Update: hearing on str moratorium

10/5/2020

Update: Public Hearing on STR Moratorium and Next Steps

Dear STRACC Members,

We just wanted to send a reminder that the Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) will be holding a public hearing to take public input on the temporary moratorium on STR developments that the BoCC enacted and we reported on Aug 25. The hearing will be held tomorrow (Tuesday, Oct 6th) at 10:15am via Zoom at https://zoom.us/j/650411499. STRACC opposes this temporary moratorium and believes it should be lifted immediately while the new STR regulations are being considered. We encourage STR supporters to listen in and testify on the Zoom call tomorrow.

In other news: The Planning Commission (PC) is scheduled to continue their deliberations on the proposed STR code next Thursday, Oct 15th at 6pm. No public comment will be taken as they are still revising the code. Their previous meeting on September 23rd was somewhat disorganized with no agreement or action taken to change the code. However, we were encouraged by their discussion to remove the 5-year "sunset" on existing STRs proposed by some PC members who were previously opposed to grandfathering. We sense they are feeling the legal pressure from STRACC and other STR groups promising future "takings" claims if existing STR's are not permanently grandfathered in.

Furthermore, the Planning Commission still seems unsure about how to proceed with code revisions given the County's instructions to "ignore" the original vision statement, which our OPMA (Open Public Meetings Act) lawsuit showed was illegally-drafted by the BoCC. At various points in recent meetings, PC members have continued violating the County's instructions to disregard the vision statement by directly paraphrasing it in their deliberations, for example in comments about need "to protect the residential quality of neighborhoods." You can watch past recordings of PC Meetings here.

So, it remains unclear when the Planning Commission will finish acting on the ordinance and send it back to the BoCC for their public hearing on it. We know that Commissioner Doug England is leaving office at the end of the year, and we hope Tiffany Gering will take his place as Commissioner for District 3. Please consider supporting her campaign in the upcoming election. Tiffany is a reliable supporter of STR's and our affiliate businesses.

Finally, please also consider donating to STRACC so we can keep defending your property rights. The STRACC board serves on a strictly volunteer basis. All of your donations go to our legal expenses, minus a tiny amount of administrative expense. We can't continue this fight without you. So thank you again!!

The STRACC Executive Board

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