(July 20, 2017) Snow Hill’s recently approved short-term rental ordinance was slightly amended during the town council meeting last Tuesday.
Town Manager Kelly Pruitt read the proposed addition of a definition for a short-term rental resident agent: “A person or a property-management company located within 20 miles of the Town of Snow Hill, Maryland, who accepts full responsibility for contact and administration of management for a registered short-term rental.”
Pruitt explained that use of a resident agent would permit absentee owners to rent either a room, or an entire home, regardless of their personal proximity to Snow Hill.
“The resident agent will be named by the owner as 24-hour emergency contact,” she said. “Failure to respond to tenant issues and emergency situations will result in revocation of the short-term rental permit.”
Melisa Weidner, representing Olde Town Candy Company owner Mark Schramek, questioned the logic behind the revisions.
“It says it’s in the town’s best interest to have someone within a 20-mile radius,” she said. “All people with condos in Ocean City don’t necessarily have representatives, but someone needs to be here.”
Weidner also took exception with a requirement limiting occupancy of short-term rentals to no more than five unrelated persons, noting that Schramek owns property that could accommodate a larger number.
“What happens if a family wants to rent the house and there’s 10 of them?” she asked. “It’s not a single bedroom, it’s a four-bedroom family home.”
This discussion took place during the public comment portion of the council meeting, which followed passage of the ordinance changes. Weidner said she was unclear of the council agenda or when the opportunity occurred for public input.
“All it says [online] is second Tuesday of every month there’s a meeting,” she said. “We never know what the agendas are.”
Mayor Charlie Dorman said the ordinance was originally passed in April, following a public hearing in March.
“We had a pubic hearing a couple of months ago on this and nobody spoke up,” he said.
Weidner countered that the community wasn’t sufficiently informed.
“I don’t know if anyone knew about it,” she said. “That’s one of things about these meetings – there isn’t an agenda that’s put out on Facebook or anyplace about it.”
Dorman responded that all council meeting agendas are available online through the town’s website.
“That’s how I get mine,” he said. “The whole package was on there.”
The additions to the ordinance language were determined to be of importance by the Snow Hill Planning Commission, Dorman said, while also noting there were already resident agents handling short-term rentals at the beach.
“[The planning commission] went over it and that’s what they determined,” he said. “I use to have a condo maintenance company in Ocean City and we took care of people’s properties.”
While acknowledging she was familiar with others who handle property management in Ocean City, Weidner continued expressing her displeasure.
“It’s just been really difficult to swallow the amount of obstacles,” she said. “Whether it’s been county wide or town wide.”
Dorman took exception with that characterization.
“What’s so tough about having somebody in the area if a fire happens to a rental piece of property?” he said. “If you’re renting it weekly or nightly … you’ve got to have somebody to call.”
Jon Hill, code enforcement officer, provided further clarification.
“Before this ordinance was in effect there was no allowance for short-term rentals in the town of Snow Hill,” he said. “In fact, it was not permitted whatsoever.”
Hill also explained the reasoning behind the five-person limitation for sort-term rentals.
“What the county said is we will regulate anything over five persons because it becomes a boarding house or it becomes commercial usage,” he said.
Hill said that while residential homes of sufficient size could be rented to larger groups, that practice falls under a different purview.
“If [Schramek] wants to rent to 20 or 30 people he can do that,” he said. “ But when he starts doing that it becomes a change of use and has to be regulated by the fire marshal.”
The fire marshal typically recommends installing fire suppression sprinklers and exterior fire escapes from upper floors, Hill said.
“What we’ve done is made it possible for people who own homes here in town to be excluded from those regulations as long as they rent to five persons or less,” he said.
Planning Commission Chairperson Ron Geesey provided further clarification for the five-person restriction.
“We looked at issues in Rehoboth and Ocean City where there were violations of the number of unrelated people occupying short-term rentals, [which sometimes] created a disturbance,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that didn’t happen here.”
Town Manager Kelly Pruitt read the proposed addition of a definition for a short-term rental resident agent: “A person or a property-management company located within 20 miles of the Town of Snow Hill, Maryland, who accepts full responsibility for contact and administration of management for a registered short-term rental.”
Pruitt explained that use of a resident agent would permit absentee owners to rent either a room, or an entire home, regardless of their personal proximity to Snow Hill.
“The resident agent will be named by the owner as 24-hour emergency contact,” she said. “Failure to respond to tenant issues and emergency situations will result in revocation of the short-term rental permit.”
Melisa Weidner, representing Olde Town Candy Company owner Mark Schramek, questioned the logic behind the revisions.
“It says it’s in the town’s best interest to have someone within a 20-mile radius,” she said. “All people with condos in Ocean City don’t necessarily have representatives, but someone needs to be here.”
Weidner also took exception with a requirement limiting occupancy of short-term rentals to no more than five unrelated persons, noting that Schramek owns property that could accommodate a larger number.
“What happens if a family wants to rent the house and there’s 10 of them?” she asked. “It’s not a single bedroom, it’s a four-bedroom family home.”
This discussion took place during the public comment portion of the council meeting, which followed passage of the ordinance changes. Weidner said she was unclear of the council agenda or when the opportunity occurred for public input.
“All it says [online] is second Tuesday of every month there’s a meeting,” she said. “We never know what the agendas are.”
Mayor Charlie Dorman said the ordinance was originally passed in April, following a public hearing in March.
“We had a pubic hearing a couple of months ago on this and nobody spoke up,” he said.
Weidner countered that the community wasn’t sufficiently informed.
“I don’t know if anyone knew about it,” she said. “That’s one of things about these meetings – there isn’t an agenda that’s put out on Facebook or anyplace about it.”
Dorman responded that all council meeting agendas are available online through the town’s website.
“That’s how I get mine,” he said. “The whole package was on there.”
The additions to the ordinance language were determined to be of importance by the Snow Hill Planning Commission, Dorman said, while also noting there were already resident agents handling short-term rentals at the beach.
“[The planning commission] went over it and that’s what they determined,” he said. “I use to have a condo maintenance company in Ocean City and we took care of people’s properties.”
While acknowledging she was familiar with others who handle property management in Ocean City, Weidner continued expressing her displeasure.
“It’s just been really difficult to swallow the amount of obstacles,” she said. “Whether it’s been county wide or town wide.”
Dorman took exception with that characterization.
“What’s so tough about having somebody in the area if a fire happens to a rental piece of property?” he said. “If you’re renting it weekly or nightly … you’ve got to have somebody to call.”
Jon Hill, code enforcement officer, provided further clarification.
“Before this ordinance was in effect there was no allowance for short-term rentals in the town of Snow Hill,” he said. “In fact, it was not permitted whatsoever.”
Hill also explained the reasoning behind the five-person limitation for sort-term rentals.
“What the county said is we will regulate anything over five persons because it becomes a boarding house or it becomes commercial usage,” he said.
Hill said that while residential homes of sufficient size could be rented to larger groups, that practice falls under a different purview.
“If [Schramek] wants to rent to 20 or 30 people he can do that,” he said. “ But when he starts doing that it becomes a change of use and has to be regulated by the fire marshal.”
The fire marshal typically recommends installing fire suppression sprinklers and exterior fire escapes from upper floors, Hill said.
“What we’ve done is made it possible for people who own homes here in town to be excluded from those regulations as long as they rent to five persons or less,” he said.
Planning Commission Chairperson Ron Geesey provided further clarification for the five-person restriction.
“We looked at issues in Rehoboth and Ocean City where there were violations of the number of unrelated people occupying short-term rentals, [which sometimes] created a disturbance,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that didn’t happen here.”