Welcome. We're going to try to stay on time. I know that Councilwoman Herbert and myself and other folks have some of the appointments that we have to keep important appointments that we have committed to. So we're gonna try to move through the agenda on time. With that, Madam Clerk, could you read the role I believe everybody is here today? Here. Here. Present. Yes. Present. Here. Reverend McDowell, would you mind saying a word of prayer before we begin this work session, please? Let us pray. Gracious and kind Creator, for your love and kindness, for your tender mercies. Press your blessings upon this assemblage today. We ask that you in your own way might touch us individually and yet collectively. Bless us as we nurture this city and particularly help us to continue to expand it. Lord, we ask it. Claim it. Your precious name. That was God calling, telling us to get get going. Oh, ready, Mayor? Yes, ma'am. I was just trying to figure out what Dick Tracy was doing over there. We have one city council discussion item today and obviously a few executive session items, so thank you all for starting so timely. I do think the one item will take at least an hour, maybe more. And it is amending the 1998 Code of Ordinances of the City of Columbia, South Carolina, Chapter 5, Buildings and Building Regulations to add Article 9 short-term rentals. And one of our assistant city attorneys will be assisting with taking you through the draft and some of the potential changes or proposed changes to that draft. James Knott's. And I know our housing official, David Hatcher, is here to assist as well. But I know Councilman DeVall has done a lot of work with the committee thus far on short-term rentals. Did you want to open us up, Mr. President? Yes. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, this is a good day for the committee to wrestle with this short-term rental ordinance for the last over the last year. And we're delighted to be able to pass it back to the council to have a update for the council to get you up to speed on what we've been working with for the last year. And I'd like to thank the groups that have helped us along the way. We've had three public meetings and we've had numerous other meetings with representatives of the short-term industry. David's in the room. David Bergman has kind of been our coordinator of the short-term industry people. And Kit Smith has been the coordinator of the neighborhood people. The ordinance that you have today is the 12-7-22 version. This is probably the 6th or 7th version of the ordinance. And we have been trying to reach a happy medium between not allowing any short-term rentals in residents and neighborhood to allowing them under certain circumstances in the neighborhoods and to establish a cap. Both sides have been very willing to make positive suggestions and have worked with James Knox, the attorney that we have been working with to come up with the draft that you have today. The draft is followed by another document that has possible changes that we want to make at the last meeting of the committee as we will ending up our public hearing. Both the neighborhoods and the SDR industry offered some positive suggestions and we have come up with one or two administratively that we think need to be changed on the ordinance. If I had my preference on how we're going to come out today, I would like to get far enough along with the desire of the complete council on any further changes we need in this particular ordinance and bring it to a council session, report it back up to a council session, have first reading. And then between first and second reading I'd like to suggest that we would probably have a public hearing that would be just on this particular ordinance to give the public one more chance to see the final document. Prior to the first? I'd say between the first and the second because I'm trying to accelerate the time period that we can get this thing enacted to give us the 90-day period before the first of July when the ordinance calls for the registrations to be in place. We have a provision in the ordinance that allows for any, if they get registered before the first of July it carries on to July 1 of 24. So I'm just trying to expedite the matter. We have been working on this. We'll see how the day goes and maybe if the council has a lot of questions we will. You need to also keep in mind you may have said this, Mr. DeVall, I'm sorry if you did the requirement for any fees that would be enacted it has to have a public hearing associated with it. So I don't know you all will factor all that in as well with your time. You can't actually vote on this ordinance until you pass the fees as well. Those have to be either done in conjunction or before and if I recall when we were talking about other changes in ordinances we were required to have a public hearing prior before the first vote. I just want to make sure that we are moving forward consistently with every changes that we do. So whatever we do here let's just have a public hearing and whether it's before or afterwards let's just make it consistent. Let's see how this thing works out but James Knox is going to lead us through the discussion of the 12-7-22 version and then the possible changes also. Thank you council member DeVall and you should have before you the draft version 12-7-22. It's about nine pages so it's a lot of words if at any time I'm going too fast or if any time you got questions please ask. So starting with five dash four hundred this is the scope of the article this particular ordinance and really all it says is this ordinance would only apply to short-term rentals that are used for a period of less than 30 days. It makes it clear that it would not apply to long-term rentals or rentals that are released for a period of 30 days or greater. Section five dash four zero one is the definition section which has the defined terms that would be used in the ordinance for the sake of time I won't go through all of them but just to highlight two because this ordinance makes a distinction between owner occupied and non-owner occupied I'd point out that owner occupied means a dwelling unit that's lawfully classified as owner occupied by Richland County is receiving the four percent special assessment ratio. Section five dash four zero two and this is kind of the bulk of the regulations that are imposed on short-term rentals by this ordinance. There are a lot of I'll go through most of them at least the key one starting with subsection b this ordinance would make it clear that a business license is required to operate a short-term rental in the city of Columbia subsection c would impose a requirement that you would have to comply with all city ordinances when operating str and then some people wanted to enumerate and specify certain key ordinances and you see those listed there I think what we do is y'all collectively write down your questions and let a little while James to go through it and then we'll ask that we can go back to the sections if that's okay because I know some people got questions I've got questions so let's just try to do it after that that we have an opportunity to get the whole picture yes thank you sir all right subsection d would require any operator of str or really that actually the owner of str would have to have a general liability policy with a minimum limit of one million dollars per occurrence subsection e would allow the city to conduct a safety inspection to ensure that the particular strs and compliance with this ordinance as long as they're given 24 hour notice subsection f would impose certain record keeping requirements on the property owner of str and generally for for a period of two years the owner would have to keep certain documents demonstrating compliance with this ordinance additionally they have to keep a list of all the names and phone numbers of all guests that booked str for the previous two years subsection g that would impose a requirement on either the property owner or the property owner if he decides or she decides to designate a local representative to manage the str just makes it clear that they would have to take phone calls at all times for any issues that arise as a result of this str subsection h is a section that prohibits the transferring of a permit between owners or operators of a str i guess i want to make it clear because this may come up later this is one possible change this restriction on non transferability is just between owners or really between permit holders it doesn't restrict or impede a permit holder to change one permit for a particular address to another address subsection i the minimum guest age for a person making a booking would have to be 21 years of age subsection j the minimum stay for a short term rental would have to be one night subsection k would require the the permit number as issued by the city to be in the online advertisement for the str and subsection l would require certain information to be provided to a short term rental guests including emergency contact information the name and contact information of a local rep or the owner parking spaces and any other additional rules imposed on the guest subsection m is our parking space requirement which is basically for every two bedrooms though a dwelling unit you'd have to have one parking space not to exceed six parking spaces and i do want to add at least make a note that it makes it clear so the parking spaces must be made available and designated on an str property not forward str property on the property itself uh the max yeah so as opposed um essentially you'd have to provide parking on the property so it wouldn't be enough that you've um some of the spaces could be on the street for example or a parking lot adjacent to the property let's come back to that because i got multiple questions on that um subsection n maximum occupancy would be two people per bedroom plus an additional two people per dwelling unit so for example if it was a two bedroom str you could have four people for the bedrooms and then another two for maybe a pullout couch for total six um subsection o is um it would oppose a requirement on the owner or local local representative to be responsible for determining that a guest who booked the str is in fact staying there and then subsection p is a neighbor notification requirement where essentially the owner responsible local representative would have to notify each household within 200 feet of that str that property is being used as an str and also provide the contact information of the owner or the local representative and those are all the regulations like i know that was a lot i'll take a kind of a minute there to let you digest that under p at the very end of that paragraph local representative yes sir what does that designation mean it's a great question and i uh neglected to highlight that when we went to the definition section so page one of this ordinance has the definitions the very last defined term is responsible local representative and it's really just somebody who is designated by the uh the owner to manage and operate that str and they do have to be within that local rep would have to be within 45 miles of the str which is the same as our current existing rental ordinance um who would like to go first do you want to start with Tina and go down is that final if we just go back and forth well he said those were all the well those are thinking just trying to break it break it down if you tell me if i'm doing it wrong james i got the hint is you wanted to act answer questions based on this section and i'll do how y'all want me to do it but i'm fine if y'all want to wait all the way to the end if we want to go through section by section well the