Chief architect of short-term rental regulations withdraws drafts from Town Council – Barnstable Patriot

In one of the most contentious discussions to date, months of work on drafting short-term rental regulations abruptly halted last Thursday, when Councilor Paula Schnepp of Marstons Mills chose to withdraw both a general and zoning ordinance, effectively ending consideration of any new rules. For now.

"I don't know if I'm completely surprised, given how hard it was to even get it to our meeting on the 5th," Schnepp said by phone Tuesday. "What happens next will depend on if leadership wants to bring it forward again."

Council President Paul Hebert supported delaying the votes at least until Nik Atsalis, who was elected last week to fill Britt Beedenbender's Precinct 4/Centerville council term, is sworn in. But the council annually elects new leadership in December.

"The one thing that is abundantly clear is there are a myriad of issues that have yet to be addressed," said Councilor David Bogan of Osterville. "The issue is not the ability to rent property but the ability to engage in short-term rentals."

At the council's Nov. 5 meeting, Bogan moved to table STR discussions until mid-January, and he recommended that the draft regulations undergo further subcommittee or task force study.

"We want to protect our neighborhoods, ability to rent periodically and keep out non-owner occupied renters," he said. "Let's take a little more time."

If the ordinances go back to the same committee, whats going to change? asked Councilor Jen Cullum of Hyannis, who served on the STR subcommittee that Schnepp chaired.

Schnepp and Cullum, who worked closely with town staff to draft the STR ordinances, sought to move forward with a vote.

"We put a ton of time into this 88 hours of meetings and endless public comment," Cullum said. "Weve done the work. I think we should vote on it and move onto sewers. Its becoming a crisis to me that were not dealing with a billion-dollar sewer project."

Schnepp agreed. "We have gone through a rigorous process," she said. "I believe we have arrived at a very reasonable regulatory framework. To pass this along is not fulfilling our obligations as elected officials."

An hour and a half into the meeting, even Councilor Eric Steinhilber became exasperated.

"This issue has been talked about for 18 months. This didnt just drop out of the sky," Steinhilber said. "We are failing people. We are not getting our business done. Call it a failure of leadership.

"If you have objections, come prepared with amendments," he said. "Come to a working consensus, and vote on it. Im sorry. Its just embarrassing."

In his own defense, Hebert said, "my job was to allow the councilors to discuss. Some councilors chose to not discuss. Look at yourself in the mirror before you criticize the leadership. We seem to have lost our ability to be civil."

Schnepp said she sensed there would be no consensus.

"The motion to table was a split vote (6:6), an early indication we were not going to get the support we needed for the zoning," she said. "The general (ordinance) without the zoning (ordinance) is not a good path forward."

For now, the town still has Board of Health regulations and inspections in place that govern owner-occupied rentals, she noted. "It is my understanding that town staff will be moving forward with reaching out to properties that have registered with the Department of Revenue and telling them that they also have to register with the Barnstable Board of Health."

In addition, Schnepp said town staff is looking into entering into a contract with a company that monitors STR advertising.

"That will be a mechanism to identify those properties that haven't come forward yet and the service offers a 24-hr complaint hotline," she said. "I feel confident that there will still be ways in which we identify and monitor short-term rentals in town even without these ordinances."

Nevertheless, "it's been a long year of accomplishing absolutely nothing," Cullum said in hindsight. "It's been very frustrating...the worst year in my nine years of serving Precinct 13. We have done nothing in one year. There's no leadership."

The council's next meeting is Thursday, Nov. 19 at 7 p.m. on Ch. 18 and ZOOM.

Read the original:
Chief architect of short-term rental regulations withdraws drafts from Town Council - Barnstable Patriot