A proposed ordinance in Harris Township that would regulate homes used for short-term rentals such as Airbnb and Vrbo has been met with pushback from a group of property owners who suggested they could bring legal action if it passes in its current form.
The township has been developing for several months an ordinance to require local permits and accompanying requirements, along with regional code permits, for long-term and short-term rentals. Current regulations already require a permit for properties that are rented for a period of 30 consecutive days or longer, but the township does not yet have any regulations for short-term rentals.
About 50 properties in Harris Township are currently used for short-term rentals, zoning officer Todd Shea wrote in an April memo. The township permit, manager Mark Boeckel said at an Aug. 11 discussion of the proposed ordinance “would be basically for us to know where these units exist, to have a record of how many parking spaces they have, the layout of the property, things of that nature,” while the code permit is for safety matters.
“Our goal here is to maintain the character of our community,” Supervisor Bruce Lord said during the Aug. 11 meeting.
Under the draft ordinance, an annual short-term rental permit, for a feee to be determined, would be required for single-family residences that are rented for at least one day and no more than 29 consecutive days. Permit holders would be allowed to rent the property for up to 120 cumulative days per year, and the home must be the primary residence of the owner at least eight months a year.
Those requirements are similar to State College Borough’s STR ordinance, which also requires eight-month owner occupancy and limits cumulative rental days to 120 per year. Elsewhere in Centre County, Bellefonte allows 60 rental days per year and College Township allows 45. Ferguson Township has no limit and requires six-month occupancy. Patton Township recently adopted a requirement that mandates a rental permit for any rental of more than one day.
Existing STR units in Harris Township would receive an exemption from the ordinance’s owner-occupancy requirements as long as sufficient evidence is provided that the property had been used for short-term rentals prior to the adoption of the ordinance. But the exemption would cease if the property is transferred to a new owner or it is no longer used as a long-term rental.
That was one of a number of issues raised by Eric Hurvitz, a real estate agent and West Main Street property owner who said he and about 15 other residents have retained attorney Ambrose Heinz of the law firm of Stevens and Lee to represent them.
“This is a clear violation of zoning law,” Hurvitz said. “The legal non-conforming use is allowed to run with the land, i.e., continue until that use is either a nuisance, abandoned or extinguished by eminent domain.”
The proposed ordinance also requires STRs to have one off-street parking space per bedroom, which Hurvitz said unfairly singles out a specific use.
“You cannot change rules for a specific use,” he said. “If you’d like to change the rules of parking in Harris Township, then you have the authority to do so for all citizens, including permanent residents, long-term rentals, visitors, commercial property owners. No street parking means no street parking.”
Hurvitz and several other residents who spoke at the meeting said the ordinance’s requirement to have paved parking would prohibit properties with long-established gravel driveways from getting an STR permit unless they invested in concrete or asphalt. Supervisors said the intent is to prevent a property owner from dumping gravel to meet the parking requirement, and Lord said they would continue to look at the issue as the ordinance is further developed.
A provision of the ordinance requiring STR owners to have $500,000 in general liability insurance is “unreasonable and discriminatory,” Hurvitz said, adding that another requirement to provide documentation that a septic system is adequate is “unnecessary,” and prohibiting owners of condos or multi-unit buildings from operating STRs is an “unlawful restriction.”
Citing a memo from Heinz, Hurvitz said new STR operators should also be exempt from the 120-day limit as “an existing non-conforming use that is not subject to that limitation.
Kaywood resident Bryan Spang called the 120-day limit “unacceptable,” saying if the STR his family operates next door to their residence were subject to the requirement it would “put me out of business.”
Overall, Hurvitz said, the proposed regulations are largely unnecessary because the problems they seek to address can be remedied through enforcement of existing ordinances.
“Parking, piles of brush, noise violations can all easily be resolved, can all easily and effectively be dealt with by enforcing ordinances you already have,” Hurvitz said. “Instead, we’ll layer regulation over regulation, impose more fees, burden the township with enforcing a solution without a problem, all to rid yourself of one bad apple.”
While a half-dozen residents voiced concerns with the ordinance, one said that no other businesses are permitted in residential districts and that “anything that’s given to the current owners is a gift.”
Supervisor Frank Harden said the board could just elect to not allow STRs at all.
“We have two options here,” Harden said. “We can make an ordinance like this and try to accommodate the short-term rentals, but … when it goes all down to the bottom line, if we can’t do that, we’ve got one other option: no short-term rentals in residential areas.”
Supervisor Nigel Wilson said the board is trying to accommodate STRs while protecting neighborhoods.
“My bottom line here is to protect the residential communities, but allow reasonable use of your property to make a little extra money — reasonable use,” Wilson said. “Now, I think we’re pretty accommodating saying if you’ve already invested in a property that you’re only going to Airbnb, that we’re going to let you continue to do that and leave it vacant for now. That’s a give. We don’t have to give.
“And, again, Frank said it. We could just shut it all down. And other municipalities have more restrictive ordinances. Anybody thinking that it wasn’t going to happen here when they bought a property and they want to make a business out of it really wasn’t thinking clearly, in my opinion, because it’s bound to happen. It is. People want to protect their neighborhoods.”
The ordinance, Lord said, won’t make everyone happy but the board and staff are trying to develop a reasonable compromise.
“I think we’re all concerned about the character of our communities,” Lord said. “… We’re going to keep working. We’re going to try to do our best.”