questions are still fresh in your mind we can do that how would y'all like to refer y'all want to do it all at the end yeah okay so let's let's let's run through this section um tina did you want to go first this herb is said that i would defer to the non-committee members for their questions because we and then we'll chime in okay okay um dr bustles um can you tell me a little bit more information about how we um i still have a couple questions but under d how we ended up with a million for the property damage given that there would not be really any liability to the city well and it's it's not just property damage it's also personal injury damage as well um isn't that requirement of vr of b air b and b and if you rent a house your insurance company requires you to do that already it was a number that came from the str industry but as far as it came from the str industry is what i do recall a meeting with the industry where david bergman said that that is at least as far as air b and b is concerned i can't speak the verb but that is currently the requirement for air b and b as it is and this wouldn't be an additional one yeah and i just rented one when i was out of town and i had to pay an extra fee for an extra policy that i to add on to that which is a requirement if you go in and you go rent an air b and b they have that in there i guess the question is is how much insurance and what's the purpose of adding that when there's three set at least two sets of coverage already in there so i'm i'm just trying to under and how does that relate to the homeowner who rents out their house because under state statute as long as they live in their house 275 days of the year that's their full residence and so there's a gap for anything under 90 days that we don't have jurisdiction over the way i read the law and this is where i'm because a lot of these air b and bs that have popped up in places are not air b and b seven days a week they're done on a choice so they're not assessed at six right percent rate either their owner occupied and under the law it doesn't require them to report that they rent it for anything that's under that 90 days difference i think it's actually 72 days so that that's where i got how do how do we because one of the things we want to do long term rental with some adaption makes more sense to me but i'm willing to go through this exercise and and some things here to add some some coverage but how do we deal with the homeowner in this situation because a bulk of these in some of these residential areas are homeowners well let me answer a couple of those questions number one i'd like to hear it from the legal side no offense i would just like to go back to my original question i want to hear it from the attorney i'd like to correct a couple of things you said that are not i ask a question i didn't make a i didn't make a statement i made as what it says in the law i just want my question so james my question is it's already required for in air b and b and all these other companies to have this covered we are simply codifying that in our ordinance we're not asking for an additional million dollar coverage correct correct and let me caveat this i'm just the guy who puts people's ideas into words no you're the legal expert so that particular provision for that insurance requirement which again you're correct it's not an additional policy um was already in play before i started working on this i can't speak to the decisions that were made before i started working this ordinance just to require that okay that's helpful but i do i'm mr. nox we asked if you're the attorney on duty today is it not the state law that you can rent uh your own home an owner occupied at home for 72 days a year without losing your six percent but it does require you progressively to report those rentals uh now you have to report them to the dor so it they are not allowed to run it without regulation they do have regulation my my understanding is is there's no requirement no audit and no process no form to give it to dor that you rented it out outside of that that as long as you stayed under that 72 days the law is specific that it that you have to collect the taxes you have to remit the taxes whether or not the state is is following their own law but that is in the law so just so gray that's what i'm trying to figure out how how do we actually because there's no mechanism because it's not a six percent right it's a it's a four percent it's a four percent but there's no mechanism if somebody short term rentals and they don't use a third party system to advertise it they rent it out and that's what a lot of the home owner occupied are doing as well they have repeat customers they don't use the thing so i'm trying to figure out if we're regulating how are we regulating it wholly as an industry where's a gap there i just wanted to suggest because that's a jurisdictional issue do we have jurisdiction to even do this is what the mayor is asking can we give that to you all to clarify because we won't resolve it today i don't think but purely do we have the jurisdiction to do it how when what why and we know that we'll have that discussion we know how to do it long term but there's just multiple categories in here and i think i think you're right yeah we just need clarification on what what we do have jurisdiction on so we'll continue to go through these other yeah so my next question is around m the parking space is required so which will not exceed six vehicles is that overnight because i'm thinking about situations where you may have people in town i have family visit and there's certainly more than six cars lined up in front of my house when that happens so what is how are we just i just have some concerns about how that's going to be enforced well the way that that's a good question the way this is written it makes no distinction between overnight or just throughout the whole duration duration of the stay so as written it's just six total vehicles regardless if it's day time night time but again that's on on the property i think maybe you're concerned about whether or not you could have vehicles on the street and that would count towards your six vehicle cap James between your if you're just at home and you have right you have visitors just dry long so we're not regulating that but then we would be regulating folks who are having a short term rental is that right dr bustles and i'll let you weigh in here too announcement of all but i know the neighborhood associations had this is really a compromise by including this in here the neighborhood associations wanted to ensure that we regulated somehow that way there was no overflow of cars spilling in front of other people's houses so what happens in a neighborhood that we only require a single car driveway and it's already an established event so what do you do there because we don't allow them to build parking in the front yard it has a single car driveway and you're saying what happens because what we're saying here is that you can't designate other other parking but if it's a three four bedroom house and we've only allowed it to have a single car driveway because it's in a higher density area so forth but they have a place for visitor parking or where else this ordinance the way it's written the way i read it that's correct you can't have that that's correct well what why that doesn't make sense if they're providing a place for those people to park why does it matter as long as they're not parking in yards and blocking somebody else wouldn't we want that to happen well that was the intent is to not have them parking all over the the streets but i think you might be right that if that situation where they have provided for guest parking elsewhere we might could put an exception in that as long as it's provided i think i mean the goal is to make sure that somebody doesn't impede on somebody else on a regular basis and i think it's really overnight verse the day and i do think that's a big distinction that we ought to make in this because i think and i'm giving you examples so i we have lots of military families here all right they they're all concerned about this because they stay for an average of four days when they're here their child and a lot of their visitors when they come together the reason they rent airbeases so that they can be together that child that is over at the fort only gets three hours of leave time so they suddenly gather in an area for a small period of time they're gonna have multiple cars it's no different than me having my child's birthday party and i'm taking up other spots on the street those are public streets where public parking is available to any citizen who wants to park there it's just because you live there that's not your parking unless it's designated as residential let's make up so if we can look at overnight then i think we can i think that would be more acceptable james make a point on m to let's review that and see if we can get an exemption and they have an overnight parking and then my last question is about p the 200 foot radius of an str so when i'm thinking about apartment complexes condos um that's a lot of households it is um once go ahead councilman de volp the p is one of the ones we've got a possible change in on the possible str ordinance changes and the change that we probably will suggest is owner or responsible representative must notify each household immediately adjacent to the str that the property is being operated as an s as an str as well as any neighborhood association okay so can i make uh i've seen in other cities and this may be better than anything else is they actually require a placard on each house that is an str and with that identifies it has actually a number on it that identifies that piece of paper which then you could you go to you just click on the website and it gives you all the information of the local contact but that's a permanent piece i'll tell you to push back from the industry the industry does not want to have their house identified as an str because the bad guys know that it'll be vacant for a lot of times and so interesting and that's why they don't want to do a lot of the things we wanted because they won't they they are afraid of people breaking in because they know it's an str but there has to be an identifiable way to recognize those pieces of property now how would if you're saying that to mark that piece of property as an str that will give other persons burglars whomever right is there any way we can further discuss how we might that be identifiable well they will get a permit they will have to use that permit number on an ad for an airbnb or whatever platform they're using and by using that permit and that number we'll be able to identify better ourselves that this house is an str i would imagine we'd also layered into our gis system as well for mapping that we do that that's what you can pull up and see a dot on a house that has the business licensing requirements and some of the other things in here that seem reasonable um would help us and collect that data about the number of strs that exist that we could then map out and know where they are mr rick doll yeah going back to go ahead to the possible change on uh 402p that we were just discussing with dr bustle it does the council feel like that's a good addition i think the adjacent is a little more reasonable than 20 foot radius 200 i'm sorry 200 foot radius especially when you get into i mean in an apartment complex you'd be putting 50 units anybody else anybody else got any questions on 402 yeah i wanted to go back to um identity verification this is the one i had an issue with the owner or responsible legal representative shall be responsible for