Citizens crowd into the commission meeting room to express their views
(Cleveland)- A standing-room-only crowd attended Monday’s White County Board of Commissioners meeting at which time the commissioners conducted a public hearing to receive comments from those attending concerning proposed revisions to short-term rental regulations, primarily host license.
The issue has become a hot topic for many residents, especially in the northern part of the county where the rentals have mushroomed.
Twenty of the approximately 100 people who showed up voiced their opinions to the board. Not all were critical of the work by the commission to get a handle on the situation many provided their ideas and the board could use them in developing a final plan.
Commission Chairman Travis Turner said following the hearing that the board and staff have much work ahead of them, “ The board will take a few weeks to go through this information, the comments as well as, really with a fine tooth comb go through the proposal again submitted by staff and then we’ll kinda see what the pleasure of the board is coming January the new year. We fully recognize by several of the comments here, there are some areas we may need to tweak, look at, but also in certain areas we may be on the right paths.”
One of the proposals in the commission’s draft would prohibit short-term rentals in 609 identified subdivisions in the county unless their covenants allow for it.
Chairman Turner said there was a lot of misinformation circulated prior to Monday’s public hearing and it is a challenge to dispel that information and work on providing a workable solution to this issue.
White County is a popular tourist destination but with so many short-term rentals poping up to meet the tourist requests, it has dried up a lot of the long-term rental opportunities and that has affected businesses and manufacturers who need affordable long-term housing for their employees.
The commissioners will be discussing the issue more before a final draft is expected until after the first of next year.
Believe that additional short term rentals in White County will facilitate higher property costs as the demand exceeds available supply. By mitigating long term rentals, the shortage of potential employees here in the county further drives the cost of labor which of course excelerates the cost of goods and services.
For a better understanding of what occurred at the December 4 public hearing, those who are interested can submit a Georgia Open Records Request Act (GORA) request to the county clerk, Shanda Murphy for the audio recording. I have attached the email address for your convenience. She will promptly return the audio recording back to you by email. It should also be remembered that there was a standing room only crowd. Not all were allowed to comment as the hearing had to close for other meeting matters. Some attendants were also turned away at the door when the building fire code capacity was reached prior to the meeting start time. In addition, further comments were submitted at the end of the meeting segment. Those are included in the audio recording as well. *******@whitecounty.net