So these are oftentimes interchangeably used with the term Airbnb or short term rentals, as many people think of them. The very last category we have is a home occupation for guest renting up to two bedrooms on a short-term basis, but it must be within an owner-occupied dwelling as a primary dwelling. And while the owner is actually present on the property, they can't just leave for the weekend and rent their house. It has to be while they're there. Are there any questions on?

Do you want to just touch on with a home occupation, for instance, that could be any occupied home in the city.

So again, it has to be owner-occupied primary residence. Only one of those types of uses can occur on a property. So if you have a three-unit building, only one of the owners within that could do a home occupation to rent up to two bedrooms. This was put in place to help people offset their mortgage on their house and be able to rent a couple bedrooms while they're not using them within that.

They have a two-family house. They have to be living in the unit that they're renting out.

Correct. And then a guest house, which we're talking about as a full unit of house, short-term rental, cannot be in a residential zone.

Correct. We'll get into that.

Okay. I just want to make sure that we're – does that clarity –

All right, so I just wanted to briefly touch on state regulations around short-term rentals. The state of Rhode Island requires an annual registration for short-term rentals. Airbnb requires that all the state registration numbers are posted on their advertisements. And that state registration number has actually allowed us to track down some short-term rental operators within Newport that were not registered with the city. I think there was just confusion with some of those people that they didn't realize they needed to register both with the state and with the city. The state, unfortunately, does not regulate much beyond someone just registering and applying for a short-term rental. They don't look at the number of bedrooms, the number of guests in a bedroom, the zoning district that they occur in, parking requirements. They don't do any property inspections or anything like that. So that's why we take on the effort of having people register here and doing those inspections and checks for zoning district compliance, parking requirements, manager requirements, things like that. Sorry, this slide's a little compact here. So our current ordinance is for guest houses. I just want to go through where they're allowed. Mayor Holder referenced that they are not allowed in residential zones. So there's no non-owner occupied short-term rentals within residential districts, except for ones that existed and were approved prior to the zoning change that occurred in 2022 when this prohibition went into place. So those are referred to as a grandfathered property as long as they've maintained their active registration with the city and have not abandoned that use. In the general business and waterfront business zones, guest houses are allowed by right, but must meet the parking standards of the district. And in the limited business, guest houses are permitted through a special use permit process, which is approved through the zoning board. That also has to provide parking and requires an on-site manager, so someone that actually lives on the property to manage the other unit or units that's being used for short-term rental. And then again, home occupations are renting of up to two bedrooms in an owner-occupied dwelling. That's permitted in any district that allows residential uses. So as long as it's an owner-occupied dwelling, that can have up to two bedrooms for home occupation. It has to be the principal residence. It must provide the parking for those additional bedrooms for the guest use. And they do have to register. It's the same registration process for a full guest house use. Um, just wanted to briefly touch on the previously proposed changes. So, in 2024, the council had passed a resolution to, uh, ban short term rentals entirely, uh, to switch them to not permitted in the, uh, permitted uses section from the LB water from business and general business zone. There was some push back at that time and some threats of legal action. And counselor comes up, had requested solicitor input and that effectively died. um late 2025 we had this new resolution and in 2026 we had the ordinances that were put forward that had first passage and then at the second uh read there was a request for a workshop So, for the process of applying for short term rental, um, all guest house applications are submitted digitally through the system, which was a system that was approved by the city council, which is allows us to do online registration. It allows us to. uh track all short-term rentals gov os also provides an enforcement assistance by scanning all of the short-term rental websites the common ones at least and checks advertisements frost references them with the approved addresses and allows us to kind of identify any properties that are not in compliance right now Then short-term rentals are reviewed by zoning for clients with the zoning district that they're in, the parking requirements, manager's requirements. And then they are looked at by the building and fire departments for certain health and safety requirements there. Again, that starts with zoning because if it's not going to pass zoning, it's not going to. For properties that can't meet one of the zoning requirements, a variance can be submitted through the zoning board, and we will give a little bit of the data on that one later. So for some basic numbers on short-term rentals, transient guest facilities and historic guest houses. So again, these are like hotels, bed and breakfasts, and inns. We have 62 registered hotels, inns, and bed and breakfasts. And that comes with a $1,000 yearly registration fee. And this encompasses everyone from a six-bedroom transient guest facility or historic guest house all the way up to the Marriott that has over 300 units. Then again, on the vacation guest facilities or timeshares, we have technically five properties encompassing eight registered timeshare properties that have 342 units. Those also come with just $1,000 yearly registration per property that's operating those. Guest houses, we have currently 240 registered guest houses, and these are the ones that are the full house that's being used, up to five bedrooms of that property. They have $1,000 registration fee per unit. And for home occupations, we currently have 94 registered home occupations. Those have a $500 yearly registration fee. And again, we check that they are not registering more than two bedrooms, that they actually have two bedrooms to register, that they have the primary resident that lives there year-round. So in total for 2026, we've had 404 registered guest houses, francing guest facilities, vacation guest facilities, all those combined 404 total properties. And fees that are collected go directly to the .

Do you know how much the fees are that we collect?

Yes, I think it's going to be on the very next page. I'm going to pass it off to Drew to kind of go through some of the actual numbers for the short term registration.

Nick? The next slide, we just wanted to give a brief overview for the past four cycles of the registration and then the fees that have been collected. So, in a quick view, the number of applications really has not increased by that much. It's kind of level. The number of the certificates that were actually issued has increased for a couple of different reasons. with the automated system, and then we changed the registration process to you pay for your $1,000, your $500 upon approvals. So the owners were wanting their certificates by June 1st, so we were able to process them a little more quickly. The fees collected are noted down on the bottom. So we started when the fees were increased in 2022, started at $269,000, following year went to $359,500, and then this year to date, $365,500 to date. Next slide is the state registration analysis. There's been questions asked in the past. Why. The state registration might have as well in this case, 626 people registered for short term rental. Versus the approximately 400 that we have registered with us in the city. So I did an analysis, compared everything on down, and the different columns highlighted in blue are the ones that are registering with us, the city, the hotel timeshare properties, the home occupation, and the non-home occupation. So when you add all those up, it comes to 397 that are registered with the state. The balance of those, as Nick mentioned before, Airbnb requires a state registration number on any new advertisement. So people who are renting an individual timeshare week had to register with the state to get the number so they can advertise. Same with long term or rental dwelling registrations. So those numbers are in there, but they skew the overall number of how many people are registered for short term compared to how many are physically short term. Thank you. The next page does a very similar comparison where people say we have almost 1,000 advertisements out in Airbnb versus the roughly 400 that we have registered with the city. This runs along the same lines where the timeshares, individual timeshare owners, have to put their weeks up for rent through Craigslist, Airbnb, such like that, so they have to register with the state as well. But they do not register with us. Timeshare properties themselves register with us, but not the individual owners in it. Going down the list again for the Airbnb rent advertisements, the long-term rentals, there was 129 of those. Because they're advertising on Airbnb, they needed the state registration. So the numbers are over-skewed by timeshares, long-term rentals, and then the calendar block. It's an old ad that is out there from years and years ago but has no availability. But the ad is still there.

Can I just ask a question? Sure. So are we saying that, OK, 47%, you're saying compliant. Are the timeshares compliant?

The timeshare associations are compliant, which are included in that 47%. But the individual timeshare owners, they do not need to register with us.

They don't need to register with us. Just the association. But they're compliant is what it is that they have to do anyway. OK.

Yes.

And then the long-term rentals, They are compliant as well?

They may be. This could be long-term or rental dwelling.

OK. Oh, I think I see what you did. So the timeshares, the long-term rentals, that equals the 468? Is that what you're saying? No.

The 468 we have on the blue portion of this pie chart, that's compliant as far as properties that we are aware of that have applied and have a certificate to operate within the city. Some of those properties have multiple listings on Airbnb because they might have a couple different units within their property, but they're compliant as far as number of bedrooms and everything like that. So there's 468 total guest house advertisements that...

only encompass you know 440 properties I guess what I'm trying to say is that the timeshares and the long-term rentals are being compliant they're just not the properties they don't have a certificate of transient guest facility because they don't need them correct okay so but okay thank you but the other two are not right license review yeah yeah okay thank you mm-hmm any other questions on that slide

Uh, citations to municipal court over the last 4 years, uh, just wanted to show the, the increase, uh, from 2023 through 2020, uh, to current, uh, date to 2026. Um, and we can. attribute this to the use of the GovOS software by going out and scraping all the ads, attaching them to owners or properties that are not registered with us, so then we can go forth and cite them and bring them into court. So a big jump in that, and especially with having more focused staff in the city, being able to focus on this more so than in the past. So last year was quite large at 84 citations, bringing in close to $70,000. This year we have 41 so far to date and probably won't be as high because we were able to – on the next slide you'll see we were able to bring a lot of these properties into compliance.

Yeah, we actually – these numbers were done last week. We had a few more at support on Monday that were resolved that have paid some clients. Yeah, another 8,000 to be.

And then the question comes up also with the new certificates that are issued versus a new property or what was not in compliance before. So, for example, in 2025, We had a total of 44 new applications, not including sale from one owner to another owner that was compliant before. This is fresh out of the box. 27 of those in 2025 were people that had been previously cited. We were able to bring into compliance, whether that was going through the zoning board review to get parking or they were able to be certified but just never had in the past. 17 of those for 2025 were just new property applications. And for 2026, seven more that had been cited had been brought into compliance and seven new properties. And there's a few more in the pike this year, maybe 10 more applications that are in the pike that have not been approved, fully approved yet. So again, I think just the efforts with the system and the focus, the dedicated staff has brought stuff really helped to get the noncompliance into compliance and kind of get a handle on things.

Were they cited because they weren't registered or were there other issues that were?

