Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Stillwater Planning Commission meeting of July 21st will now come to order. It will be the process this evening to call for items on the agenda. The commission will hear briefly from staff first, then the applicant and or their representative, and then open the public hearing and hear from those in favor and or in opposition to the request. When you come to the podium, please clearly state your name and address for the record. And then before closing the public hearing, both the staff, the applicant, and or their representative will be provided an opportunity to respond, to provide additional information, and answer questions. After all interested parties have spoken, the public hearing will be closed. And then we will hear closing remarks and alternatives from staff. First item on the agenda this evening is short-term rental, STR0252. It's for a property. Address is 2425 West 22nd Avenue. And we shall hear from staff.

Yes, ma'am. Good evening, chair, commissioners. My name is Henry Beebleheimer, and I'm with Development Services. Tonight we're looking at a short-term rental license application for 2425 West 22nd Avenue. Here's the aerial view of the property. If I remember right. Yes, so here's an aerial view of the property. The next aerial view is gonna look very similar to this one. It's a duplex, so there's gonna be a short-term rental license for each side of the duplex. So this is the aerial view of the property. It's about a quarter mile west of Western on the south side of 22nd Avenue. Here is the screenshot from the layer that shows all the active short-term rental licenses. There are none in this block. As you can see, there is one block to the west right here. I'm open to answer any questions if you have any.

Any questions for staff? Thank you. So we give this opportunity for the applicant to come forward. All right. Seeing none, we will open the public hearing and ask if there's anyone in the audience this evening that would like to speak in favor of this item to come forward. Seeing none, we'll ask if there's anyone in the audience this evening that would like to speak in opposition to this item to please come forward. Seeing none, we will close the public hearing and ask staff to present findings and alternatives.

Yes, ma'am. So the factors to consider tonight are this is going to be the same for each one. So I'll read this one thoroughly skim through it on the next ones. So the effect of the proposed use upon the character of the neighborhood traffic conditions, public utilities, drainage and other matters related to the general welfare may also be considered. All your alternatives tonight are to approve, defer or to deny the application.

All right. Thank you.

Being the applicant in here, I would prefer to talk to the applicant or at least a representative.

This board will not have jurisdiction as of Monday over STRs anymore. So tabling it would not be an option. It would be approve or deny at this point. There couldn't be a table. The new ordinance goes into effect Monday.

So am I allowed to ask if it meets nothing within the block? For the most part, does it meet the rest of the criteria? Do we know? Are we allowed to take that into consideration?

We cannot take that into consideration. I'll offer reading through, it seemed like this particular one The owner has rental units. They have a mix of long and short term. I think the only question I had was kind of what their rules were, because I didn't see the rules here. If we were to table this, would the next step be it would become an administrative process and those rules would be part of the question?

It's either approve or deny. That does not mean that they can't reapply under the new ordinance and go through that process. Okay. And they could do that immediately.

Okay.

Question. Reading between the lines here, they said that it's currently long-term rental. They don't intend on using or leasing it out as a short-term rental in the near future. So given the fact that these two structures, these two houses, are next to each other, and at some point in time when the ordinance is implemented, then potentially it could be having both as short-term rentals could be in violation of that 20%. It almost seems like they're taking preemptive action

And the ordinance actually took that into consideration when we did direct that ordinance. So they had to be actively listing it and renting it. And we are, I don't know if we entered that contract yet, with a company that's able to provide that information to us. So if they are not actively renting it as a short-term rental, then their license will be revoked. That way it does not affect the 20% for others. We were concerned that that might happen.

What is the pleasure of the commission? So if I understand legal's description properly, if I interpret this properly, if we were to deny this this evening, then the applicant could immediately go through the administrative process and there would be a record of the information we are not able to ask this evening.

Whatever the application requires. I actually don't have that memorized. But yes, they would have to restart the whole process over a new application, provide all the documents that are required under the new ordinance, and staff would process that. And then we would we are going to be monitoring that these SERS are active not just First to get so that no one else can I do feel like this is one that I mean as the very first thing I said They're not here.

I would prefer to talk to him. That's kind of how we have handled these so far so being that I can't table it, but denying it, they still have every opportunity to go through the process, the new process. I lean that direction.

I agree, especially don't intend to turn it into a short-term rental anytime soon, so I don't think our action had any negative impact on that economically.

Do I hear a motion to deny?

So moved.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. We shall now vote. Motion passes 3-0. The next item on the agenda is also a short-term rental for a property at 2503 West 22nd Avenue.

Yes, ma'am. This is the other side of the duplex that we looked at on the last question. So it's the same pink box we're looking at, quarter mile west of western, south of 22nd. Like I said, this is a duplex. This is just the other half of that. The same screenshot we looked at before with the same distance to the active short-term rentals. I went through that really quickly, but I'm open to answering questions if you have any.

Okay. Any questions for staff? Seeing none, thank you. I think we've established that the applicant is not here. So open the public hearing and ask if there's anyone in the audience that would like to speak in favor of this item to come forward. Seeing no one, we'll ask if there's anyone in the audience that would like to speak in opposition of this item.

Mm-hmm.

