VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Following 10 On Your Side’s story on a loud and unruly weekend on Holly Road between 56th and 58th streets in the north end of Virginia Beach, residents took their complaints to the Virginia Beach Planning Commission, and outlined the controls they want implemented.
The first thing: they absolutely want it to be a requirement to get a conditional use permit (CUP) before opening a short-term rental. They want to solve parking problem issues, and they want more inspectors.
“The owners of short-term rentals, they don’t care about me. They don’t care about my kids, and they don’t care about my family and my neighbors,” said John David, the president of the North Virginia Beach Civic League.
The Planning Commission held a public hearing Wednesday on a resolution to amend the city zoning ordinance about short-term rentals to establish additional regulations and requirements for such rental properties.
In Virginia Beach, short-term rental owners must first register and/or get a conditional use permit — depending on where the property is located in the city — before operating the rental.
Among other votes Wednesday, the Planning Commission voted against allowing short-term rentals all over the city, but only in designated areas. Any changes also need to be approved by City Council.
David, of the local civic league, is concerned about an unregistered short-term rental owner who rented out to people who basically turned the front part of a duplex into a weekend-long party house. Early Saturday morning, neighbors even heard gunshots ring out. Police reported no injuries, but neighrbods said it was frightening.
David urged the Virginia Beach Planning Commission to require property owners to get conditional use permits for short-term rentals.
“We want one rental per seven-day period. Any more than that you become a commercial enterprise and you ruin our neighborhood,” he said.
Also speaking was the owner of another short-term rental.
“I am advocating for a fair and sustainable compromise of regulations. The short-term owners are owners of the community,” the owner, Erica, told the commission.
Erica argued for balanced policies as homeowners have a “right by birth” to do what they are zoned to do with their property,
Short-term rentals are a complicated, detailed, and emotional issue.
“There is nothing there about a short-term rental authority because it is by-right. We do not want this, and we are looking to all of you on the Planning Commission to stop this. We should not be sacrificed in the north end for Virginia Beach,” north end resident Morgan Brooke Devlin said.
Doug Rudley, who lives in the north end, asked Planning Commission members if they would want to live next to disruptive noise and gunshots like what happened this past weekend on Holly Road,
“How would you feel if next to your home, assuming you are [the] homeowner, that someone proposed to operate a weekly rental business for three months during the summertime? I don’t think you would think that increases the desirability of your neighborhood, or your quality-of-life. Common sense suggests it doesn’t,” Rudley said.
In the north end, the short-term density was capped at 10.6% with mandatory conditional use permits. David not happy about that.
“The North Virginia Beach Civic League feels that our concerns have been addressed with the exception of the determination of current STR density. STR density should be determined by the ratio of legal STRs to North End Dwellings. Illegal STRs have no place in density calculations.”
Planning Commission member Dee Oliver suggested there may be some issues with allowing more properties to be used as business ventures.
“All of a sudden, it has become a right or it appears that one person after another is buying property in a residential neighborhood to conduct a business, and I am not sure that is exactly what we were intending for our city to go,” said Oliver, who abstained on votes on North End policy due to owning property there.
David added the number of unregistered short-term rentals could also complicate the process moving forward.
“An accurate number of legal [short-term retnals] was never provided to [us] or in the public hearing. It is our fear that the city does not have accurate numbers which could skew future measures of the 10.6% [short-term rental] cap.”