This was strictly for not being registered.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so moving away a little bit from the numbers, there have been some questions around parking variances connected to short-term rentals. So one of the common things we see is that someone either that's been cited to court or just wants to start a new short-term rental, they are newly understanding the requirements around zoning. And depending on where they live, what their property looks like, and how much space their property has, they may need to bring parking into compliance. And so we have had in recent years, I think that's in the last three years, 18 properties that have requested and obtained parking variances. There's been a few that have been denied. And that's in order for them to operate their guest house or increase their number of bedrooms. Because under the zoning code, every bedroom of a guest house requires a parking space to be provided. And then there's a space required for the manager. The way that our code works is that if you are changing the use of a property, you have to look at the original use of the property and what the parking requirement was for that use. And then you look at the new use, so in this case, guest house, and you have to look at the difference in the parking requirement. So if a house requires two spaces and a guest house of four bedrooms requires Four spaces you have to make up the difference of two. Um, so sometimes that's how the parking variance has come in is that it's for an extra couple spaces make up the that difference here. Um, so the zoning board has consistently applied the state standards for variances as we're required to do for either approval or denial of a variance. And recently, in order to kind of offset this lack of parking on a property, some of these have been approved by having an applicant obtain a lease for parking spaces within a half mile of the property. There's nothing in the code that says a half mile is what that number should be, but they felt that that is a reasonable and probably the most reasonable the most extreme distance that someone would park at an offsite location and walk to their guest house. Again, this is when a property cannot provide the parking on their own property. and meets the standards to approve a variance but in order to offset that impact to that direct neighborhood is and instead of having them just try to find parking on the street around the area is to try to find parking spaces at a property off-site i require the applicant to provide that property to me in advance of the zoning board meeting so that i can do an analysis about that property itself and whether for those leased spaces. There are sufficient parking spaces there to provide these extra spaces for this guest house. So if someone provides a site within a half mile and I conduct an analysis to say they don't have enough parking to provide extra to you, they have to find another location to try to find those spaces to lease.

Mr. Chairman? Nick, we all know that's nonsense though, right? In other words, when the zoning board approves of said quarter mile, half mile, whatever they are, whatever their decision might be on that particular request, we as a city do not monitor to ensure that license plates are of those staying at a short-term rental are in fact parking the evening of their stay or the evenings of their stay at where they or the owners of the short-term rental told the city they would be staying. Going back to me saying it's nonsense, we all know what these folks do, is they take up parking spaces which would otherwise be available to Newport residents who do not have driveways. Unless you can tell me that the city somehow has a compliance system in place which guarantees that they are doing exactly as they said they would. Do we have such a compliance system in place? No, we do not. Thank you.

What I will say though, is for each of these, again, the zoning board is applying the state mandated requirements for a variance. In all of these cases that they have approved these, they have found that these particular cases meet that requirement and those standards for a variance, whether or not they had provided any of these offsite parking spaces through a lease. So they have been determined that they meet all the standards for hardship, for compliance with the neighborhood character and impact to the neighborhood, but They are attempting to offset that impact through having lease parking. We can do away with the lease parking, but it doesn't mean that the variance findings wouldn't still be met. And so that's where the zoning board felt that this was one way to potentially offset this. We have been reviewing... We have the parking leases that we require to be provided to us on a yearly basis that these leases are still being provided in order to get their renewal. And we are monitoring their advertisements that they are referencing these places to park as opposed to just finding parking in the neighborhood. But again, if they meet the variance findings to not have the parking on their own property, they meet those variance findings. And so we have felt that this is one way to attempt to offset that impact.

Do we know how many have these parking issues with parking that's offsite?

We have 18 properties that the zoning board has approved with a lease condition for parking.

Only 18? 18. Out of how many?

Well, out of 240 total guest houses that we have. Thank you. I'm not going to bore you with this. This is just the variance findings as required by the state. But essentially, we have to establish that there's a hardship on the property that's unique to that property. Most of the time, it's that the property in question is too small and does not have either a large enough driveway or a driveway at all in order to actually... provide the extra parking spaces that they need. That hardship can have been a result of any prior action of the applicant. So they can't have expanded their home and now say that they don't have parking availability. They have to find that the variance won't alter the general character of the surrounding area. Most of the times they have found that because the entire area doesn't have very large lots or parking available on their own property. And the last one is what's referred to as more than a relief sought is minimal to the reasonable enjoyment of that permitted use on the property. So the possible considerations for improvement, and these were included in the ordinance changes that were provided to you back in March. The big one was to change the general business and waterfront business guest houses into the special use permit category. So that's where we have limited business zone right now is in special use permit. Um, this would require an onsite manager be provided for all new guest houses. Um, but we do see in a sense that a downside would be that many of these properties couldn't meet the onsite manager because oftentimes they're a single unit on a property. The onsite manager really requires there to be at least two units so that one of them can serve as the onsite manager. One of the other suggested changes was that we do away with the parking credits that we've referred to. So in the definition section and the general provision section, we propose that where normally for a change of use, we do this parking credit analysis for guest houses, we propose that we would do away with that and they would have to provide all of the parking on the property. Additionally, we put that in the definition section, so that in a sense they cannot request a variance to that parking requirement, given it would be how the use is defined. You must have the parking on the property. If you don't, you don't meet the use definition. You can't have that use on that property. And the last one was about prohibiting ground floor commercial conversions. So because we've had these requirements for an onsite manager, we have seen applications that have proposed to take away a ground floor commercial space, turn it into either part of the guest house or the onsite manager dwelling unit, effectively doing away with the ground floor commercial, which we don't think is appropriate for our city. So that was part of our proposal was to was to prohibit these conversions of ground floor commercial spaces. This next slide, it was just something we were throwing out there as possible considerations, is to consider scaling fees for different short-term rentals. This was just an idea thrown out by staff. We thought that there was some disparity between how much we charge for an individual guest house operator, which is $1,000 per unit for their five bedrooms, or it's $1,000 for registering an entire property of hotels and ends in bed and breakfast. would need much further consideration on how we would do something like this input from the solicitor's office, which we did not get prior to going through with this, this slide deck. And then one other thing I wanted to touch on was just about improving our short-term rental enforcement. So again, we have highly improved our short-term rental in recent years with using GovOS. Again, scraping all these different websites, understanding who's operating clients with state rules and our local rules. But we've thought about other things, you know, We have a lot of times that we cite someone into court and they just don't show up for months and effectively they they just have it. Their their hearing continued repeatedly until they finally show up and get a judgment of $1,000, which is the maximum judgment that we can grant or that our our judge can. But. I think there's some frustration in that, and if someone doesn't show up to court, it seems fair that someone should be held in default and a summary judgment be placed against them. And if the fines aren't paid, then potentially look into putting a lien on their property.

Mr. Chairman, Nick, are these no-shows, actual no-shows, or... As is acceptable, there are many reasons why a potential plaintiff might not be able to show up. Are they requested by counsel?

It's a combination. We get some that are requested for actual continuances for various reasons, scheduling conflicts, other people that just don't show up for several rounds.

Those scheduling conflicts are perfectly acceptable. It happened to all of us to reschedule even twice. Rescheduling half a dozen times is a little bit on the edge, even if requested by counsel. But no-shows, not requested by the client or by the plaintiff, I should say, or by plaintiff's attorney. Why does the judge not simply default them on-site?

I would probably defer to our city solicitor on that. I don't.

Well, he's not the judge. Do you have any understanding? And I don't mean to put you on the spot.

I do not have personal contact with a judge about cases of the municipal court.

Is there any talk? I understand that you can't speak for our municipal court judge or the office, but is there any discussion in zoning planning or within City Hall as to why we simply let these no-shows go for months without being defaulted?

I could comment on that counselor. So in municipal court, typically, if there is a no show or formally known as a failure to appear, the municipal court judge will issue a bench warrant for a failure to appear. The bench warrants in the municipal court are a little bit different than in our state courts as they is that they do not carry the same the same sanctions or. Law enforcement actions enforcement actions as the state courts, but typically what will happen is a benchmark will be issued. The clerk of the municipal court will then notify the defendant of their failure to appear, send them a copy of the benchmark and inform them that they are required under law or the benchmark will be executed. That's the actual process.

Appreciate that explanation. So then, uh, what. would need to be done by either the council or what is in place, uh, for the judge at this point, uh, simply after one no show with no explanation, notwithstanding the bench warrant to issue a judgment, uh, of default and put the property in, uh, in lean.

Uh, if, if I may, um, Some of this is also dependent on the notice that they get. When a lot of people are summoned into court, they receive a summons in hand. They're served by a constable and so forth. Some of these defendants might have just gotten noticed by mail. So you do have to be a little careful initially when there's a no-show. So after that, I would agree, Councillor Carlin. After that, once we believe we have proper notice to the defendant, then we can start doing the default and ask for a default judgment. And by the way, we can lien these properties with a proper judgment from the court.

Thank you. Uh, solicitor being final followup question, uh, on this subject, then a little off the subject, but related, uh, does our, uh, assistant city solicitor request what you just described on a regular basis?

If a no show, if there is a no show, if there is a no show and she is, um, involved in the case at that time, initially at arraignments and such. She isn't. Those are handled by the zoning officer. Once it becomes a pretrial at that stage, then the solicitor steps in on the prosecution. So at that point, yes, I would hope so. And in terms of this, I don't know why this is a problem. And I don't know the degree of a problem that it is.

I'm laying blame. I'm not laying blame. But to the extent that there is blame, I'm laying it on the council just as much as I am on anyone else involved. But we agree that there is a problem with respect to that, correct?

