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Home My Public Portal AboutPublic Comment Colleen McCarthy Darrah Johnston From: Town of Truckee, CA <webmaster@townoftruckee.com> Sent: Friday, September 4, 2020 12:59 PM To: Truckee; Hilary Hobbs Subject: *NEW SUBMISSION* Public Comment Form for Short-Term Vacation Rental Ordinance and Permit Program Public Comment Form for Short-Term Vacation Rental Ordinance and Permit Program Submission#: 524530 IP Address: 47.208.181.27 Submission Date: 09/04/2020 12:59 Survey Time: 2 minutes, 52 seconds You have a new online form submission. Note: all answers displaying"*****" are marked as sensitive and must be viewed after your login. Name Colleen McCarthy Email colliwog@sbcglobal.net Phone (optional) Public Comment Please see attachment hereto. Thank you! lf your comment exceeds 2000 characters, please use the attachment function below to attach your comment in a separate document. Attachment STR-public comment.pdf Please ensure that you enter your email address in the box below and click the SUBMIT button to receive a copy of your submitted responses for Public Comment. Thank you, Town of Truckee This is an automated message generated by the Vision Content Management SystemTM.Please do not reply directly to this email. 1 Public comment: Thank you for the opportunity to submit my personal public comments to the Town of Truckee prior to its formal adoption of an ordinance to regulate short-term rental operations. This subject is of enormous interest to all residents, and 1 strongly believe that the Town is correct in final) adopting formal rules and regulations to govern said operations. Let me start off by saying that it is my opinion that any short-term rental application regarding a real property located in our town should be only considered after all contiguous neighbors of the proposed rental real property have been notified of the application. The point of this notification is not to present adversarial issues within neighbors (and other homeowners), but to immediately open up a healthy chain of communication regarding the proposed rental real property between the neighbor, the rental real property owner, and the Town. My feelings on this are strong and come from a place where 1 strongly believe that this is still a place for families to safely and wonderfully raise their children (the very reason why 1 live here), and in support of that comment, my belief is that every parent in every neighborbood within our beautiful town has the right to know who is living in their neighborhood every day, month and year. Allowing short-term rental properties within established residential communities immediately changes the dynamic of the community --- and therefore, the Town needs to be responsible in considering the rights of every single resident (short-term and long-term alike). My comments, by section numbers to your "Ordinance 2020- " follow: Exhibit A, CHAPTER 5.02, Section 5.02.030, Number 5 It is my very strong opinion that the "Maximum occupancy" of a short- term rental which you have set forth as "two guests per bedroom, plus two additional people, excluding children under five (5) year of age" is ridiculously broad. It is also my belief that the California HUD 11Page parameters on this very subject are less than what you have suggested here. If left as written, 1 believe there is a strong need for the inclusion of the definition of a "bedroom" so as to distinguish between a Master Bedroom and a so-called "bunk room". Without a clearly defined definition, this maximum occupancy language can easily be interpreted by owners and renters in accord with their own personal desires for any given rental term, leaving the Town will no clear and concrete defense given their own very loose language. The "maximum occupancy" of a short-term rental should not be able to be interpreted by the owner or the renter, and, in fact, should be assigned to each short term rental property by the Town given the number of "bedrooms" in each short-term rental property - whether they be masters or bunkrooms --- all with the intent of avoiding further legal and other conflicts/appeals/lawsuits, etc. Exhibit A, CHAPTER 5.02, Section 5.02.030, Section C.10 "Acknowledge that the operator has read and understood this chapter, and the Town's noise, parking, garbage collection, guest safety and operational standards". One additional personal comment: I think as this process begins it is very important that the Town Attorney author the language of a short- term rental agreement, for use by all short-term rentals within the Town, which language provides also for the additional acknowledgement of each Renter (Owner and each Renter shall acknowledge) regarding their reading and understanding of all of the same items set forth above. Most short-term rental operators are not savy and/or skilled at writing rental agreements that pertain to the businesses that they are operating, and that failure will only leave the Town defending future "appeals" brought about by lack of clarify (and obvious omissions) at the onset of the rental arrangement. 2 1 P a g e Exhibit A, CHAPTER 5.02, Section 5.02.040, B "Local Person Contact" All of this language is necessary; however, it should also include a 24/7 Town contact for the reporting of complaints by neighbors of the short-term rental properties that are impacted by noise and other complaints which occur outside of regular business hours. The Town needs to understand that some people actually live in this town on purpose, and those residents are often employed. Having a short-term rental next door with loud occupants at 2 a.m. is not ok, and having a 24 hour contact person utilized by the Town is fine, as long as that neighbor who is enduring the violation (and who has to sleep in order to work the next day) shall also be provided with a Town contact person to reach who can help address the issue -- outside of calling the police department. Exhibit A, CHAPTER 5.02, Section 5.02.040, E "Each short-term rental shall be equipped with one or more bear- resistant trash can enclosures meeting the requirements of ...... �� Please include language which allows the Town to require additional bear boxes (prior to issuing a Registration Certificate) so as to accommodate more trash/garbage cans for those larger short-term rental properties. Not all short-term rental properties are the same in size, and those properties which have a larger number of 66bedrooms" available for rental, shall be required to cover the amount of trash produced assuming that the larger short-term rental properties are rented to capacity on all rental periods. Exhibit A, CHAPTER 5.02, Section 5.02.040, F "Interior posting requirements" in each short-term rental property need to include detailed directions regarding the operation of the bear box(es) assigned to said rental property, as well as the operation of any woodstove and ash cans (again...., suggested language provided 3 1 P a g e by the Town Attorney on this and other similar matters will only serve to avoid future appeals and additional costs to the Town). Thank you for allowing me to submit my personal comments regarding the proposed future Ordinance adoption by the Town of Truckee. It is my hope that my comments, and other comments by other residents, will be heavily considered, and incorporated where possible. 1 believe it is of grave consequence to all residents that the language in this Ordinance be fine-tuned so that it is enforceable, and is without arguable "gray areas" on every single point. Thank you for your time in reading my submittal. Colleen McCarthy 4 1 P a g e