Short Term Rentals need annual review

Short Term Rentals within the city of Wimberley will now be required to renew Conditional Use Permits annually after the Wimberley City Council approved a newly revised ordinance last week.

The Short Term Rental Committee, which was put together by the council to rewrite the city’s ordinance, was strongly in favor of the required annual renewal.

“Short Term Rentals have become a very complicated and emotional topic not only in our town but in the state and the country,” Suzanne Davis, with the STR Committee, said. “Finding ways to balance the needs of the residents with Short Term Rentals as well as owners that do not have Short Term Rentals was a key part of our deliberations. The renewal process is very important to the residents who do not have Short Term Rentals. It’s a very simple process.”

Short Term Rentals have been a hot topic of discussion for years since the boom of online rental services like Air BnB. Some residents feel like it is the property owner’s right to rent out a home if they want to, whether that be short term or in a more traditional sense. Others feel like Short Term Rentals create a business within a residential zone and that the transient nature of guests often cause issues for surrounding property owners.

The annual renewal gives the city the ability to revoke a Conditional Use Permit that allows a Short Term Rental on a property if it is not renewed. Some wanted the city to have measures to revoke a Short Term Rental permit if there were issues created once the rental was operating. City Attorney Charles Zech has stated that, under Wimberley’s governance structure, that is not legal. The only means to revoke a permit are through the renewal process outlined in the ordinance.

A fee for how much the annual renewal process will cost was not set during the meeting.

The Wimberley Planning and Zoning Commission recommended that the council remove the renewal process. Members of the commission stated that they were concerned about revoking a permit at all.

“We had a long discussion about this and our (Conditional Use Permit) process generally is the same for this as it is for if you get a CUP to sell alcohol,” Planning and Zoning Commissioner Rebecca Minnick said. “They convey with the property. This would be the only CUP the city has that would have an annual renewal.”

Council members pointed out that other CUPs, such as the right to sell alcohol at a given location, have to go through an annual permitting process with the state.

However, when a business, such as a bar, does not renew its on-premise-consumption permit with the state, it only prevents that business from selling alcohol at that time. It does not change the zoning property, which would be the case for Short Term Rentals under the city’s new ordinance.

The city recently hired a company to identify how many Short Term Rentals are operating within the city limits without a permit. Of 199 STRs identified, 123 are operating without a permit. The city has the option to impose a penalty of up to $2,000 per day for those not in compliance and could potentially take property owners to court to force them to get a permit.