No, I'm not going to say that right now because it hasn't been brought to my attention. and supervise the solicitors that are in that court. So if there is a no show problem, then I at this point, I'll look into it on the following Monday. But this is a little bit of news to me and on that so

Like, for example, Nick mentioned a few minutes ago that it's half and half. Some requested by the plaintiff's attorneys for a continuance, and some simply just don't bother showing up. Do you know offhand how many times the city and either your office or the court system municipally has with regard to those no shows without requests for a continuance how many times we have taken the action that's what i would consider the problem if we have not taken the follow-up action uh as the deputy manager described i i don't know those numbers off the top of my head um i know that there's been a handful of them for certain um and then typically when there is a judgment it's for a thousand dollars and so they've continued for you know three or four months and then

They get a thousand dollars. Okay.

I appreciate all the answers in the patients. Uh, last question, as I said, uh, not directly related, but, uh, of interest. Uh, can you tell me, Nick, uh, how is, uh, and first of all, congratulations to the, or thank you to the Newport police department and all involved with yesterday's, uh, incident or the day before, how is Dudley Avenue registered with respect to the city?

They're a single family house under our ordinance.

So there is absolutely no way where or no possibility under our local ordinance where the property owner has the right to rent out on a short term basis to anybody.

That is correct. And we have won a judgment in our municipal court, which is now on appeal to superior court, where we prove them guilty of renting to more than five individuals that are unrelated. And we hit them on the short-term rental of those units, or the one unit more than five.

I appreciate you clarifying that. We all know that property is a disaster. It makes us look foolish. I know we've done a great job trying to enforce it, but I will deal with that or I will work with my colleagues to follow up on that particular situation. I thank you all for your patience.

And just the last note on this page is just to come up with some efforts, I think, when we're going forward, especially on appeal, because several of these that we get, we get a judgment from our municipal court judge. Their attorneys take that up on appeal. And the primary way that we... charge them and find them guilty is around the advertisement of these short-term rentals. And it's been more difficult to get them found guilty on the actual rental of the units, which seems crazy. But right now, we primarily have to bring forward evidence through a firsthand fact witness of someone that has stayed at one of these units in order to find that owner guilty of actually renting. So I think that the solicitor and I have had a discussion recently about using or trying to pressure the Superior Court to accept active advertisements linked with active guest reviews because the guest reviews really can only be put by people that actually stay there and within a short period of time after they have stayed there, which to me seems like proof of this illegal operation. And to have to get essentially what we call a door knock or knock and talk and get someone that is willing to testify against the host of Airbnb is very difficult these days. One of the ways that we were able to get 12 Dudley actually convicted was that we had someone who had actually been living there and we were able to bring them to the municipal court and have them testify about their living conditions there. We can't get that with every single short-term rental that we cite in the court. All right. And this is kind of peripherally connected, but the deputy city manager wanted me to bring kind of just a clarification regarding the seasonal rentals. So we kind of touched on those at the very beginning. But You know, seasonal rentals are what we call 30 day to nine month rentals. They seem to have historically been put in place to combat party houses and track college students and Navy housing, all of which seems to have declined in recent years. We only have a little over, I think it was 240 or so, 246 registered seasonal rentals. We think that there is likely more than that, but there has never been like a widespread effort to educate people that if they are renting for 30 days or longer that they need to register with the city. So it's kind of people volunteering that information. Part of us questions what benefit we're getting from registering just these people as opposed to all rentals. We require a minimum housing inspection for seasonal rentals, which primarily involves looking at some simple life safety things, as well as the lease is required to be posted on the back of the door of these seasonal rentals. But we actually don't do regular inspections of long-term rentals, which is the primary way that people live in Newport. So something... We thought we'd kind of bring that up as a conversation starter here. So whether we should proactively be sending letters to all properties and say, if you rent on a seasonal basis, month to month, or up to nine months, you need to register, pushing out maybe communications through our communications team to get people into compliance here. But as I touch on in the next slide, Providence has drafted an ordinance to require that all rental properties register within the city, regardless of whether you're short term kind of mid term or long term. Narragansett requires that as well. Um, they have to register with the building inspector for 120 dollars a year. And there's late fees, failure to register fees. Um, but just so that everyone is kind of, uh. process through the same system. And then we also recently found that there's a state law that requires all rental properties must be registered with the state. What I found when I did a search through their database is that only 1,400 properties within Newport uh of the 5500 rental properties are actually registered with the state so i don't know if people don't aren't aware that they need to register with the state on this it's not that we would get anything out of it but it is somewhere where the landlords have to report who they are and so i think that it's it helps with tenant rights are you saying that every rental in the city would have to register with right now under state law that appears to be the requirement is that they regardless of where you are in Rhode Island, if you own rental property and you rent to people, you have to register with the state database. And it looks like only 1,400 properties in Newport.

Because I don't think anybody knows it.

Right. And so, again, one of the suggestions is, having the discussion whether we're getting a benefit out of registering the seasonal rentals, whether we would have some benefit of registering any rental within Newport, whether it's for a fee or not, just to understand where our rental properties are. But it does seem a little bit odd for us that we require the seasonal rentals to register right now for a small fee, and we don't track any on the long-term rentals. But again, we think that there's probably more seasonal rentals out there that are actually registered with the city.

Have we caught any through the two-tiered tax?

I do not know the answer to that. That's all I really have for you right now. Happy to answer any other questions other than you or members of the community.

I have a couple of questions, so please bear with me. So I just want to clarify that there currently isn't a ban on new short-term rentals outside of the residential zones.

Correct. We allow them by right in the waterfront business and general business and through a special use permit for the limited business.

Okay. And is... The state definition and the local or municipal definition of short-term rentals, are those in line? Or is there any discrepancy?

They're off by one day. We say that it is less than 30 days is considered short-term. They have 30 days or less.

OK. And do we know how many applicants in the past year that have come before zoning planning to increase the bedroom count of their home or to put in an ADU? Do we know how many of those were then converted to a short term rental?

I don't think I would have to pull all of our numbers and figure out how many Are you saying people that created dwellings and then turned them into short-term rentals? Yes. I would say very few, if any. OK. ADUs are not allowed to be short-term rented by state law and by our city ordinance. And we've not had a ton of ADU approvals, even fewer that have needed zoning relief to get an ADU. But most people are not building a brand new house and then converting it to a short-term rental. We've had a couple applications for vacation guest facilities. So that, again, it has to be a minimum of 10 units within that. Think of it as a kind of like a hotel, but more like a timeshare. These properties that contain at least 10 units, they can be one, two, or three bedroom units. They can have kitchens. And again, they could be short-term rented or kind of longer term. We've had one that was approved, but it's still working through the process at 144 Thames and another one at 105 Broadway where the parking lot is. Though we have been actually contacted by the attorney of that property that they are looking to potentially convert that to residential housing as opposed to the vacation guest facility. So it may be a sign that there's not enough, you know, interest out there to actually purchase that property to develop it into a vacation facility.

Counselor Smyth, can I ask you a question or through you, since it was just noted? You mentioned two properties which would fit the 10 or more requirement. One of them you said was 144 Thames, and you said they're working their way through the process. That 144 to 150 Thames is, in fact, an existing court case, correct? It's not working its way through our system. It has been challenged in Superior Court, correct? As opposed to Broadway. Thank you, Counselor.

You're welcome. So a couple more questions for you. Do we know how many year-long rentals have been reduced to short-term rentals in the past year?

Well, given we've only had seven new applications and then technically 14, if you include the ones we brought into compliance, I'd say that's the maximum number that we would have seen that have been converted. I would say many of those are apartments, so I wouldn't call them a whole house. It's a two bedroom apartment above a Thames Street property that has been converted into a short term rental. So it's not most of them are not full properties that would be.

Okay. And how many of the general business and waterfront business guest houses do we have?

We did not pull data district by district. That's okay. That's okay. We can easily do that, but we don't.

Yeah, I was looking.

Yeah, we do have the map.

Okay.

has the map. Anything that has the red house is a short-term rental. That includes hotels, but there is a pretty large red area down in the Waterfront Business area.

And my last question, so some of the recommended ordinance changes, was that to get a handle also on the parking issue so that residents... aren't continuing to be impacted by not being able to find parking on their street in front of their house, or especially if they don't have driveways? Do we do we know what streets in particular are being more impacted than others?

We would have to look back at every property that we've approved a parking variance on. It's relatively spread out. I mean, I think we do see a concentration around Thames and Spring Street. Those are kind of the primary ones, which, again, are in districts that allow this use, whether it's through the special use permit or by right. But back to your kind of initial part of the question, we did propose this change to the parking. So essentially it would, in effect, do away with parking variances being able to be granted. because it would be the use being defined as requiring the on-site parking for whatever number of bedrooms they have so they can't just maximize the five bedrooms because the guest house use allows that without being able to provide the parking maybe they're only able to get a couple rooms to be used uh gotcha because they have the parking for a couple spaces okay thank you any other questions on the council

Sure. So I know folks in the audience want to speak as well.

They speak at the end when we're done.

Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Nick, is the following situation prohibited by ordinance a short-term rental? goes before the zoning board and requests a variance for off-site parking quarter mile half mile what have you because they do not have the appropriate on-site parking for their rental They receive that variance from the zoning board, subsequently seek from the city of Newport guest passes, guest parking passes. Do we prohibit issuing those guest parking passes to short-term rentals who are testifying that they have provided

My understanding is we did change the rules because there was a gap there in our ordinance that allowed for the guest passes to be provided to a property owner regardless of what the use was.

And forgive me, I don't second guess you, but I second guess you and I second guess myself and I second guess the whole ordinance, related ordinances. Mr. Deputy Manager, do you agree with that?

There was a, so the, uh, the parking passes in this last, um, overhaul, I'll call it or the, um. Um, with the residential parking program, we did not look at. Guest passes as a, um, as a whole. But with the short term rentals, um, the short term rental properties. the we did not issue the guest parking passes for properties that were registered as short-term rentals but the guest pass property as a whole um where we speak about the transient guest facilities um we we did not remove we did not remove the guest passes from from from all properties it was it was very selective

So then, according both of your answers, there are likely presumably many short term rental facilities, transient facilities, which distribute. Yes, parking passes to their tenants, correct?