determining that the guest who booked the str is in fact the guest occupying the str i do not make a lot of my bookings because i'm not tech savvy not because i'm but because i'm not tech savvy the tech's challenged yeah that that is the reason so that would to me i don't quite understand the necessity of that um that requirement well there again this was a compromise uh the neighborhood association wanted you wanted a system developed by the owners or the local representatives where they would take a picture as they arrive at the house and send it to the owner or some telephone mechanism where they'd call and say uh ten of her but is here and in order to get around this we said it is up to the local representative to make sure that the person that rented it is in fact occupying the house and james i have a question about that too if if uh miss herbert is using a third party to make her reservation is the personal information from his herbert in the system or is she using the personal information of the third party that's making the reservation so if um councilwoman herbert's daughter made the reservation on her behalf it would the system would have her daughter's information stored in there's no way at least my discussions with the industry david bergman there's i'm sorry not the runner yes the guest the person making the booking um there's no way for somebody making a booking to to put in airbnb this is for councilwoman tina herbert of colombia saffron line here's information it's incumbent upon her daughter use her information to book to use right so like recently i booked one for a bachelorette for my sister i used all of her information but i did the booking and then there's a section that says who are the people living in this house and i had to list the 12 people that are going to this as this is currently written i don't think it's that the guest who booked the str it's simply determining that the guests that are listed as a part of the reservation are in fact the ones that are occupying so i just had so i just did with airbnb in nashville i had to list the three couples that were with us their contact information their email address before they would approve the booking they obviously look you up to see who you are and they look you up in the system because their strike system is 10 times worse than what we have internally because those guys don't want somebody to come in that's going to damage their units and etc but the way this is written yeah so i'm saying your assistant couldn't book it right so determining that the guests who are listed or the i don't know what the right legally says but like the guests that are um named in the reservation are the ones that are in fact so could we not just put in a a a simple thing like we do with business license now we don't ask you to send all your tax returns but if we audit you and you don't have that we give you a hefty fine because there's no way that you can track all this information first of all i'm not sure that that we have the ability to track that all that information so is there a different way to say if this reservation is made can we like if somebody rents it to a kid or whatever excuse me what auditors what auditors say they want to go i think would work that's what we were trying to do with this language instead of say take a picture or make them call or whatever we say it's not our business you make sure that the guest that you registered is in your your responsibility yeah so the mechanisms are already in place and these are already in there sites they required um for me to send my sister's um driver's license front and back so like they collect all that information but i think that we should change this to be clear that we're making sure that the guests who are registered as a part of the booking are the ones that are occupying not who booked it it doesn't matter who booked it and then i i did have um and i don't know what the industry standard is is there a certain amount of time that they're required to keep that information well it says in here that we're requiring them to keep all records for for two years i think that's what the industry is if it's the industry then that's fine yeah and we can we make sure that's the industry standard i guess what i want to understand is is the general concerns about privacy and asking operator to maintain guests such as names emails and phones for that period of time what's the intent of requiring that what what's behind that i mean is that actionable by the the city are we taking responsibility if that information gets used by somebody else i mean i guess my question is the owners have to keep that information now we would like to be able to have access to that information for tax purposes if if we if they have not we have not been getting any tax revenue for a particular building we need to know that or if we do an audit and that we find out that it's been rated 500 times in the last 200 years we need to know that but i guess the question becomes it's more about the the rental transaction than the personal information i got pause about having random people being able because the intent of some of the folks who are asking for this information are not city officials and not people in the public realm that have authority like the IRS or something so my question really comes around how do you how do you keep the record portion is there a better way to write that that provides the record rental is it just a lead person on that they have to keep it for their platform now right the only thing we're saying is if we want to see it we can see it well we would just want to see the rental record correct yes i just want to make a difference because we're asking them to keep a lot of information on an individual where's that particular section f and then one because we're asking them for names emails and phone numbers which they already keep that's what they keep they already keep as a part of using the booking but we what you're saying is it doesn't we you want to be clear that we are not asking for access to that just overall rental information well because i think at the end of the day that's what we want to know is how many nights you've rented making sure that that we've gotten our a tax you know and etc so i read that different well that is that's correct too but i also i read that from a safety perspective let's say something happens in the neighborhood that particular weekend and the police want to investigate that's how we don't do that with long-term rental why why would we not do it with long-term rental well because you i don't know but what i'm saying is it's a safety issue well you think that right i mean i just saw i thought that the purpose in all of my ignorance i thought that the purpose was um this would help if there's you know if there's a police investigation or something to identify people who might have been in the neighborhood or at a certain particular time what if we made it that they were required to keep the records as required by the platform they're using and that we have access to that we just got to have a way to audit that the stays and so how they we just maybe it's it's what they're have access to the they have to reconcile with verbo or whoever because that's where it goes through maybe we ask for the reconciliations does that make more sense okay we'll we'll look at don't you reconcile the money doesn't come directly to you right well this is when you book oh i don't know i don't own an airbnb so i don't know how it works other than when i rent i pay a cleaning fee a administrative fee and all the other things that go with it and taxes to airbnb i'm assuming yeah yeah there's a third party clearing house you don't get your money right away i don't think i think they take their piece off the top all right so let's review f to see if we can simplify it to give us access to to the yeah overall records yeah not identify them but i guess to the point of long term if for public safety concerns there is a lease in place that if if we wanted to go see who lives there there's access to find that out upon request same approach should be for i think we got to put a provision in here that gives us the right to audit or for safety you have to audit yeah we can put it in that same thing that's what i would recommend good recommendation so we anybody else got questions on 402 yeah i was on the committee though so if anybody else well i had a i've heard back and forth on the age somebody brought up to us about what happens you got a young family it is in town visiting and they're not 21 is 21 set by the industry is that set by the hotel i know hotels have i think for the majority are 21 i'm just trying to understand we changed it to at the recommended change at the back is 18 by the way okay i just industry does do 21 so changes discussed 18 18 okay industry does 18 so we can change that to 18 if that was i'm just asking why we chose it i didn't i just got this possible changes so i didn't see it before apologize we were we were trying to come up with a way to prevent parties parties you know there's no party whether or not there's a well okay but an 18 but an 18 year old written of an airbnb is gonna have a party people it's gonna be a party well we we knows there was an interesting one the desire is 18 i i i mean i gotta honest with you i have no problem with 20 i just don't want us to get caught in discrimination against i mean i just don't understand from a fair housing we have all that we we change a lot of laws 10 years ago around hotel rooms and fair housing i don't i'm just asking the question are we within our our rights we can have a problem 21 personally i mean i feel like shouldn't we be trying to mirror the platforms as much as possible i mean this document should yeah what is what does it say our vrbo and airbnb is it 21 or 18 it's 18 i'm not trying to confuse the fact and it's 18 then i just think we're we're making more work for enforcement on ourselves um that's just my thought it's 18 yeah 18 18 is airbnb you can get an airbnb if you're 18 years old any other i've got a question safety inspection and this might this might be a david hatcher question just to confirm this is giving us if deemed necessary the option of reviewing the property or making sure it's it's safe and compliance that would probably stem from getting a report that an air short-term rental had some deficiencies uh code wise um building wise so you don't have to lay eyes and walk through every short-term rental prior to getting a permit correct no that was part of one of the previous revisions but that would have been a lot of that would have been a lot of work um but we do similar to the rental ordinance we're going to have them provide a self checklist kind of like we do with rental ordinance okay they're when they apply they're telling us that it meets okay that was my second question we're going to work for it until we get until we're told otherwise okay and that means that will mirror what we do for the long-term rental permit and that applies to all categories owner occupied and non-owner occupied because one of the things around the parking too is is if i read the requirements under the permitting we're given we're trying to say you only got 90 days to get this permit and this and that well some of the requirements in here you may not be able to fix the parking issue if you have to go to zoning board of appeals or anything like that so how are we going to deal with that situation so i think when we talk about parking off street and other stuff we need to take that in consideration are our own rules prohibiting you from being actually to apply and comply within the time period that we're requiring so as we talk