So seeing that there's no one to speak in opposition or in support of this item, we will close the public hearing on this item and ask staff to present findings and alternatives.

Yes, ma'am. Your factors to consider would be the same, generally related to general welfare. And your amended alternatives are to approve or deny the application.

Thank you so much.

I move to deny the application. Second.

We have a motion and a second. We shall now vote. Motion passes 3-0. Next item on the agenda is for a short-term rental. And this property is addressed at 2106 South Copperfield Street. And we shall hear from staff first.

Yes, ma'am. Tonight we have a short-term rental license for 2106 South Copperfield Streets. Here's the outline of the property. This is about a quarter mile south of 19th Avenue and a quarter mile east of Sanger Road. This property outlined in pink on Copperfield Streets. The property has a single-family house on it, and as we can see, there are no existing short-term rental licenses within the block or generally surrounding the short-term rental. I'm open to answer any questions if you have any.

Any questions for staff? I don't see any, thank you. At this time, we would give an opportunity for the applicant or their representative to come forward. Can you just state your name and address for the record, please?

I'm Ann Morgan. I'm representing 2106 Copperfield. I live on Fairgrounds Road in Glencoe. I'm employed with real estate professionals here in Stillwater at 723 South Main Street.

Can you get a little closer to the mic? Thank you. So do you need me to repeat any of that? Do we get all that? OK.

So I will be managing this property. Like I said, I'm a licensed realtor here in Stillwater. I've been a licensed realtor for nine years, actively helping buyers and sellers. I own a rental property here in Stillwater, and then I manage properties as well. I manage six properties here. And I will be managing this property for the homeowners while they are on sabbatical in Germany from August.

I think when you lean up and down, I'm not sure they can hear. You can move it. Is that better? Yes.

Okay. They will be on sabbatical from August until December of this year. We have a limited amount of time that people can rent the property. There are eight openings and it is open from Thursday until Sunday with a minimum of two night rental. I have age restrictions. We have house rules. There are quiet hours from 10 p.m. until 8 a.m. There are a limited number of parking spaces, so there's four. This home has a circle driveway and a driveway that is, I don't know how to explain it, but the circle drive is like this and then the driveway comes into here. The garage will not be available because they will be putting their property and stuff in the garages and locking those doors. But I will be there to manage the property, be available. My phone number is all over the Airbnb website for access. They can call me, they can text me, same as all the rental properties that I manage and maintain. I get calls at all hours of the night for air conditioning, all of those things. So I have people readily available to help when things go awry. Let's see. Occupancy would be there. It's a five bedroom home. So it's a ten Maximum is the number of people that can stay there. There's one bedroom that has a king-size bed There are there's one bedroom that has an air mattress There is one bedroom that has a full bed and there is one bedroom that has a bunk bed All right any questions for the representative for the applicant

all right thank you so much all right at this at this ma'am at this time we're gonna open the public hearing and if you would like to come forward and ask any questions you can do so during the public hearing so if you'd like to come forward just state your name and address for the record

2011 where we're at 2011 Copperfield and we have a a Wayne Smith a Wayne Smith. And we have had. We have had we've been there for a long time. So we've had 2, 3 houses come vacant while they were being built and we had one on the corner and there was built and not sold And it was rented out to somebody without anybody knowing, I'm sure at the time. And it got depleted around the yards and still wasn't taken care of and stuff like that. And so that's one thing that can happen to things. And the house we're talking about, the house next door to us, 2011, where we're at, is the lady's been put into a place or she's gone to a place and the house has not been occupied for a while. And this is what can happen if it's any time limits. between somebody being there and somebody not being there. Are we got it ready now, or is it going to rent in two or three months, or what? And also, it's grown up some. We've been trying to get somebody down there that's on the committee there for the area to go in there and do something about it. And we're working on it now. They've got a problem there already there. And the house we're talking about here that they're wanting to do this to has got a driveway that is used for both houses on the right and on the left. When you come into the driveway, the garage doors on this house faces the garage doors on this house. So you've got two garage doors facing each other. And the children that's in the house and the people there, they're nice people. I don't have a problem with the people. But they have quite a few children, and they're up and down the street, and they only have, I think, three or four, something like that, I think. And you're talking about for 10 people, if I had a house next door, that would be really an awful lot of people in that area. We're coming and going and all that kind of, and the parking too. So like I say, it's concern. It's things that's coming on. It's things that we need to really be serious about taking a real long look at it because we don't want this to be a problem for Stillwater down the line. The right people in there, I can see that, but the wrong people in there would be not a good thing. It's a nice, quiet neighborhood. We know the neighbors around us really well and everything, and we enjoy it, and we'd like to keep enjoying it the way it is and not be... The problem is, we start this up, and we've got one, and then we've got two. We've got three, four, five, six. Next thing you know, I mean, this is a little bit of an overrun on it, but it can happen. I mean, depending on the growth of Stillwater. So we feel like this is just not for our neighborhood. They're all really nice homes. They've all been built to single housing type homes, and we just feel like we want to leave it that way. Thank you.

Thank you. Ma'am, if you'd like to come forward, you can come forward.