That's there's the potential is there? Yes.

Does it exist? Not the potential. Does it exist likely? Yes. Okay. Uh, that I think we need to address.

I would say the good thing about that is that it's not specifically in the zoning ordinance, which the zoning ordinance, you know, takes several rounds plus a lot of advertisement to correct. If it is in a different section of the ordinance, then we can get that to you a lot quicker to make that closing.

It's the car moving situation area. Sorry.

Um, so just 1 quick note, so, um. Nick, when, uh, when you have these properties that need a variance need parking elsewhere. Um, those parking spots are inspected just to make sure that they are. I know you have to see a lease. But we're double checking to make sure they're yeah.

So essentially what I do is an analysis of the uses. on that leasing property um to determine what their parking requirement is under the code and they have to have an excess of parking is what i call it so if that the uses on that property require 20 spaces and they have 25 spaces they effectively have five that they could kind of give out to this lease um that is provided to us again on a unit basis

That that's a great great question. Mr chair and the zoning officer and I've been speaking about this for, um, about a year now. Um, also, we're going to be. Consulting currently speaking with our, our superintendent of parking authority, who is also here this evening to talk about just that fact some of these. Commercial lots, even private lots that are entering into these gate engagements for these parking variances to satisfy the, the parking requirements at. Some of these properties, as well as some other contracts, so to speak with some of the, some of the local, you've seen these park lots that are coming into town that that are that are in town engaging with some of our local property owners. Um, as a business and, uh, utilizing those spaces. So we are, uh, we are aware of that and we are and we are going to be finding ways to seek compliance, uh, keep a better eye on things to make sure that there's no double dipping. In these lots and where these properties are supposed to, they have a minimum requirement for parking in those spaces yet. They are renting those spaces also, which essentially is displacing those tenants, either commercial or residential properties out onto the street. So we are aware of that and that will be addressed with the superintendent of parking authority and the zoning officer.

But keep in mind, and I think the zoning officer was trying to emphasize this. is that in these cases, a variance for the parking requirements was going to be granted based on the standards in the state law. So this is extra. This is on top of not having them. And there could have easily been a variance in these cases without even those leased spaces requirements. Just want everyone to realize that and the zoning officer was trying to emphasize that fact.

Well, that's one of the big issues since we've been talking about the short-term rental and the zoning aspect of it is the parking. I think that's where I think a lot of the residents have the issue, especially in the tight neighborhoods of downtown between Bames and Spring has been noted. I mean, anything we can do to to toughen that up. And one of my questions is going to be tonight, now that we do have a parking supervisor, that program, is that going to incorporate the parking challenges that zoning looks over as well? Are they going to be still mingled?

It's definitely part of the conversation. We're going to be looking at all the properties that are advertising pay to park on a daily basis, checking that they have compliant parking. You know, we do have our comprehensive plan being worked on right now, which I think will have some recommendations on how to improve our parking situation. The parking standards were put in place in the 70s, and so some of them are appropriate and some of them are a little bit outdated in trying to figure out if We're requiring the appropriate number of spaces, whether that's higher or lower than our standards currently require. And then, you know, things such as shared use parking arrangements between multiple properties that have uses that take place at different times of the day that maybe could utilize the same parking spaces. So we're not kind of putting paved parking lots everywhere in the city strategically.

I know In this conversation, the assumption is that every short-term rental landlord, basically their tenants or their visitors are coming by car. Every single one of them is the assumption we're going by. Has there been any conversation or any study or any question of these applicants that come in about how many of their guests are actually driving cars in the town?

We have not done a study on that. I think it would be a good thing to do in consultation with people that are operating these short-term rentals. We have all of their information and could potentially do some sort of survey to find out. We require one space per bedroom of a guest house. I think some people think that that is too high, that people aren't bringing five cars when they have a five-bedroom guest house. If they're bringing a family, they may only have one car or two cars. So again, it kind of stems from this older code that we have that required this one per bedroom requirement. I think it actually stems from the requirements that were put on hotels that required one per unit of a hotel that required a car.

Is there a way to get information as to voters who come in and stay at short-term rentals? Is there a way to get that kind of information through, I don't know,

Again, I think it would require us asking our current operators of guest houses probably to ask their renters to survey the people that are renting from them how they're getting there every time. I know that some of them put on their advertisement that they only have one on-site parking space, so don't bring more than one car. I don't know that they can force every one of their clients to follow that.

I think that there's an economic impact study done now about races happening in the harbor and the number of people who do business on the land side. So I don't know. Maybe there might be some information through them. I think it's through the Maritime Alliance.

Any other questions?

All right, I think we'll take time now to turn it over to the public. Anyone that would like to come up, have any comments, questions, please come up to the podium, state your name and address.

Don't all start at once.

There you go.

I think they're all looking at me since I've done this before. There you go. So I'll go first. Good evening. My name's Mitch Edwards. I've had the privilege of appearing before you before. representing the Rhode Island Short-Term Rental Association and the Newport Property Rights Association. And I'll be brief, but I just wanted to focus on the last issue that you were all talking about, parking, because it's important to you and it's important to everyone back here and it's important to the residents of Newport. And I think one thing that a survey, which you were talking about, might help is to really understand what would the impact be on these short-term rentals in the commercial zone, if you were to require what I understand to be the proposal of, one, you have to have a parking space for every bedroom. And some of these have four or five bedrooms, and they don't have four or five spots, or even possibly two or three, because they do anticipate what was suggested, which is one car with a family coming and parking. And my concern, and I think the concern of many short-term rental owners, is if this was imposed, it would essentially just mean, well, I don't have a short-term rental anymore. And that is probably the concern you'll hear from others, among, I'm sure, other concerns.

Excuse me, Mr. Chairman? Mr. Edwards and I'll bring the solicitor in on this. You are aware that that concern regarding your existing clients is moot since this would not affect should the proposed ordinance changes as adopted on first round be adopted as a second round and becoming Newport ordinance. Your clients are protected. Mr. Bean, am I correct?

Yes. So in other words, if there's an existing legal use registered at present and we change those requirements, they'd be grandfathered in. But I believe Attorney Edwards knows that.

I'm fully aware of it. I appreciate the comment. Indeed, that was something that the council emphasized back in the spring. And I get that just so you understand where I'm coming from on that. The Rhode Island short term rental association isn't just and and the Newport Property Rights Association isn't just concerned about those who currently have short term rentals, but those that will get them those the prospective which, which this law or ordinance potentially could impact depending how you all decide to go and that concern is, well, I won't be able to get the short-term rental that, fair point, that I want to get in the future, or one that I planned on getting, or one that I've invested and don't have approval yet, but I've invested all my resources in, and this ordinance comes out while I'm doing that, right? Like, folks who are sort of caught in the middle. I think if you're going to go down the road, which I think is a good road to go down, survey some folks to find out information. I think it's a very good idea. One I was going to suggest, but didn't need to because you all, in your wisdom, came up with it on your own. There's probably more questions. that you want to know. And I know the folks, my client and those who I represent in terms of being members of the association, I'm sure would be happy to give you information because it's actually something why they're all here. And I suspect I can stop talking and you can hear from them directly. But I appreciate the time.

Attorney Edwards, a follow-up question, Mr. Chairman, if I might. I appreciate your answer to that and the clarification from Solicitor B. And would you be satisfied if the council, should we enact the ordinance amended or the proposed ordinance, amended the proposed ordinance to, in fact, ensure the same type of guarantees that are given to existing properties to those properties which are legitimately in the process, the concern you raised three minutes or so ago, of becoming such a registered property. I'm not suggesting that we ensure such for six months, 12 months, a year, or two years, five years down the road, but those which are legitimately in the process of seeking such registration.

So, Councilman Carlin, I think what I would say is that would be a great improvement but it wouldn't satisfy all of our concerns. Understanding we're probably not going to agree overall on the issue because we don't think that the parking should be based on how many bedrooms and we might never be able to bridge that gap. But I do think it would be a great improvement so those who are in the process aren't caught up in that issue.

Thank you very much. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Edwards. Anyone else?

Hi. I wanted to ask a question.

Just state your name and address.

Yeah, I'm Sarah Adams, and I own 9 Goodwin Street. How many of you have actually rented a short-term rental before?

I don't know.