about that let's figure that piece out because i'm not sure that we thought about that somebody could put parking in the back but we're going to regulate how that parking is created okay David does that necessarily mean do we have enough persons to do exactly what we want to do with my recommendation will be to add staff to help enforce this right that will be additional staff or staff that's already on board additional staff if to question around going back one of the things that the record keeping getting permit fees verse i mean if we have a business license you require everybody to have a business license if it's a single unit or they have five units like you we do on the rental wouldn't that give us the ability according to our thing to audit all their records associated with that i mean that's what our business license says wouldn't that solve a lot of these these multiple categories if we just require everybody not a you'd have to have a permit obviously to do it but if you just had whatever the $50 permit and you had a business license because it is a business let's be honest it's a business everybody have a business license that would give us the right to audit all the records when necessary would that solve some of the confusion in record keeping and everything else and just putting it out for a thought because that was one of the reasons why we change the way we do the business license is instead of requiring everybody to do it but if we came and audit you and you did it i mean you possibly get a massive fine for lying well it keeps everybody truthful the comparison chart that the mayor asked for between the sdr and the long-term rental in the matrix that says business license is not required for existing rental ordinance but it is required they are businesses yeah and they pay it through the business license well they have to report through business license well the distinct if i could point out the distinction there is the existing a rental regulation ordinance does not specifically require a business license however it is still required at least what i would tell you my opinion is under our new newly adopted business license ordinance because they are conducting business and engaging activity for profit gain or advantages out reads they are required to get a business license i would also tell you that a short-term rental even though it's not even if was was not included in this ordinance would still be required to get a business license ordinance but for whatever reason we were i think it might be because of the ongoing litigation the idea was to make it clear this ordinance that a business license is required we've covered all the ones that are in the possible changes in our discussion all right page four section five dash four zero three is the section that would pose a requirement for any and everybody operating an str in the city to obtain a city issued permit the permit would be issued and renewed on an annual basis um it would only be issued to owners or local reps that are residing or have a business within 45 miles of the property if however the owner resides outside of 45 miles of the property the owner can only get a permit if they have a local representative which again by definition is somebody within 45 miles um subsection b makes it clear that a str permit only authorizes the permit holder to operate operate one dwelling unit per permit if you've got three or four strs you have to get three or four permits and subsection c outlines the uh the renewal cycle which would be july 1st of each year and for some reason somebody does not submit a renewal by july a renewal application by july 1st it would be subject to a late fee of $100 which is in another section um but it makes it clear that if for whatever reason that renewal is not submitted by july 31st that would result in the loss of the permit okay so how do we deal with the situation we had this year where our um we mailed them out physically they got lost we had a lot of people who couldn't renew their rental long-term rental agreement till much of them we ended up having to go back and change everything to accommodate those we didn't threaten to take theirs but it was our error not their error because we had a rolling so the question becomes you know look we're gonna ask somebody to do a business license on april 15th we're gonna ask them to do july 1st and long term january 1st is there not a way to create a way that all of this can be more consistent and together because some of these long-term guys are going to short term well we and long term so why is there a way to do it where everything's consistent no it's not because we tried to separate the long-term registration which puts a big flood on david's office from the short term regulation so the long terms will renew in january get rid of that crowd and then the short term will renew in july how can we do it all with the business license and so it's in one if you if you have a you have to have a business license of permit we just create a form that they put online and it all gets done by april 15th and you're done everybody's on the same wavelength why are we trying to make it so complicated we're not making it complicated we're making it easy we go in and you register it the permitting office and they have to do inspections they have to get they don't have to do an inspection that's not what that says well they they can do an inspection and they have the right to go in but with 24-hour notice to do another inspection well i think there's a bigger discussion here depending on which way you all go with this about all of it because not just with the short term rental piece we as a staff are having a discussion about what triggers what in the city quite frankly there does need to be a check off list about for fire marshal for code for various things and right now it doesn't know it doesn't it's not starting with business license it's a little bit like the chicken and the egg and i think this discussion is something we've talked about in the context of the short term rentals where this actually will get triggered and where it'll start i wasn't going to get into that piece today because i first want to see what you're doing once we know that then we need to sort that out but it's a valid point and kelly's in here with business license and it was waving her head saying hold on she says i got it i got it the mayor really noted under advisement we have we had a sidebar conversation about maybe after we get the initial permitting process a renewal of a permit could be done through a much simpler process this first year you get everybody locked in and then starting next next april everything happens at one time i think we i think that's part of the confusion that we have out there we got all these different dates we need to make this is the date this is what you're required boom boom boom done that's easier to do on a renewal process than it is on the initial application yeah i don't disagree i just i mean we're not talking about a one-time registration though we're talking about every year so we need that's that's where we gotta have that has better control auditing everything else let's leave this as a as it is to get it started and then move towards that's a process question y'all need the policy piece of what you're doing we'll we'll get to the process you talked about transferring yes sir that was talked about in the previous section but again it's just it makes it clear that str permits would be non transferable between permit holders not necessarily property and then subsection a just says it makes it clear that the permits that are authorized under this article are privileges and not rights right subsection or excuse me section five dash four zero four um this or subsection a outlines the information that at a minimum would be required in the application for an str permit subsection b on page five outlines the the permit application fees why why is there a distinction between a homeowner and an a i mean it's either a short term rental or it's not i mean they're to me it should be one fee if you're in you're either in or you're out i mean there's no ands ifs or buts what are you talking about then it says non unoccupied who has a registration fee of 250 and owner occupied has a hundred well the owner occupied is a person owning their own house renting their own house also covered by state law which allows them to do 72 nights a week a year they're also paying four percent to make and if they rent those 72 nights at an average of 250 they're 22 000 so my point is if you're renting you're renting if you're not you're not we will we were supporting the owner occupied strs because that's where the industry started off renting your home when you were away for a weekend for the masters of a football game and now we have people coming into residential neighborhoods that are investors non unoccupied that have made these into many hotels and that's called the american way it's it's called a violation of our zoning ordinance our zoning ordinance says these are residential buildings and here we we say you can't have but three non related people in a residential area and we're allowing 12 people in us in a bedroom uh for strs or something like that it's a different category i just think the whole thing is the whole reason we're talking about this is because of the invasion of the non-owner occupied homes into residential 500 units in the city of columbia there's 27 000 long-term rental units in our community so let when we say invasion let's not over exaggerate what the issue is here i want to just make a point that i'm sorry you you're making some more points no go ahead um no so on this one i understand where the the thought originated from but i don't want us to use this as a way to penalize when you charge two different rates i think that you're essentially penalizing the non-owner occupied they should be penalized they should not be in residential areas they're making tons of money our occupy can't do it in there that's the owner let the owner say mayor this is my argument this is my argument but no but here's the issue with that but we're implementing this ordinance which is going to mean it's not illegal i mean we are allowing it so we can't allow it but then penalize some of the people who use it that's that's all i would say and these are investors they're making tons of money off these properties they're not home homeowners trying to make a little bit on the side doesn't think he's an investor he thinks it's his retirement and he's living in a community where he pays property tax at a six percent rate he keeps up his properties he doesn't cause any problem and he owns a house in columbia so so what is he he's different than anybody else he's different the typical str operator that's a non-owner occupied they're investors all i would say is i don't know if we have stated a good reason for a charge not i mean it was a good reason to howard but i feel that we may look like we're discriminating against i would point out i would point out that we have reduced this the original ordinance had a five hundred dollar registration fee 250 as a as a 50 reduction in that fee in the str industry that was at the table thought that that was a reasonable fee i just rather they all pay business license personally but they are paying business not required no they are required if it's a non-owner occupied it is a business and they are doing business and they are required as listed in this we just had that argument yeah not currently they're not currently paying yes they are oh the investor own i bet you they are i bet you people that own homes that that non-owners that own homes are paying business license i