I do have a hard time understanding you up here. He's the only one I could really. But from what I understood, in the beginning, when these people.

Linda, can you give your name?

Linda Hillier. In the beginning, what I understood is that. And your address, ma'am? 2011 Copperfield. Okay. It's catty corner from this house. That it was, they were going to. lease it while they were on a sabbatical. There were two professors. And that it was just going to be a family. From what I understood right there, she's saying, yes, it is a five bedroom home. Leasing it to a family is one thing. When you've got the potential of college students coming in, and you've got a lot of cars, and you've got a lot of young people who do not maintain a residence in the same respect that a family would. And I assumed that if they were professors that they would lease it to somebody of equal caliber. That concerns me when I hear about maintaining a residence for the neighborhood and for the home itself. Those homes in the beginning I'm going to say that they range probably anywhere between $400,000 and $800,000, at one time higher than that, but their real estate has gone down, and I'm really concerned about the residents' value when you start getting into leasing a home to that many people. And secondly, when you've got a homeowners association with rules that once you allow this to go on, then it's going to become a precedent because you can't say the next person can't do it if it's already been done. They say, well, house number 2106 did it, so why should we be able to do it at 2108 and 21010? And I am surprised that we don't have, I don't think anybody understands the potential of doing this. I wouldn't mind if this family was doing it one time to another family. I do mind if it's a thing that's going to continue and we're going to have that many people in there and it's potentially, we don't know who they're going to rent it to. I do mind and I am concerned.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you. Thanks.

So at this time, we would allow the representative to come forward. And maybe if you could answer some of the questions that have been addressed.

Let's see. So, like I said, there's the quiet hours from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. It is limited to those eight weekends. It's Thursday through Sunday, so there's no weekdays that the home can be rented. It is for all home football games and two of the McKnight Center events. I think Leanne Rimes and there's another one, a jazz event. Those are the only eight weekends that it will be rented out. I'm evaluating the renters or their request. There is an age limit or the 28 is the youngest that somebody can be that is the primary renter for the home. The neighbors that share the driveway, it is split. There's a driveway and the driveway and they do share garages. But that neighbor has agreed to take the trash from the garage to the street and There are rules that they have to clean out the house. We have home cleaners scheduled to clean the house monthly, like once a week. And then obviously when people leave the home, they will come in and clean as well. They have hired a lawn care company to maintain the lawn. So I think that takes care of that. And then, like I said, for the renters, I will be monitoring that. There are people that have applied. I review their application. I see that they have a history. I have called another Airbnb, an agent that manages Airbnbs in town. This person rented from them three times. And so I called to follow up on that person. They left each other outstanding review on both ends. Same for the other family that has requested to stay for a home weekend. I think they are the weekend for homecoming. They are alumni of Stillwater or of OSU and they meet the minimum requirement by a significant amount.

Alright, so I think I think you've answered. I think that's all the questions. OK, thank you. OK. Alright, so we'll just close the public hearing. And we can hear from staff.

Yes, ma'am. So the factors to consider tonight are ma'am.

But we're continuing the process here. Thank you.

So the factors to consider tonight are the proposed use on the character of the neighborhood, traffic conditions, public utilities, drainage, and other matters related to the general welfare. The alternatives tonight are to approve or deny the application.

All right. Thank you.

I think as far as Airbnbs go, just briefly touching on some of the concerns that were had, the new regulations that are in the city code sets a limitation to how many Airbnbs can be within a certain block. So it does limit that to a certain area. That's moving forward. It sounds like a Monday, right? So the runaway effect of all of a sudden you're going to have 10 and a certain block is not going to happen. Also along those new guidelines that the city is going to be setting, This Airbnb does, it seems like based off of everything that we discussed with the property manager, as well as the letter that we received from the homeowner, they're pretty squared away. They're gonna be taking care of their house. I think actually, in my opinion, having them being gone for sabbatical, they're gonna be gone either way. This gives them a good incentive to make sure that they are keeping up with the house and keeping up with the lawn. Yeah, my opinion is that this is a good candidate for an Airbnb here in town.

I move we approve this request. Second.

We have a motion and a second. We shall now vote. Motion passes 3-0. Next item on the agenda is the regular meeting summary of June 16th. Were there any additions or corrections?

Motion to approve as presented.

Second the motion.

We have a motion and a second. We shall now vote. Motion passes 3-0. Next item on the agenda is the meeting summary from July 7th. Chair did have a typo on a person's name that I had shared with staff. And I believe that was on, let me find it again. I want to say it was page 8. No, we don't have that many pages. would be on page three, about 2 3rds of the way down. The name should, instead of B-O-E-L-E, it should be B-O-L-E-N-E. And that was all that I found in that one.

Motion to approve as presented. With the corrections stated.

Second. We have a motion and a second. We shall now vote. Motion passes 3-0. Next item on the agenda is miscellaneous items from staff, the planning commissioners, or the city attorney for discussion or possible action.

None.

We'll say the next regular meeting is August 4th. And the last item on the agenda is adjournment. Do I hear a motion to adjourn?

So moved. Second.

We have a motion and a second. We shall now vote. Motion passes 3-0. We now stand adjourned.