was just curious because i do think that there are some misunderstandings about what it offers that's different from a lot of people put us in the same category as hotels or bnbs and kind of what set us apart um so i just was curious how many had actually gone through the process of going on the website searching staying in one and all that um i wanted to thank you for acknowledging the inflation of that thousand Airbnb short term rental number that's been been throwing around for years that has really, really bothered most of us because we know that we've worked really hard on making sure we're in compliance and following all the rules. And we've always known that those numbers are not accurate. And I actually like deep dove the websites myself and saw the different properties that are actually bed and breakfast that are listing per bedroom on the same sites that we're listing our whole home rentals. And if you're on more than one site, it's all being duplicated. But at the end of the day, the numbers that are registered are still the same numbers and there's not a thousand short-term rentals. It's less than 2% of the entire housing stock of the city. And we are in a business zone. I wanted to talk since this is like a workshop and I know we like maybe have a little bit more time. I really do not understand why the parking requirement is different when my house is rented for less than 30 days than it would be if I rented for 30 days or if I rented for two months or why I can't rent my house to my own family. I have three children. We have a 30-foot-long driveway, but because it's back-to-back parking, as a short-term rental, I have none is what I'm told. I don't know if you're aware of that. We went for our variance, and it was denied. I could go and rent spots, but why would my tenants want to park half a mile when I have a 30-foot-long driveway? You did take my hang tag away from me. So your parking rules, they are working. Just so you know, I was not given my hang tag. They are enforcing it. And my neighbors were also not given their hang tags. So we live in a very harmonious street. Everyone talks to each other. We have a mix of long-term residents, short-term residents, and short-term rentals on our street. We all respect each other. No one has any issues because they know that it's our choice. Everyone on the street knows that they have a right to do it. We have a right to do it. As long as we're following the rules and we're respecting each other, there hasn't been any issues. What I don't like, what has been the conversation, is if you pass this, the select houses on our street that are not currently short-term renting can never, but they have to be surrounded by other homes that can. It doesn't make any sense. It's only gonna cause segregation on the street, it's gonna cause animosity, and it's gonna affect property values. It makes no sense. It also doesn't make any sense why on the proposed ordinance changes, I can change my house to be a daycare. I can be a church. Apparently I'm allowed to turn it into a boat marina. And I just have to go and apply. I don't need a variance. But you're honing in on guest houses as being a problem. But you're not, I think there's like 15 other businesses or more that I can run out of my home without asking for a variance. So I just don't understand all of these. It just, none of it makes any sense. Very frustrating. I also want to talk about why the max fine is $1,000 when someone is illegally renting. I pay that just in my registration fee, never mind, I'm sorry, never mind the filing fee. I also lost my hang tag sticker, which by the way, I wasn't even using for my rentals, because I wouldn't, I don't have the energy to chase it down if someone leaves with it. So it was non, it wasn't relevant, but it was taken. And so when my family comes to see us when we're here, I don't have one to offer to them. But it's OK. A lot of these things don't make any sense. If what you're proposing is supposed to encourage more housing and more long-term rentals, then a three-bedroom house that was renting as a two-bedroom rental, which is what I currently have, could turn around and rent as a three-bedroom long-term rental with three cars. But I only have a driveway that can fit two. And there's no regulations on that in regards to a long-term rental. So where does that other car go? I just, I don't understand how this helps anyone. I don't understand how this would create housing. I don't understand why we're trying to segregate streets in a very small district where this is allowed to say, okay, well, those five homes that are currently registered, they can keep doing it. But that one and that one and that one that are in the middle of those homes, they can't do that. We're taking that purpose away from them. I just, I don't think that's good for the neighborhoods. I don't think that's good for the climate of the city. I think there's something important about choice. And I think that it's a small, small area. We shouldn't be touching the business districts in regards to restricting the businesses that they can run as long as we're following the rules, we're registering. I just, I guess that's kind of all I wanted to say.

Thank you, Ms. Adams. Mr. Chairman, might I?

Yeah, I have a question.

Thank you. First of all, excellent, excellent points, particularly when you mentioned the parking situation for longer-than-short-term rental facilities, residences, whatever you'd like to call them. I have heard plenty of complaints, particularly on streets like Carroll Avenue, Thames, Spring, Narragansett, Harris, you name it. I could stay here until next Tuesday and name all the streets where there are those type of concerns with respect to parking. Why? Shame on this council. Shame on me for not proposing an ordinance which would restrict the amount of parking due for not just short-term or entitled to or not entitled to, not just short-term rentals, but others. Not in specific terms, 12-month rentals, parking because those tend to be folks who have decided to live, if not live and work here in Newport. But I'm thinking in particular of, for example, Salve Regina University parking at houses that are not short-term rents. So excellent, excellent points. Tell me, please, when your family comes to visit, why can't you use one of your three entitled parking stickers? Do you not reside and vote in Newport? Do you reside in Newport full-time?

I do part-time, which is why.

Part-time. You don't reside here full-time?

Well, no.

Okay. You're not registered to vote here in Newport, then?

That's all that matters.

Okay. No. It matters because the underlying... I don't want to get into it back and forth here, but the underlying ordinances that have a lot to do with how we define what we allow in the city are governed by... who lives here, for example, for tax purposes and for two-tiered tax purposes specifically, who lives here full-time and who doesn't. And so there is a reason why you do not have the tag. And I just want to make sure that we are being clear that the city...

I have a residence sticker on my car. I have a property here, sir. But that doesn't go.

So why don't you have three tags, Mr. Deputy Manager? Is she entitled to three tags as a property owner here in Newport under the recently adopted new parking regulations?

She would qualify as an R2 resident or a non-resident, but a property owner, so entitled to a single. Three, correct? Three stickers, she's allowed.

I don't think you should devalue what I'm saying.

I have not devalued anything you said. In fact, I am trying to make a case for you to get the parking stickers back.

I don't want to put cars on your street. I only need one car.

You said when your family comes to visit, you can't.

They don't live here.

Everything you're telling me, based on the ordinances we just passed a few months ago, signifies that... That has my address on it.

That's my address and I got a little sticker for it.

It was a little bit of a different, a little bit of a different scenario. I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you.

Can I, can I just say, I mean, you're not a resident and you pay the non-resident tax. So you pay more taxes than you would if you were to be a resident.

I actually was going to forget. I have a, I have a suggestion. My suggestion is, along with the parking and the stuff we've talked about, why can't we have an option when we register our short-term rental to select if we are rented by room or a whole home rental? I think that makes a big difference in how you perceive our properties, who we're renting to, and how many cars are being brought to this property. A whole house rental is not the same as someone who is renting a bedroom. I have three children, and per your standards, I would not be allowed to rent my own house. And my children don't drive cars. So I just want to make that clear. Airbnb requires us to acknowledge what type of rental we are. It's a filter in Airbnb. But when we're registering with the city, you're not asking us to stipulate a difference between our rental to a different one. And there is a difference. Thank you.

Thank you. Is the state asked that if there's a full, if it's whole house or a room, not just.

How you doing guys? My name is Shane Cooper. I'm actually currently a resident of Barrington, although I spend good 16 hours of my day here. And eventually we'll be here full time. Trust me about that. I really hate that this issue is what brings us together to divide us. We waste so much time on this when we really could be getting to the root cause of the problem. Every one of you guys are here because of parking. That's our issue. But we don't do anything to actually solve it. Because if you even ban future Airbnbs or short-term rentals, it's not going to create new parking out of thin air to take cars off the street. What we need here is to solve the root cause of the problem. I had a conversation with a council member who likely won't be returning this year. And he indicated to me that there was a lot of fear among council members to do what is going to be hard, to deal with NIMBYs, to deal with the few people that really want to prevent progress in this city. What we need is parking. And there are lots that you guys are aware of. I don't need to go into each and every one of them. They could be expanded either vertically or underground. And there are methods in place that you guys could come up with, such bonds or whatnot, to create the funds to build these, then charge people to park there. I bet it could be a revenue generator for the city. I mean, nine months of the year, this city, people are driving around in circles looking for parking. And if you could get people off the roads that are looking for parking, it would drastically reduce the congestion. The streets weren't congested, and people could find parking. We wouldn't be here today. I mean, face it. I think that the number of units that are going to be short term are essentially what they are. They may go up or down a few every year, but it's not going to be a drastic swing one way or another. At the end of the day, I think taking us a lot like Mary Street and expanding its capabilities, especially in those districts that have all the red there that we're so worried about, I mean, We all know that there's going to be no more short-term rentals in the areas that aren't either general business or waterfront for the most part. Limited business to a degree, but it's such a tiny little fraction because of the limitations there that the obstacles are already far. And in those areas there, those are the areas that are congested that everybody hates to go down because parking is difficult. Why is it difficult again? Because there's no parking spots. And, you know, I think that we just have to, as a city, you know, come together and say, you know, there are select few that don't want to increase the size of a lot like Mary. But it's for the public good that you guys come together and say, listen, you know, I know and I understand your position, but I think increasing and doing what is right for the overall city as a whole is going to be needed.

Mr. Chairman, excuse me. I appreciate your comments. A select few, more than a select few, would be deeply opposed to the expansion of the Mary Street lot and to an intrusion of physical infrastructure. Well, you should ask the folks perhaps who oppose that. But how many of these type of facilities that you are suggesting for Newport, do they have in Barrington now? How many of these underground parking lots, existing parking lots being expanded into neighborhood infrastructure, et cetera? How many of these do they have in Barrington?

It's a simple answer to that. Barrington is not a tourist destination. And it never will be. It doesn't have t-shirt shops. It's got like, I bet if I could count the number of restaurants in the entire town on one hand. It is not a place. The only reason you go to Barrington is because it's got good schools. Full stop. I mean, you know, doctors move there because it's close enough to Rhode Island Hospital that they could be within 20 minutes, put their kid in a good school. And that's essentially it. It is not Newport and never will be. It's just it's a different way of life.

So as long as Barrington feels comfortable in their quality of life, it's all right to impose on the quality of life of Newport residents who oppose the expansion of these type of things.

Do you ever see Newport abandoning its tourism industry and going to something like tech or industry? Are we going to become a manufacturing hub? What is the goal here?

You should ask our council candidate, Beth Cullen, who has many ideas about that, which I support.

You were for getting rid of tourism in Newport.

All right, we're getting off the topic here. We're just talking about our short-term rental situation here at the workshop, not revenue and development of the city.

It is the root cause. And there are solutions, guys. If we work together, then I think that, you know, it's just going to take some brave council members to get it done because there is going to be headwinds. But if you guys band and understand what is good long-term for the city, it is parking. and then we can stop all this argument all this time that we waste here this this particular matter over and over again i mean if you were to add up the number of hours wasted on this uh i i'm sure it would take less work honestly to get the parking in as opposed to what it takes to get this stuff thank you thank you mr cooper you know we have worked on the parking issue we've changed the parking rules um we've

tried to reduce the number of parking stickers that we give out. We certainly banned short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods. We've done a lot of that work. But I agree with you that vilifying tourism is not helpful. And this is the bread and butter of our city. And I can hear people laughing, but the fact of the matter is that it's been that way for a very long time. And it's one of the reasons why we're so resilient. Let's say the toy, the one in Pawtucket, the Hasbro leaves Pawtucket. It's a huge blow to that area. I mean, that's just the way it is. We are resilient because people want to come here, and they spend a lot of money. And people who don't live here and own property pay a lot of taxes, more than I do. So I understand where you're coming from, but we have been working on these issues. Just so you know, we have been. We've taken some dramatic steps. And I don't agree with this. I don't agree.