know the homeowners aren't i know that yeah they're not the home owners are not and that was one of the things we suggested maybe don't even charge the home owners a business license fee so my suggestion would be yeah so my i think that the more you try to distinguish the harder that it gets and i think that it should be across the board a set fee if you are engaging in the str industry both in terms of business license and your permit registration that's it i have a question going back to the transfer yes ma'am so if i bought another property but already had an active permit could i transfer my permit to that property there's nothing in this current ordinance as written that would be handed out and you would do you would just re-register essentially you would um thank you we're still in section 404 if you look at 404a that's the minimum information that's gotta be provided one is the address of the dwelling unit and then if you look at subsection c anytime information changes to the application that was submitted you'd have to update the city within 30 days so not even a renewal a reapplication just updating the information 405 we're not going to wait for those who have done it now by section uh five dash four zero five outlines the uh standards or the criteria that if met um when um application is submitted the city would have to grant the str um application that would be within 30 days from application submission and one through four outlines what those criteria are and really it's just so long as the application is complete all the permit fees have been paid um and the city determines that by issuing this permit we're gonna be in compliance everybody's being compliant with this ordinance is there a reason why it says either pass the safety inspection or been certified but shouldn't it just be certified with the ability to have an inspection because are we gonna pick and choose who we inspect and who we don't to get this because it leaves it kind of open the debate here was from the industry's point of view that they would put in the application and code enforcement would would sit on the application and not get it done this allows them to go ahead and certify that everything is correct on their property and get their permit rather than wait on inspection and then if David has reason to believe from past history or whatever else that this particular owner is not a good owner we better go check them other than he can go out and get it with this this assures the applicant that they're going to get a permit if they've met all the requirements including certifying that the safety is there so can we change the language just look at how we work that because I think we would want to put the certification by the applicant as the primary and first thing and that the you know either pass the safety inspection as the less important thing that makes sense it's been certified by the applicant that was what we said the primary was so if anything's a primary as far as the second area is is we have the right to go and inspect to pass them if there's some reason concern about dwelling or whatever and David may get an application that is in a house that he's had code enforcement issues before and may have to invoke that but we're I want to just make sure that we're applying the same criteria to everybody and that's not what this says it's got to be reversed because we're saying either passes so who decides who passes in the beginning or certified so if you have certified is the the general then that gives the indication that the certification is the first line and then the second it sounds trivial but it's the way it's written so I think what I'm hearing is really should be the applicant has certified that this meets all criteria and then unless deemed otherwise necessary by the building official or for some cause yes you would do in safety inspection absolutely I think that's very specific about how the process works is there any feedback mechanism through the short-term rental platforms you know on the condition of the houses of the people rent I mean does Airbnb tell you I tell you I'm one of those I won't rent unless somebody's got multiple stars and I can read the reviews if it's new or it's got doesn't have all the stars because you know what you're going to get people are particular especially if you're paying we can rewrite that $200 a night or somewhere oh six okay uh five dash four zero six of the bottom page five this would be the section that would impose a cap um on permits issued for non-owner occupied short-term rentals located in a residential district but another way this would impose a cap on str permits or six percent assessed rentals located in a residential district the way it's written the cap would be determined by looking at 90 days after this ordinance is passed and then seeing how many permits were issued to non-owner occupied strs in a residential district let's just say that number is 500 the cap amount would at that point be 500 or non non six percent assessed strs in a residential district so my concern here is based on the requirements that we're requiring parking and all the other things that somebody is going to bring everything up to date because as of today they're not required to do based on that if our process prohibits them from being able to get those things done how do you do that in that cap because to me this is an indirect of way of just saying we're getting we're pushing towards getting away because the 90 day is set in stone it doesn't have all the things that go around it so how do you create a system that that provides those folks who are in the business today the opportunity fulfill the requirements that we're asking them to do now and actually shouldn't I say asking we're going to require them to do okay so it fits into the system and then you know air b&b's and short-term rentals complaints aren't just by non-owner occupied so as an owner occupied we're just going to say doesn't matter if you add another 500 in that same neighborhood everybody's okay with that I just want to hear that so I was going to bring up today we do we actually have a staff recommendation that we would staff would propose that the way this ordinance is written in addition to that 90 day period this ordinance would take effect immediately upon passage so to give staff the amount of time to to ramp up hire people get the systems in place may have to issue a RFP for third-party vendor to help with this we would recommend pushing that 90-day window back further and making it clear that this ordinance wouldn't go into effect to maybe 30 60 days after passage so you you put a buffer on the front end saying it would start 30 days after passage and then united days would be so it'd be 120 days really correct I don't think you can hire folks in 30 days maybe more time if we're having to hire more staff and everything else to do it and to get the processes in play we really need to think about when this is going to go into effect and how that period goes it's going to take more than 120 days how many example yes please for an example David if you hire an additional staff code enforcement have we thought through how many persons that night I think it depends on if we decided to use a third-party vendor who some of those vendors supply they do some of this upfront stuff where they track down where all the air bnbs are that'll take some of the legwork away from us so if we did a combination I'm thinking at least we're at least going to need one inspector who's going to be dedicated to to make sure people are in compliance and even even these third-party vendors they'll only take it to a certain point then they're going to turn over us to take it to the rest of the way so we're definitely going to have at least one person if we don't do the third-party vendor I'm thinking maybe two um just because the extra workload the which becomes an additional concern of course the impact of monies and budget and and aligning staff in terms of salary and that sort of thing uh I guess I guess what I'm going to be able to budget that at this point I'm sorry Dave I'm not sure that we we don't have a budget for that at this point and I know that David already has openings that he's trying to fill now for his regular job which includes long-term rentals and homeowners who are not complying so we're talking about two additional persons that's quote unquote non-budgeted that will have to be budgeted for new two positions at least two positions at least one possibly to if we are not to do a third party yes sir now if we are not to do third party that still will be some money concentrated on paying third parties correct I confirmed that the ATACS is collected to be utilized to fund inspections of these units my head never will look at that so the bottom line is that the permit minimum of two persons to be hired and if not an additional person with additional third party um I just wanted to add on this one and I think I brought it up in our meeting as well with respect to the cap it has always been my understanding that this would be a temporary cap until we did a full evaluation of what we have and where things are I do believe that if we simply if we set a cap just straight out cap and say that's a permanent cap that we will have this won't last long at all so my strong recommendation is that we put in place a temporary cap to allow us to get the data because we don't know exactly what we have here and once we go through that process we'll have a better idea of what caps need to look like or if we need caps that's just my two cents the the conversation around reviewing the data was that we will we will recommend as this thing passes that the council create a commission or committee made up of both the neighborhoods the council and the sdr industry to review the data and to look at possible changes to the ordinance particularly on the sdr owner's side they would like to have the ability to take a piece of property that's not desirable now that they're willing to put $150,000 in to bring it up to code and get it on and they would be allowed to do that in addition to whatever the cap is we would probably set it up or recommend it be set up as a special exception they would come in and ask for a special exception from boza and it would have neighborhood input on this house is in bad shape an sdr owner wants to get a permit for things like that but that i think that is on the back end of this first thing we got to do is pass this ordinance get it operational and begin to get the data and as it is no cap until we figure that out because what i'm hearing and the thing what miss herbert's brought up is a very good point we don't actually know what that number is we know the 90 day doesn't work we can't even do it from a staffing standpoint at this so should we look at some type of first year grace period or whatever that would then allow us to get to the to the and i'm talking about the fiscal year here not the physical year to get us there and it may we're looking at dates here now i don't know i mean if we could get everything cleared up by the end of the year and have all the data then we could really push into the renewals on the april 15th and everything that would give you all the data for your numbers because i know there's 481 units out there i don't know how many of those are owner occupied 80 percent of them are investor occupied well but do you do we do we know that i mean do you have the data to show me that no okay then we don't have any number that's not true well because i know i saw the map in shandon i went and walked and looked at a lot of those houses the lot of those houses are owner occupied that counts in that 480 and everybody's