County board tables controversial proposal

A zoning proposal to regulate short-term rental housing throughout much of Flathead County was tabled Wednesday by the Planning Board following an exhaustive public hearing that included testimony from both supporters and opponents.

The Planning Board will continue its discussion on March 8 and is expected to decide then whether to recommend approval of a zoning text amendment to add short-term rentals as an administrative conditional use in the Ashley Lake, Labrant/Lindsey Lane, Lakeside, Little Bitterroot Lake, North Fork, Rogers Lake and West Valley neighborhoods.

Some board members want a chance to tweak the proposal before forwarding a recommendation to the county commissioners; others said they would prefer scrapping the text amendment and would rather remove the 30-day stipulation in zoning regulations. Currently, operating a rental unit for less than 30 days is an illegal use in zoned areas of the county. Nevertheless, there are dozens of short-term, or vacation rentals operating throughout the county.

Removing the 30-day benchmark essentially would make it legal to operate a short-term rental anywhere in the county with no regulatory oversight.

“We pile regulation upon regulation and I wonder if some regulations are not counter-productive,” Planning Board member Greg Stevens commented. “Are we trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist? What I’m hearing is there are a lot of nice [short-term rental] places that owners take personal interest in.”

Stevens said public comments indicated it’s a self-policing industry.

“I recognize there are some abuses from time to time, but do we need to get involved … in an issue that is a residential use?” Stevens asked.

The Northwest Montana Association of Realtors asked for the zoning text amendment for three key reasons — to protect homeowners, protect the property rights of neighbors and to protect the traveling public, said Erica Wirtala, government affairs director for the Realtor association.

Allowing short-term rentals as an administrative conditional use not only would bring property owners who rent such units into compliance, but also would enable Realtors to market properties for sale that have VRBO potential, she said.

County Planning Director Mark Mussman recommended deleting the North Fork Zoning District from the neighborhoods targeted for the zoning amendment because guest cabins already are a permitted use in the North Fork.

Mussman suggested a couple of other tweaks to the proposal: requiring one parking space per bedroom instead of two, and restricting short-term rentals to one dwelling unit per property.

“The amount of people that enjoy a piece of property can overwhelm certain neighborhoods,” Mussman said. “One of the ways to mitigate that is to make sure the density is not exceeded.”

No board action was taken on any of Mussman’s suggestions, although they may be brought up at the March 8 meeting.

If the county imposes regulations for short-term rentals, it would come with fees of about $300 to $325 for the application process that includes obtaining a certified property owner list to notify neighbors within 150 feet. The amendment would add a number of performance standards for short-term rentals.

Wirtala said there is some self-regulating structure to the short-term rental industry, but because these rentals are an illegal use, they run the risk of being shut down if problems arise in a neighborhood.

“Right now, short-term rentals are one mad neighbor’s phone call away from being shut down. It’s the angry neighbor phone call running the show right now,” she said. “With the policy now, there’s no recourse, it’s cease and desist” because short-term rentals are an illegal zoning use.

Steve Pleasants, who has a vacation rental south of Whitefish, said short-term rental owners police themselves. He sees the zone change as regulating an industry that already is largely regulating itself.

“I’m not opposed to making this thing legal. I could probably comply, but I don’t really want to,” Pleasants said, drawing a round of laughter from the audience. “Flying under the radar works great.”

On the other side of the issue, many rural residents wrote letters to the Planning Board describing their firsthand experiences with neighborhood intrusion from short-term rentals. Cheryl Palmer of Bigfork wrote to say she’d personally seen how vacation rentals can get out of control with traffic, noise, safety concerns, litter, disruption and “intrusion to the quiet enjoyment of one’s property during the best months of the year.”

Several people in a standing-room-only crowd asked how the county and volunteer rural fire departments would have the manpower to enforce all of the performance standards.

Forest Nelson, owner of Jewel Box Tiny Homes LLC in Kalispell, said the added regulations would make it more difficult to do business.

We don’t need to make more regulations,” Nelson said. “It will be near impossible to adequately regulate something so vast.”

Clell Hoffman of the Ashley Lake area was another citizen who wondered how county staff could handle the added workload.

“I think you’re jumping off a bridge without a bottom,” Hoffman said. “How will the fire departments do all these inspections?”

He asked if the Ashley Lake Zoning District could be omitted from the proposal because Ashley Lake has its own neighborhood plan. There were questions from others in the audience about how the zoning text amendment would interface with existing neighborhood plans.

A few short-term rental operators testified they’re able to keep their property because their rentals help pay the bills.

Michelle Ahern, owner of Outlook Inn Bed and Breakfast in Somers and president of the Montana Bed and Breakfast Association, said the association supports regulations for short-term rentals because it provides “an even playing field” for bed and breakfast owners whose lodging inns already are regulated and subject to annual inspections.

Many people attending the hearing suggested the Planning Board take its time and further study the proposed regulations. Painting the county with one broad regulatory brush could be challenging, they said, because the rural landscape varies from dense subdivisions to lone farmsteads on agricultural land.

Planning Board Chairman Jeff Larsen said he can’t support the text amendment as written, adding that it would “need a fair amount of work” to win his approval. On the other hand, Larsen said, scrapping the text amendment and developing another proposal to simply drop the 30-day benchmark separating long- and short-term rentals “would be fairly controversial.”

Mussman advised that removing the 30-day language from zoning regulations would require a separate staff report. He cautioned there would be “unintended consequence,” such as the Flathead Valley missing out on the benefits derived from its share of the state bed tax that helps with tourism promotion.

“I’d hate to shut the door on this [proposal] and then try to open the door on the 30-day [proposal],” Mussman said. “As a profession planner, I believe there’s a certain amount of regulations most short-term rental owners can live with.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.