I think the difference between what you guys have done, and listen, I'm not criticizing what you have done. I'm just saying it needs to go a step further. You guys have done the restriction, but that can only go so far. Ultimately, we need to create more parking. I mean, look at other towns, coastal towns that have population draws. go to Portland or places, you know, other spots in New Hampshire, Maine, along the water, they build garages. Are they ugly? They can't be, or you can do things to make them look somewhat attractive and ultimately they solve a big issue.

And listen, I- Mr. Cooper, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. And we have others that want to speak.

You know, I would just like to comment that, um, i partially agree with what he has said parking is an issue it's an issue for residents it's an issue for visitors we need a system a transportation system we have lots that certainly we have a lot outside of what everybody considers the city coming in right off Connell Highway, which is a large lot. We have the Gateway Center. There are other places where we could put lots, but we need a transportation system so people can get out of their cars if they're... Big cities have figured this out. You go into a hotel, they grab your car and they take it elsewhere. You don't see it anymore. That's the way it should be in Newport in terms of the summertime where they can walk or if they had, and I have mentioned this, smaller buses. I hate the 60-foot buses. Do the jitneys. Have a fleet of jitneys. I just think there's a different way that we need to travel around Newport so everybody can enjoy it. Not only the people that live here, but the visit. I just wanted to add that. So we do have to work on a transportation system.

Hi, Olivia Nagel on 553 Bellevue Avenue. Nick and Drew, I have questions about page nine. I got a little confused. about how Airbnb has 993 advertisements, but that's hard to figure out because there are multiple advertisements for the same property. I understand that. And there's different types of properties. But in this page, you say that 468 are compliant. Are those only short-term rentals?

Those 468 advertisements that are compliant have a certificate of transient guest facility, short-term rental. Short-term rental.

How many people? So you're saying the rest of that is what you've, the long-terms, the timeshares. And how many timeshare buildings do we have in the community? Do you know?

There's actually five timeshare buildings comprising of eight associations. which total up to 342 some odd rooms.

So like the Wellington kind of idea?

There's no longer a timeshare.

No, no, but I mean like them? Yes.

OK. On the harbor.

And then, so you really think there are only 468 short-term rentals? And maybe there's a few that are operating in the dark that you may not know, but just a handful.

Yes, there's a small handful that are continued repeats, and then every once in a while a new one will pop up and we'll go research it. But the advertisements are 468. There's 404 that are actually registered. Okay. So 404 registered, 468 ads. Picture a home that has two bedrooms. They'll have one ad for one bedroom, another ad for the second bedroom, and they could have a third ad saying, I have two rooms, rent them both. So one property could have three ads.

OK. And then in the municipal citations, how much can you talk about the fees or the penalties or how that works? Because it's a little confusing. And then I do agree with you that $1,000 per short-term rental, like if you have a home, you pay $1,000 a year. But a hotel with 500 rooms is also paying $1,000. That seems completely unfair and wrong. And I think that the council, if that's within the council's purview, should be addressed because that's a loss of income. which is a big problem for the city. And it should come into some kind of realistic fee. So those are the two questions I have.

So to answer your first question on the citations and penalties, so we are essentially limited by state law about how much we can fine people. It's $1,000 for a violation. It's very difficult to get a multi-day violation fine. We essentially send a citation, and we say, you are being notified that you are not in compliance with either the advertisement requirement or the renting compliant, the actual rental operation, and we take them to court, and it, again, can take a month, two months, several months to get them held to be found guilty, and then they are typically fined $1,000. Sometimes for a first time, the judge can use his best judgment and decide whether that fine is too high, but we are limited by state law over how much we can fine people.

Thank you. Yes, sir.

Good evening. My name is Barton Fisk. I own eight Franklin Units 1 and 2. Grew up in Newport from 1969. Graduate of Rogers High School in 1983. Left to pursue higher education and stayed away from Newport because I couldn't afford it until about five years ago. So hard work and effort could be the opportunity to come back. And one of the ways that I wanted to come back was to be able to offer a business or a short-term rental as I finished my career and made plans to retire here. One particular question I'm interested in is this notion of grandfathering, because as far as I can see, anywhere in ordinances or city code, there's no discussion of what that actually means. So the fact that I may be a registered owner, if I discontinue my continuous registration, if for some reason I get sick or I decide I don't want to do it this year, Do I have to stay continuously registered? Is the property essentially always allowed to be a short-term rental? Am I allowed to pass that on to another owner? Do I lose that privilege? These are topics that I was really hoping to try to work out. But for the council to say, yep, we're grandfathered. You're good. That's a blanket statement. I'd really like to know more about that. So I'll table that for a sec, please. I guess what I'd ask the city to consider is the spirit of Airbnb in the first place. The idea was home share. Somebody is having trouble paying their bills. They want to be able to cover their costs and take advantage of the extra room. Maybe their kids moved out. I see no segmentation of the registration so far. I can't tell whether one person who has a single bedroom and is trying to meet their bills from the data is no different from someone who has 10 properties and clearly isn't hurting for money if they have 10 properties in Newport and probably isn't living off of that income. That kind of segmentation would be helpful in trying to determine how to actually award renewals or to award. And there could be a process for doing that. So I guess my concern is whether or not you're unintentionally not serving your constituency. And I watched last year or two years ago when the price of the registration went from 100 to 1,000. And there was a very well-meaning citizen here who basically probably got forced out of being able to do their own short-term registration because They didn't have the money. I mean, as it is, I have to pass a $30 per stay increase to all my guests just to cover that $1,100 fee that was just magically created. I would like to see some accounting of where that $1.5 million that's been raised has been spent. I'm sure we're not paying our short-term rental people, enforcement people that much. So I guess those are the major questions. The other one that I think doesn't get raised and doesn't get looked often enough is the existence of zombie houses, meaning people who are so wealthy, they can have a house in Newport and they don't have to live in it except for three months of the year. And there's no enforcement, there's no change in taxes, there's no looking at those folks who are probably taking up a sizable amount of the housing stock and no consideration for that. And there are other cities that have dealt with non-resident long-term owners that aren't living there. So there are solutions for that as well. Those are my thoughts. Thanks for the opportunity.

Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I appreciate the comments. Four things that you mentioned, and I will certainly leave it to our solicitor to address the legal portion. But first of all, our owner-occupied residents do not pay $1,000 for a short-term rental registration fee. You mentioned a key word earlier in the beginning of your comments, and that is to say business. You mentioned the word specifically business as it relates to what you're doing and others are doing. You all are running a business. This is not something, let's face the facts, for the most part, this is not something that helps you as a full-time Newport resident pay the taxes, sustain your lifestyle here in Newport. You're running a business. Third, with respect to what you said regarding grandfathering, My proposal, which I put forth an ordinance, or put forth, I should say, by resolution, and which was passed 4-3 on the first hearing of the proposed ordinance change, with the help of the city solicitor's office and the zoning and planning offices, included what would be statutory guarantee if, in fact, the ordinance were to pass. That is to say, you would be grandfathered in by... ordinance effectively by statute and we we didn't do that because we had to do that we did that because there were concerns raised and your concern tonight was where do we see that in existing statute and existing ordinances well I think the solicitor would say if this was if that were not included hypothetically and if the ordinance proposals were to pass And it were to be challenged in court, my understanding from multiple discussions with the solicitor's office and others is that the court very likely would guarantee your existing right to do business the way that you're doing business. So we didn't need to grandfather it in by the amendment offered to the ordinances, but we did. You have solid guarantees in state law, as I understand it. And then the fourth... a question that I wanted to answer, not because I am a lawyer, I only play one at council meetings, but I understand that so long as the business is registered or so long as the property is registered in a certain way, it continues ad infinitum until it's changed, until you as the property owner or a future property owner decides to change the nature of the property. That is to say, if you decide to go from a short-term rental and its existing guarantees by state law and by ordinances to, for example, a residence and only a residence, then that is the only way, as I understand it, that certain guarantees and protections can be taken away from you.

And that's what I'm trying to understand.

And I appreciate your time. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Or am I allowed to stop actually listing? And by virtue of stopping the listing, does that disqualify me? because I'm now wedded to this notion and I have to do it until such a time, if that's the case. And if that could be answered.

Nick, do you want to take that? Yeah, absolutely.

So we have a section in the zoning code called our non-conforming uses and structures section. And it refers to properties that have uses on them that have either been changed, like the allowance in the code has changed or has been prohibited later, such as short-term rentals Guest houses that were approved in residential zones prior to the 2022 change that prohibited them those are allowed to continue to operate There is a section in there that refers to an abandonment of the use so as councillor mentioned if you were to Outright come to us and say I am no longer going to operate this use Then we would essentially say it reverts to the last legal use prior to that if you were to stop operating and or What the code says is at least one year and you don't intend to continue to use it, we can consider it to be abandoned. But most of the time, the right stays with you. And if you prove that you are not attempting to abandon it, that use retains on that property and it does pass to future owners. So if you have an operation right now and it's a legal operation prior to this code changing and you sell the property, it runs with the property.

Run for the property, but so long as I own it, this tells me that I still have to register, pay my registration fee every year continuously, and have at least one rental a year. Is that what you're saying?

I would say it wouldn't even say that you have to rent it at all. If you register with the city, I think that that's it.

Well, then I'm obligated to continue registering and continue to list with Airbnb. What I'm looking for is where the evidence stops. Yeah, so... It's not a...