saying it's outside investors in that neighborhood every time just by riding by it's not seeing there um so and i'll honestly how we're based on what you have said it seems to me that that's more of a reason that if there is a cap that we designate it as temporary letting people know that it is subject to change well it's anything in this ordinance subject to change but i'd be willing to to let you have that point thank you i think for the staff and i too what that was one thing i know i was struggling with the way the cap is currently written because hypothetically again we don't have the data but hypothetically in any potential particular residential district if you have a hundred already and those same 100 um go to get the permit within the 90 days or whatever but in addition to that another 50 go so then by the end of the 90 days the way this reads you'd have 150 non-owner occupied whoever whoever gets the permit within the permitting period whether it's 120 days or 90 days or whatever we decide on sets the cap and then you don't have any more growth on non-owner occupied in residential areas the non-owner say 150 in that particular residential district is isn't too much or is well or is too little i mean i guess that that was the thing we were wondering so then if you do this temporary piece those 150 this is my example would then have to know that they may not then you do the research and it says and x residential district because i'm only it seems like it i'll be based up a percentage or something of that nature of what of what makes sense depending on the residential district every all of our residential districts are different i don't know what the depth the neighborhoods wanted to have a restriction on 29201 and 29205 zip codes because that's where the permanence is you all right pan and they wanted to restrict any any perm any new permits in 29201 29205 we the committee did not go with that regulation we wanted to set the cap but i think we could call it a temporary cap but it would be a mechanism that the council would review after after this ordinance is enacted and implemented to maybe stop any new registrations in certain areas but allow them in in other areas uh this this ordinance this proposal allows non-owner occupied outside of residential areas now i mean if we if we pass this ordinance the non-owner occupied can go and get a permit in any non-residential area i understand i just i'm cautious anytime just from the staff's perspective we'll do it however you i won't even if you're saying it's temporary i don't want to put anything in place where it's arbitrary decisions being made by the staff on you know what constitutes um that number or the cap because then people will come back and we gave them a permit but you're saying it we may change and then it's the 150 that were allowed in one particular residential district or is now it's back down to 50 so then who's to determine who gets to keep their permit and who gets that sort of thing i just i think that piece right there is a little bit tricky but you know well and if i if i just could point out if the what i'm hearing is there's an intent by some council members to sounds like study empirical data see what's out there and see what's there i guess i would just want to point out that if that is the intent if you impose this cap you're limiting the amount of data that you're going to get and i would say to miss wilson's point we we honestly should be preempted from reducing like if we had said a cap we we can't reduce since they would probably begin grandfathered in would be my position on that but all all i'm saying is that whatever we don't today we don't have the data to determine great question how long will it take to get the true data of the different because we're just talking about nana under occupied at this point what what how long will it take to get the true data number of what is out there today because that gives us the basis for discussion um because a lot of some of it's emotional some of it's i think it's this i think it's that look how about let's get the real numbers we're gonna have a real conversation talking about putting in ordinance that restricts something to one group not to another group then i'd like to know what that number is so i commit into a cap because i've already heard of people saying this is just the back way to get rid of it all i'm not interested in that so but we will need to have certain mechanisms that are listed in this ordinance in place to collect that data including the business licensing and the permits right for us right right now there is data there is data there's there's there's air b and b whatever bill ellen and them pay for you can get and see who's renting how long they've rented how much they're renting the data information is there you can pay for that data today so that's my question is is should we be getting that so before we go down the path on this so we know what our basis is is it truly 250 non-owner occupied in one area or not i don't know what the number is but we're talking we keep saying we're going to dereferent this well how are we going to do that we're building an ordinance especially when it comes to capping something then i want to go back to teres's comments a minute again explain explain your theory one more time because it may have some legitimacy to it you you would say don't put a cap on because that might um put the staff in a position of having to determine i'm just asking if if you incorporated the way it's written now without us knowing um i guess truly what the data is in the residential areas to me the way it's written and i've been deferred to james to help me clarify my understanding of it because i think the intent that you were trying to reach a compromise or whatever with the residential or homeowners associations is that didn't want more of but the way it's written you could end up with more of because you're just saying those that are in now would have to meet the requirements that you set by whatever period of time but your it doesn't say that additional folks couldn't come in and say like send me someone right now is thinking about a non-owner occupied property and they want to start doing short-term rentals there so if there's an influx of interest in this knowing that you're sitting here talking about it your cap could be well above what the residential area was hoping for and tending it to be and then you all are saying well then we'll say it's temporary so then how do we dial it back i guess as staff at that point if you said it if you just leave it like it is because you may end up with more in a particular district than what the data would suggest is warranted incentivize people go ahead and get that permit if they're already doing it i would think they're gonna pay attention and they're gonna go follow the new rules and if they were contemplating it they may say well let me go ahead and and and get my permit which brings up the interest and we said permits or non-tramp somebody put it in an LLC and they sold that LLC what happens to that i thought about that that hadn't come up i thought about that last night actually and and the reason i know people buy businesses that way so they don't have to deal with changing permitting and everything else so the question is we need to think about this is we because then suddenly you've created an artificial like the medallions that you work on the cabs suddenly that stuff somebody's putting all this stuff in LLC then we're really gonna have a hard time tracking let them have an LLC let's don't create another problem let's if we're if we're going to create a system that helps us regulate let's make sure that we do it let's think about these type of things is what i don't want to create is an artificial market in a way for us not to because somebody hides behind that veil they could have a registered agent we still don't end up the information that we need which is what's caused problems in some of our long-term rentals i don't know the best way i think all this is great discussion i just don't want you to create any unintended create unintended well i i mean we know there'll be an influx if you put it if somebody thinks there's an artificial cap and it's a closed even if we so we need to think about how to to position ourselves i wish we had that had the data at the table we should have gotten it months ago well we'll get we'll get our own data if we get something past that's got the regulations in it and the permitting in it we will come up with our own data but i think how we don't know what our basis is now with with getting i forgot what it's called air bnb draft or whatever we can pay to get that information that would at least tell us i mean what we're dealing with you know it identifies who's advertising in the system how many times they've rented because you can see what their income is so we got a basis on what we should be collecting because that's what i think the lawyers are using in our lawsuit this public knowledge oh well you know me i'm gonna i'm gonna talk about everything so but i think at the same time you know let let's try to get that data between now and this final thing i think there's a way to get us so we got a basis it'll tell us dollar amount it'll tell us you know that's how we're looking at average let's um explain we agree then know how it that before i'm i'm appreciative for the information and of course for this document but it would seem to me that the importance of data before we go any further we can go through this document but the data the data has to be available for us to make any kind of comprehensive decision i don't think that the lack of data should prevent us from passing the ordinance that sets up the regulations sets up the permitting sets up the getting of the revenue that we're going to need to actually implement this this thing um i think that there's an interesting question or whether the the cap whether we call it temporary cap or whether we call it a permanent cap might might be something we need to rethink the that but i think getting this ordinance in place will give us our own data we have seen the data from that platform that you're talking about and it is good it doesn't tell you the location of the house which shows a red dot map that you can overlay you can clearly figure out who's rent you can you can get pretty close and if you got a picture of the house you can probably find out where it is but i think if you've got that information can you share it that gives us a basis on revenue because i know it shows revenue because there's a there's a house in there in columbia that's made two hundred forty thousand dollars last year and renal says i don't i don't have that map i've seen that's that's that's that's that's that's my point mr man let's get all let's get everything on the table let's get everything on the table before we i don't think it slows us down no it doesn't slow us down if i think you continue to move forward here and fine tune this but let's let's get the information and let's not artificially put something out there and let's not create a influx till we create some balance too all right because once these things are permitted and they operate legally there's nothing you can do how would you say there's four hundred and eighty pieces of property right no i think that's close to a thousand in richland county well jurisdiction is the city of columbia yeah i'm worried about richland county i just want to if we look particularly in the city of columbia we're looking at somewhere between four to five hundred pieces of property that's probably right all right what does the data say about those five hundred pieces of property let's get that data