You know, it's really not the forum to give out legal advice here. You have, I mean, some of this is your own private dealings, your business dealings that you consult with your own legal counsel. But what the zoning officer said is accurate, is that as long as you don't abandon the youth, and as long as The use will stay with the property, not the owner. It's not owner centric. It goes with the property as long as there isn't an abandonment. What you need to do

I guess I'd like to see some specificity on what this means. I don't want to wake up one day and find out that I didn't re-register and now I've lost my right.

Mr. Chairman, a question for the clerk, please. Madam Clerk, and thank you for my many questions to you by email as well as the solicitor's office and zoning and planning. Madam Clerk, if a... let's use a pizza restaurant a pizza restaurant in newport uh... doesn't sell one pizza or one item to the public in the course of the year are they still required to register with the city of newport as a business

If they're not selling any pizza, is that what your question is? No.

I should have phrased that a lot better. Is a restaurant or any other retail operation, regardless of whether they do any business, if they would still like to be classified as a business, do they still need to register with the city of Newport each and every year to maintain their victim license?

I would say yes.

Of course you need to register. You're running a business. That's my point. You need to register regardless of whether you have any tenants who you rent to. It's a requirement within our ordinances that you register.

If I have to leave the country for a year, I'm unable to run my business.

This is the problem. Coming up with these hypotheticals and giving out advice like this. You can't fit every circumstance out there that could come up for the what ifs. So at some point, I think what's been said here tonight is good guidance. And you have to take it from there. And an abandonment is a fact-intensive, fact-finding issue for a court. So it's going to be, it's not a black and white issue. That's all I can tell you.

Mr. Fisk, thank you very much.

My name is Lynn Sanzo. I live on Spring Street. First, I do have a question about the numbers. So on this slide here, the 404 that you've come up with is the sum of the 342 plus 62. Is that right?

No, it's 62 registered hotels and inns, eight registered timeshare properties, 240 guest houses, and 94 home occupations. That equals 404.

OK.

So we have 240 that we would refer to typically as an Airbnb.

OK. So the timeshares don't really figure into it. No. OK. I just wondered what the number. The only way I could come up with the 404 was to have 62 and 342. okay um i have to say i am thrilled to hear the concerns from commercial interests about parking in the neighborhoods i have to say that i don't think it's reasonable to support unmanaged transient lodgings with insufficient parking in areas that border high density neighborhoods i live on spring street and It has gotten so much worse. The cars, and I have to say, many of them still have the hang tags, and I know we're working on that. But they are not full-time residents. I don't understand why they have guest passes to begin with. My understanding is that, yes, if you own property, you get... permits, parking permits for your car, And you get gas passes, but there seem to be like multiplying. There seem to be a lot more out there. And so in my neighborhood, which again is a kind of a densely populated neighborhood, a budding commercial areas, we get cars with hang tags and we get cars like from Texas with resident stickers on them. And they will park for like five days in a row. When I complained the first time this happened, I was told that, okay, the police department would locate the owner and the car could be moved, which it was for one day, and then it came back for another five days. And that's just one example. It happens... I know on all the side streets, Green Street, Down Spring Street, John Street. So what has not until now been a problem for some people who are having this business proposition has been a problem for the neighborhoods for a long time, for years. So I'm glad that there is some support to do something about it from the commercial interests.

Thank you.

I'm Emily Holly, 119 Ruggles. I am a registered voter in Newport. I'm not really affected by parking where I live. I live on Ruggles. I have a driveway that holds two cars. We only have one car between my husband and me. But I keep thinking about this lady on next door who's in her 80s and she posted about how she lives on john street and she comes home with your groceries and there's nowhere to park nowhere park. And she said her property doesn't accommodate a driveway. I asked her, can you borrow a neighbor's driveway to unload your groceries? No. And apparently there's a short-term rental on that street that's taking up a lot of the parking. So anyway, you know, a lot of people use Newport as their playground or their business opportunity. But we really have to think about the residents. And when you guys think about these parking issues, please think about that 83-year-old lady. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Linda Stevenson, Dixon Street. First, I want to say there is some great information here, and I think Nick and Drew did an awesome job putting all this together. I'm really very pleased with the enforcement. It seems like it's definitely gone in a much better direction now. I am aware that the fine for people who get cited, I don't think it's enough, especially if there's multiple I know I've spoken with Representative Carson about this, but I've said this before, you know, overhearing people who own short-term rentals who say, I make $3,000 in a weekend. They find me $1,000 a summer that's part of doing business. So I would like to see if somebody gets cited multiple times. that there's some increase in that fee. If City Council could look at any way working with our state reps to address that issue. I'm very much in favor of scaling the fees. That was also discussed in this worksheet here. And doing away with the parking credits, I'm also in favor of that. And the guest pass parking situation, it is an issue on my street. The house at the bottom of the street that was just converted to a short-term rental has a guest pass that they use. For those people that think the short-term rentals, our only issue is parking, it's not just parking. There's trash. There's safety issues. Five years ago, we had a murder a block from my house. in a short-term rental. And it's less availability of housing options, which equals higher rents or higher listings on your houses. The property at the bottom of my street that was converted used to have a storefront, no longer does. I thought that was another good point that the zoning officer made that we should perhaps stop allowing that to be converted. Another one a block away has also been converted, also used to be my dry cleaner. That no longer has a business there. And there's another short-term rental being, has an application for the September zoning meeting, which is across from the one at the bottom of my street. I would like to see short-term rentals banned in limited business at this point. The limited business zone is, its intent was to have businesses that are compatible with the residential district and meet the needs of the neighborhood. Short-term rentals do neither of those things in limited business. So I would like some extra consideration given for that. I used to have great neighbors at the house that's been converted. It used to be a young couple. She was a nurse in Newport Hospital. He was in grad school at the time. My family went to his dissertation. He got a job at Newark. I mean, it was great. We shared dinners together. We shared milestones together. He took in our trash. I took in theirs. We shoveled snow together. It just changes the fabric of the neighborhood because now I don't have those neighbors. I have guests, hotel guests. So it's not just a parking issue. It is changing the fabric of the neighborhood. It's a decline in the quality of life, and I've heard that from a lot of my neighbors because they're like, you know, oh, Joe doesn't live here anymore. Susie's gone. You know, it just changes the way people feel about the neighborhood. The reduction of short-term rentals, I'm going to try and, snap this up because it's late, points me to is there a housing crisis in Newport? And that's what I keep hearing that there is. So I think having some guardrails, some prohibitions is a good idea at this point. We prohibit a lot of other things in limited business, manufacturing, There's a number of businesses that are prohibited. I don't see why short-term rentals can't be another one. Do you care about the quality of life for your constituents? If so, then I think banning short-term rentals and limited business should be pursued. But overall, I think we've moved in a really positive direction. I want to thank the team on that, everybody who's involved in that. I appreciate this workshop and the City Council addressing it as they do. It really is a problem when you're destroying neighborhoods and you're doing away with potential homes that families could live in year-round. That house at the bottom of the street used to be three bedrooms for a family and two bedrooms on the back apartment. It was year-round, and they had a total of three cars, all of which they had parking. A guest just last week went to my neighbor and said, hey, we're renting across the street. We don't have enough parking passes. Can I borrow yours? Okay, so don't tell me everyone's not coming with a car. They're coming with cars. There may be other instances where they're not, but for the majority of people, they are coming with the cars and there's no place to park them. Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Hi, Linda Pereira, 3 Goodwin Street. And I just wanted to share some insights as a registered voter for 30 years and property owner as well in Newport for the entire time I've lived here. I have started to Airbnb my home for the last eight years to supplement my income to live in our town since the costs have drastically gone up here. A couple insights I'd like to share is most of my guests that come are families. Most of them are International, my last guest was from Hong Kong. They came in with their children, their nanny. They were here for a wedding. 90% of my rentals are families that come in for weddings. I'm kind of dubbed as the bridal cottage because the bride's family rents my home, and usually she and her parents and some of her siblings are there getting ready. Everyone is very respectful. As my neighbors have shared, we all share responsibility of helping each other when needed. We are always compliant. We've always done everything to the letter of the law. And I feel that, you know, what Shane had mentioned earlier, parking is the real issue. And I agree with Councillor Napolitano. we have to come up with a solution for that. Whether there is a trolley that circles longer than 9 p.m. that provides a real solution when people are out and about spending a lot of money in our town and supporting many of us that live here. I think that those are the issues. Another comment, I've lived here for 30 years. I never have a problem parking my car during high season ever. The problem is when Salve comes in, I cannot park on my street. There's nowhere to park. It's always a hassle. And I feel like if we're going to be held to the letter of the law, long-term rentals have to be held as well. It is total discrimination. And I feel like we're constantly being targeted. It is completely unfair. And we are. We are all wasting a lot of time. I'm very appreciative and grateful that we're finally spending some time discussing this important matter, because it's just been one big circle that never really has any real resolution. So I appreciate this being actually addressed properly. And I hope that at some point we can come together as a community and figure this out. These are the realities. And I would say most of my guests Uber to my home. Most of them are flying in. Our street on Goodwin Street, I can park in front of my house most days during high season. As soon as Salve comes in, forget about it. That's not going to happen. So I just wanted to share a couple of realistic insights as a voting resident in the third ward, as well as having the experience of what it is to actually be a part of this community and be responsible. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Pryor. Anyone else want to add?