yeah that's what we know that's what i want for me to comprehensively look at this plan and to look at look at the material before us i need to know specifically what that data is not how would i understand wanting to get this done prior to but i think it's advantageous for us to have that prior to the only thing the data is going to tell us is if the cap is involved the whole point of the 90 percent of this ordinance is to set up a permitting and regulation of a short-term rental industry that is impacting our city and don't disagree but i think that there are two pieces in there that have to be discussed which is you can't 90 days is not going to work so what is that day and at the same time gathering those so we can't do the cap in the 90 days because it's it's not feasible even our staff knows we can't get that done well we got to figure that we got to figure that out because that's the premise of you gathering that information which means we're 180 days out at the earliest of getting that information so we ought to get the basis of it so that we know and that'll also give us the comparison i think they go i think you continue to move things parallel path you don't stop but you got to get those or you can't you're gonna have to leave those two pieces completely out well that might be the solution to the first for a period of time until we can revise it yeah and that may be what we have to do but i want us to be can we got to think about this yes get the permitting process on but let's let's don't get hung up on that right now let's go on through the ordinance and so we yeah so we all agree that the cap part is not not settled yeah unsettled law all right moving on page six subsection b um so once that at least as written once that cap is established any potential applicant for an str permit would then be placed on a waiting list at no cost um and as permits become available whether through revocation or someone relinquishes that permit or just fails to renew it um they would be notified by the city that they can then apply okay um we're not at the cap stage so you might as well go to the next section five dash four zero seven uh since we're not settled only on the cap let's move to the violations section 108 408 excuse me okay uh councilman dawg you don't you don't want to mention the um yeah equivalency for the long or existing rental permit do 407 407 which i think that's important okay 407 to page six um provides that if someone's in possession of an str permit um and they wanted to then rent that property for periods is greater than 30 days they would not have to get an additional permit as required by our existing rental regulation ordinance and pay that they would not have to pay that 25 dollars they could operate as a long-term rental so long as they are in compliance with the existing rental regulation is there any notification requirement to that or is it just they as long as they stay within the guidelines they're fine correct no notification as written but the inverse is not true so if you've got a short a long i hate to say long-term rental but if you've got that's what we call it yeah if you've got your permit under the existing rental ordinance that you want to start renting the house for periods less than 30 days you don't qualify you have to apply it separately under this what is the threshold for long term six months 30 days 30 days your your short term is your threshold 30 days is your threshold anything you can get an str permit and do long term and short term or you can get a long term but you can't do short term with the long term so somebody has a fire and doesn't know exactly what their thing but they want to rent a long term that's open that long-term person actually has to get a short term permit no no if you have a long-term permit and you have a situation where they need it for a short period of time but there's nothing to prevent them but not following you if you've got it if you got a long-term permit but somebody needs to rent a house for less let's say they had a fire at their house construction they think it's 45 days it turns into 90 days they they're they're gonna rent that house because it's not rented on a long term basis those folks need to go get an str or do they are they okay under the long term i'm just trying to understand the gray i've been in that situation prior to us having so i know that that happens i mean it took us an extra 45 days to get things done out of our control but the way i just understood that i just want to clarify make sure i didn't that we're not creating another problem is there a way just to add the language in there and i think that's the notification piece we should get notified that one makes sense you know that way at least we know and it gives a mechanism i don't want to create gray areas that makes it more complicated people to follow i think people if they know the rules they'll follow the rules but most of the people in the long-term industry are not going to want to rent to somebody this can be a short-term rental if i'm paying taxes in richland county and my house is empty for six months because there's not a rental need and somebody wants to rent it for 30 40 days i'm renting it that won't that that's a six percent assessment in columbia is not cheap all right section five dash four zero eight is the violation section subsection one provides i guess enumerated violations and really it could be boiled down to providing false information intentionally to the city about a dwelling unit or short-term rental failing to have a valid str permit while operating str any violation of this proposed ordinance in addition any violation of the city of columbia any other city of columbia ordinance um any richland county ordinance any state law would be considered a violation the suggested change here is to make the point system the same point system that is in long term makes sense in keeping with the mayor's and that's that's correct we would we would recommend this is similar to the existing um rental regulation ordinance we would recommend making it exactly the same for consistency purposes the only thing i'll say about a long term that that gives me pause is is that we we give a violation to the owner of the thing we do not give a a a warning a fine or anything to the occupants i think it's got to be both if you're breaking the law we're going to fight we're going to just give it to the owner who wasn't even there and let those people go on we're not giving them a fine we're not because that's what we do in long term right now we go with a student or an individual has a party we find the owner of the property we don't find the people who were having the party i don't know i don't know if that's completely accurate because i have heard of residents i know it's very accurate based on the point system that i've had to deal with with people so i know it happens but i know i want to eliminate that i want it to go both agree agree but i think i don't know if it's being done as consistently as it should so i'll agree with you on that i just i just think we we got to figure out that i think if the occupant breaks the law occupants we are both the owner the operator and the occupant should be fined and noted in the yes paperwork if i may add the um the notice of violation when we have a case where there's a tenant we do send the notice to the owner and to the tenant um generally if it's a care of permits type issue like grass or um debris in that and um the tenant does get noticed for it now the owner does the owner does automatically get the weed and all that kind of stuff yeah but that's what i'm talking about i just want to make sure that you knew we do send a notice to the to the tenant as well yeah because what the short-term rental you're not expecting that guy to cut the grass that's a whole different story but if that guy is excessive noise causing neighbors havoc or this and that we need to make sure that they're they're being punished just like the owners being punished i don't think you can't do it one i just want to make sure we're very clear and i get that but i i think the way this is written is the operator will be subject to a violation under this ordinance the guest or the tenant is always subject to every other existing ordinance under the books it hadn't been that way so i want to make sure that we're very clear and distinct that both parties are violators and should be fine we're taking that that eliminates that repeating it's like if we if we could give somebody who dumps trash in our neighborhoods a thousand dollar fine over the only the hundred and fifty that we can give them it would stop a lot of our trash um all right um i guess five dash four zero nine look that is the same as the long-term it is except um with the exception of subsection a the existing rental regulation ordinance says the accumulation of 15 points or more with subject somebody to revocation proceedings the short-term ordinance says 10 points or more we would recommend making it consistent with the existing let's change that points be there 15 their permit gets revoked correct it triggers the revocation proceedings immediately there is no you wait till the end of the year it's done immediately and the appeals process is the same as long-term correct it's all the same everything you see in 409 is the same as long-term with the exception of the 10 point versus 15 point given given the time that we we have mr. mayor do you want us to take this these um points that we've covered this afternoon and clarify them miss herbert i still i just had one thing um to make sure i didn't see it to make sure that we have the requirement that um a owner who is not local has to appoint the local representative i don't think we specifically say that and i think that's one of the overarching thought it said you had to be within 45 45 miles that's and if you aren't yes you have to appoint a local representative if you live in who lives within 45 miles is the way i read it okay but if you look at this you're where does this yes ma'am you have to point out page four okay five dash four zero three the last sentence and subsection excuse me a go ahead i want to so again on here so this says that permits will be issued to the owner or responsible local representative i just think we need to be clear that we're like if you have a owner who lives in california i don't have a local representative and i don't think i see that specific requirement that's you need to tweak it to make sure it reads the way you believe it should it wasn't in my version thank you the councilman of all earlier so we had six versions it's actually 11 11 version okay called democracy and we take the direction of the general discussion this afternoon and do some cleanup work and bring it back to you all want to um when's our next work session i give give you time to clean up these are 24 february 14th so what well ideally if we if we could get it the first week um and in the meantime i think we need to do everything we can to get all the information i think we should i think it'd be well worth to understand really what we're talking about here and understanding true locations and others and there is an updated version of that that uh software that will give you that i think it'd be worth us spending the money i don't think it's a lot of money in the scheme of things but it would be great to really understand what the current being a penetration and how we want to approach it especially if we're we're talking about limiting numbers in in areas do we have vendors we this is a david question do we have vendors that we already work with that can provide that so well one of the issues that we're ironically working through is the vendor that we've been using for our business license auditing they are um being acquired by a different company than the company they're being acquired by a hesitant sense of str capability but we haven't had the opportunity yet to delve into i think kelly i don't know if you want to address that yet but well actually let's not we're checking into that if that company can do it one of us called bill ellen the software that they use to track all the hotel rooms which also gives the air bnb there's an upgraded version that you can pay for that gives you significant detail well that's what i'm saying if we could just pay the difference and then get the report because it shows you where the location is how many nights it's rented to generate and it's based off the third party the companies that do it so it's a collective it's yeah it's all of it be it vert what do they call themselves this week verbo i mean they change name all the time okay let us look into it yeah i i just think the data that you're looking for though on a most basic level is what what's currently what we currently have it'd be nice to know what kind of money's being generated because it would tell us what what we should be collected in a tax number one what we possibly have many units there is and collecting average night yeah average night um stay uh which is is longer than most of us think it is here in columbia we're very fortunate i do think air and be air bnbs have a place i understand concerns and stuff but you know i'm at a couple who moved here from out of town and they stayed in every part of our town and air bnb until they figured out what neighborhood they wanted to live in our military families use it quite a lot a lot of business travelers i think our average stay is going to be a lot longer than everybody thinks it's not just a weekend thing which is a good thing but you know i think as we continue to move forward i think you know we have there has to be a regulatory we have to have a way to get to uh the owners and individuals we gotta like anything we have to have a mechanism to deal with with the bad apples and the bad actors uh in it but the same time we don't need to to throw it completely out and i think we're trying to get there and i agree mr mayor and there is the upfront data collection but i think the important thing is the backend data collection over time how is you know what is the tipping point for a neighborhood uh what is the data telling us and i think that's something that both parties um were very uh agreeable to during the process of our subcommittee all right thank you sir yes sir and thank you point of clarification i've got all the notes for the cap we're not touching that it's unsettled not yet it's on it we if we get enough information when it comes time to the final version but at this point i don't think i don't think there's a majority that believes that we can create an artificial cap so we don't even know the time to register at this point exactly so i guess what we're here is remove that section that opposes a cap i think you just leave it in red so if we can change it prior to don't don't throw don't throw it out let's then you'll be doing your 17th version thank you thank y'all for the good discussion i think we've all learned a little bit and some of you that have not sat through some of these discussions understand the nuances nuances that uh that this industry brings do i am free we have a motion to go in executive session mr. mayor i make a motion that we go into executive session for discussion on negotiations incident to propose purchase of property pursuant to sc code 30-4 that's 78 to capital city station olympia fire station discussion of negotiations incident to propose contractual arrangements pursuant to sc code 30-4 that's 78 to um cez incorporated marketplace project south main street streetscape project imagine llc uh receipt of legal advice related to matters covered by attorney client privilege pursuant to sc code 30-4 that's 78 to homeless services is there a second there's a motion a second any uh comments concerns additions hearing none seeing none madame clerk could you read the roll please i yes yes i i


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Today we continue on with Chapter 3, Perception versus Knowledge. We have been emphasizing perception and have said very little about knowledge as yet. This is because perception must be straightened out before you can know anything. To know is to be certain, and certainty is strength. Perception is temporary. As an attribute of the belief in space and time, it is subject either to fear or love. Misperceptions produce fear, and true perceptions foster love. But neither bring certainty, because all perception varies. That is why it is not knowledge. True perception is the basis for knowledge. But knowing is the affirmation of truth and beyond all perceptions. All your difficulties stem from the fact that you do not recognize yourself, your brother, or God. To recognize means to know again, implying that you knew before. You can see in many ways, because perception involves interpretation. And this means that it is not whole or consistent. The miracle, being a way of perceiving, is not knowledge. It is the right answer to a question, but you do not question when you know. Questioning illusions is the first step in undoing them. The miracle, or the right answer, corrects them. Since perceptions change, their dependence on time is obvious. How you perceive at any given time determines what you do, and actions must occur in time. Knowledge is timeless, because certainty is not questionable. You know when you have ceased to ask questions. The questioning mind perceives itself in time and therefore looks for future answers. The closed mind believes the future and the present will be the same. This establishes a seemingly stable state that is usually an attempt to counteract an underlying fear that the future will be worse than the present. This fear inhibits the tendency to question at all. Vision is the natural perception of spiritual sight, but it is still a correction rather than a fact. Spiritual sight is symbolic and therefore not a device for knowing. It is, however, a means of right perception, which brings it into the proper domain of the miracle. A, quote, vision of God would be a miracle rather than a revelation. The fact that perception is involved at all removes the experience from the realm of knowledge. That is why visions, however holy, do not last. The Bible tells you to know thyself or to be certain. Certainty is always of God. When youth loves someone, you perceive him as he is, and this makes it possible for you to know him. Until you first perceive him as he is, you cannot know him. While you ask questions about him, you are clearly implying that you do not know God. Certainty does not require action. When you say you are acting on the basis of knowledge, you are really confusing knowledge with perception. Knowledge provides the strength for creative thinking, but not for right doing. Perception, miracles, and doing are closely related. Knowledge is a result of revelation and it uses only thought. Even in its most spiritualized form, perception involves the body. Knowledge comes from the altar within and is timeless because it is certain. To perceive the truth is not the same as to know it. Right perception is necessary before God can communicate directly to his altars, which he established in his sons. There he can communicate his certainty and his knowledge will bring peace without question.  Knowledge preceded both perception and time and will ultimately replace them. That is the real meaning of alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. And before Abraham was, I am. Perception can and must be stabilized, but knowledge is stable. Fear God and keep his commandments becomes know God and accept his certainty. If you attack error in another, you will hurt yourself. You cannot know your brother when you attack him. Attack is always made upon a stranger. You are making him a stranger by misperceiving him and so you cannot know him. It is because you have made him a stranger that you are afraid of him. Perceive him correctly so that you can know him. There are no strangers in God's creation to create as he created you can create only what you know and therefore accept as yours. God knows his children with perfect certainty. He created them by knowing them. He recognizes them perfectly. When they do not recognize each other, they do not recognize him. And from the workbook, lesson number 18, I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. The idea for today is another step in learning that the thoughts which give rise to what you see are never neutral or unimportant. It also emphasizes the idea that minds are joined, which will be given increasing stress later on. Today's idea does not refer to what you see as much as to how you see it. Therefore, the exercises for today emphasize this aspect of your perception. The three or four practice periods which are recommended should be done as follows. Look about you, selecting subjects for the application of the idea for today as randomly as possible, and keeping your eyes on each one long enough to say, I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see. Conclude each practice period by repeating the more general statement. I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. A minute or so or even less will be sufficient for each practice period. So if we really summarize and simplify this beautiful lesson today, what we're being taught is I'm not alone in how I see this world that all minds are joined and that the entire perception of the entire cosmos is being generated from the thoughts I think I think. These thoughts are what I think I see. This is how it seems to be happening. When I seem to see a brother or a sister, I'm not seeing an image outside of my mind. I'm simply beholding the thoughts that are crossing consciousness and all the judgments of attraction and repulsion, good and bad, right and wrong. How is this happening is holding onto these thoughts and then perceiving them as if they are something else coming from somewhere else, some other person, some other environment perceived to be outside the body. And yet the body is part of the perception. Everything that I think I think about what seems to be my own body is part of this perception. The world is not outside the body. The body, the environment are all thoughts that I am beholding by holding onto them. This is how the entire cosmos is generated. There is no world apart from what you wish. There is no world apart from what you think. This wishing and thinking is in consciousness, is in mind. So therefore this is a world of ideas. There is no physical world. Everything is an idea. Everything is mental. This is how the world appears. And I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. Everything is unified. Everything is mind. Everything is these thoughts. This is such an important admission. So today, every time you are tempted to think or believe that you are a person reacting and responding to external stimuli, external people, external actions and reactions, come back, come back to the mind, watch your thoughts and remember how you were seeing. How you are perceiving. It's all mind. It has always been mind. It will never be anything but mind. And there is just one mind.  Because there is no one to be victim. And nothing to be the victimizer. If everything is mind, there is no projection. Mind reaches to itself. It does not go out. Think of that today. It does not go out. There is nothing beyond mind. And that is why I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.