Hi, I'm Karen Pinelli, 39 Touro Street. I am a voter in Newport. I live in my building. And I have two Airbnb rentals. And there's three apartments in the building. The third one is my primary residence. When I purchased the building, and there is commercial space on the first floor, it was never my intention to have year-round tenants. It was always my intention to have short-term rentals. And I renovated the building and turned the two into short-term rentals. I have on-site parking. So I have three bedrooms on-site parking. I will tell you, and I'm very happy to hear that you're going to look at some statistics. In the last probably month, I would say 20% of the time, my spaces were not full. So people were coming in by plane, by train. I would have people check in and no cars out there. So it's not always that they're bringing cars. And I think, and often they just leave the cars there because I see them. They travel around, they walk around, they take the buses. So they're not driving around looking for parking. I think it's important that we do take a study and look at people coming into the Airbnbs and whether or not they are bringing cars. And I think enforcing the parking is very important. Now, the other thing about my building, I would want to make sure at some point, I'm in the business district, so at some point I may want to turn my apartment into a short-term rental and move to another location myself, probably a private home in Newport. So I do not want to be restricted in my building to just keep these two and say the third one I cannot turn into a short-term rental. My apartment, I have one car, three bedrooms. Now, another statistic I want to throw out, with the three bedrooms and the two rentals, I can have up to six cars if people were renting on long-term basis, because each bedroom could share to have two people living in the bedroom. So there could be six cars. So I'm only required to do three parking spaces. So take a look at that. And these people would be driving around. So I think it's important. And I'm really happy that you're looking at the parking situation. But I think you look at looking at it thoroughly is very important in looking at all of these aspects. Love the idea of trolley also. The last thing that I will make a comment on, at some point, if I do sell the building, or at some point I will sell the building, the first floor is commercial space. I do not want to be restricted and not be allowed to pass that along to whoever buys the building. I renovated the whole building with the intention of it being a business with three rentals, potentially, and the commercial space. So I would never want to lose that right. By the same token, I wouldn't want to, as mentioned, lose the right to turn my third apartment, my primary residence, into a short-term rental. So these are more comments than anything. If anybody has any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Mr. Chairman? Yeah, thanks, Mr. Chairman. Karen, thank you very much. And your business is tremendous, as we all know. Provence, Samara, for anybody who does not know, a wonderful location. And you, thank you, have worked so tremendously well with our friends and neighbors. on Clark Street and beyond in the neighborhoods. I'm extremely happy for you and the success of your business. When I worked with the solicitor's office and other offices on the resolution, it was never my intent, nor would I support anything that, since you are already established with respect to the commercial space, that would restrict either you using that or when you sell to an owner who would like to use the same from doing so uh... nor as i understand the proposed ordinances would there be a restriction uh... as it relates to what you said with regard to turning your personal home if you will your personal living space into a short-term rental now when hopefully you're not selling the business anytime soon uh... or or to someone uh... who who would like to purchase that right from yourself uh... we can look at whether such is guaranteed. And then the solicitor offered good advice that legal advice is best kept from those who have your own dealings with your own lawyers. And the city council has our solicitors. But I would not support something which took away those two rights that you highlighted in any post ordinance change. Thank you again, Karen.

Thank you.

All right. Well, we're about to wrap up. So anyone else that wants to come up and speak to you now, please? Yes, sir. State your name and address, please.

Yeah. Hello, everybody. Can I move this by chance? Yeah.

Well, it keeps falling down, but good luck.

You unplugged it.

You just broke it.

What about now? There you go. Gotcha. Sometimes this height just really gets in the way. Hello, everybody. Casey Horton here for Goodwin Street Unit One. I just want to make it clear that I do not live here. I live in Boston. I love living in Boston, and I also love visiting Newport, my place in Newport. I rent it out. It's a four-bedroom house. I can only rent it out as a two-bedroom due to the parking stuff. I didn't really want to touch on the parking stuff too much, but I just want to mention this because it's been such a hot topic. Our little harmonious pocket of good wind street where you've got people that rent short term and long term and we all get along somehow some way. Um, I don't really think parking is as much of an issue in our little pocket, a neighborhood. I typically always find street spaces. My guests come, they're not allowed to park on the street. Um, they, we have 1 onsite space. I have a lease for 2 other ones on the block. Nobody ever even brings three cars, but if they do, it's usually actually me when I use it with my friends and family members where we have three cars and we use the spaces that I lease and no one really parks in the street except for me because I have kind of the ownership pass or whatever it is. So either way, very happy to help out in the survey that we're all thinking to do. I can give people my information or whatever it is. But on to my prepared notes real quickly. Just want to urge you to sort of pivot away from the proposed amendments we're considering here and refocus on zoning reform that actually promotes housing production. Various places, the resolution, the housing chapter of Newport's comprehensive plan, short term rentals are sort of deemed as a significant factor in the lack of housing supply, but the data supporting that is really just murky at best. Even in the comprehensive plan itself, it uses phrases like, it can be assumed when Looking at census data and claiming that 19% of Newport's households are either seasonal homes or short term rentals. Why are we assuming just because that a specific household didn't respond to the census that it's likely being used as a short term rental? What I'm getting is we don't really have the data. By the way, the comprehensive plan actually admits that outright, that we don't really have clear data on what's going on here with the short-term mental situation. Why are we using this weak and subjective data to justify decisions that are as impactful to people as they're going to be? Suppose that 19% that I just mentioned before figure is actually correct, right? And a significant portion of that 19% is short-term rental housing that's really eating into our long-term housing stock, right? How are we so certain that there's been such an aggressive ramp up in people converting long-term housing to short-term housing. Over the past 15 years, the housing crisis really started getting talked about in 2018, here a little bit later. But how are we so certain that over that 15-year period, there's been so many conversions that have contributed extremely to Newport-specific housing crisis? Sure, there's Airbnb and VRBO listing data, but how can someone whose job it is, because I know we probably do it, and thank you guys for always policing and doing the things that you do to make sure everyone's doing the right things, but how can someone whose job it is to count up all the little pins on the Airbnb map year by year, say 2021 to 2022, and see an increase in those pins, how can you determine that are specifically the result of long-term housing being taken offline in favor of short-term rentals? What seems a lot more likely, in my opinion, is that people who are already renting short-term for years, either informally or through a broker, simply got a little bit more tech savvy. It's happened to a lot of us here. because platforms simply make it easier. So if you're pointing to the apps, and you're reading the data, and saying, well, there's just such an aggressive uptick in short-term rentals, and we've got to figure out something to do here to stop this. I think that's very misleading data to actually reference. But my whole proposal here is rather than spending time and energy on changes rooted in such thin, factual basis, Changes that the impact of which we're proposing here, the impact of which would actually be extremely difficult to quantify given how little data exists today to help us formulate a meaningful baseline. Let's focus on something we know without a doubt could alleviate the housing crisis, and that is building more housing. It's not really a secret, a lot of the large high profile walkable development sites in the general business and waterfront business have gone hotel. Bretton and Hammett's hotel opened in 2020. The beautiful Gardner House in 2023. Bellevue under construction set to open in 2027. Waits Wharf parcel got approved. There is a little residential component there, which I commend the city for making happen. But that will open eventually once it starts construction. Why is that, right? Why are these all going to hotel? Well, one could say it's because hotel is the highest and best use. Probably right. But in my opinion, there's a lot more to the story when you dig in So in the general business zoning district, hotels at reasonable scale and intensity, for reference, it's one room per 400 land square feet, pretty dense, pretty intense use, which is great. They're permitted as of right, which for anyone in this room who doesn't know the term as of right, it just means the easiest pathway to project approvals. No discretionary board findings, relatively administrative in nature. All that's needed is a site plan review, and the developer can pull up construction permit and start digging. Multifamily, by contrast, is not permitted as of right anywhere in the general business or waterfront business. The only approval path is actually via special use permit process, which on top of site plan review, which we already mentioned as of right, projects need to deal with. On top of that, it requires a far more lengthy and stringent municipal review, often involving additional consultant studies, costly redesigns, many times dictated by the municipality and different boards, and approval conditions that can actually render a project pretty unfeasible. In many places throughout the Northeast, this special permit process is used and it's very common. Developers still a lot of times choose to persevere through these processes. That's not really the case here in Newport because regardless of the building envelope that the zoning codes or dimensional standards would otherwise allow, there is a catch-all cap on multifamily density. Developers can only be approved for one unit per 1,500 square feet of land in the general business. That is such a low density that its mere existence in the code acts as a structural deterrent for multifamily development. For reference, on a one-acre site in the general business, the code's own height and coverage limits would probably let you construct a building of roughly 140,000 square feet.

Casey, we got your letter. You're going on so fast, I don't think anyone can even comprehend what you're saying. I'm trying to save everyone's time. But we appreciate, again, we did get your letter, everything that you're saying. Gotcha. Okay.

I mostly want to just educate my fellow friends who don't have the privilege of being a developer like me and can kind of see this stuff.

Absolutely. And there was a lot of great information on that.

Go ahead, Councilman. Permit, as of right, multifamily with density. Everybody's doing it. Look up Chapter 40B, Massachusetts. They just passed a statewide thing. It's really spurring housing growth. That's how you alleviate rents, guys. That's how you help people out.

Yes, I just want to mention a statement that I've mentioned almost every meeting. Newport is 10 square miles, seven land mass, three underwater. We're built out. We are truly built out when you think about it. You know, they talk about all these other cities and towns that don't have what we have. And we have a very large population of people in need. Um, I just, you know, I honestly feel Newport is built out. Our zoning codes were taken water on. There's just a lot of issues here. I don't see building in the future for Newport.

I totally understand where you're coming from, but the one thing that I don't understand there is we are sort of allowing these decently dense hotels to be built. If that's the case, I would say we should amend the zoning code to really pull back and make it a lot more challenging for all development to be done because it's still happening. It's just going hotel now.

There's only two spaces in all of Newport that could build a hotel now. One is where the High Line was, and the other is the Naval Hospital. That's it. Fini.

I was kind of referring to the past, you know, 10 or so years, which we know those hotels have been built, you know what I mean?

Absolutely. And they've been at it for about 10 years. Yeah. Paying their attorneys and going to planning and zoning. Yeah, of course. So, I mean, that's what we're seeing. I agree.

Thank you for your time. Thank you very much.

All right, folks, thank you so much for coming tonight. And, you know, there's a lot of information, and I'm sure there will be more discussions as we move forward. So thank you very much.