Vacation rental plan approved

SANDPOINT — The city has a new system to keep tourism home rentals on the right side of the law.

Council members recently passed a new ordinance governing short-term house rentals targeted at tourists visiting the community. The new system uses a licensing system to keep tabs on legally-operated tourist rentals, ensuring the city receives appropriate bed tax revenue and rentals undergo proper maintenance.

The ordinance passage follows many months of work by Planning and Zoning Commission members, who worked with the rental industry to arrive at the standards they presented to the city officials. Council changes to the ordinance largely centered around zoning details, and the ordinance was passed with members Jamie Brunner and Shelby Rognstad dissenting.

According to the ordinance, a vacation home is defined as a residence rented for between two and 30 days. In residential zones, tourist homes are not allowed within 300 feet of each other to avoid noise complaints that have occurred frequently in past years. An individual is only permitted to own one tourist home license.

Those who rent a tourist home without acquiring a license can be cited with a misdemeanor offense. As for licensed tourist home renters who fail to address noise complaints, nuisances or illegal activity on their property, they can be cited with escalating penalties ranging from warnings to permit suspension to permit revocation.

The property owner must also serve as or appoint a local representative responsible for maintaining the home and making sure renters are behaving reasonably. This individual or company must reside within 20 miles of Sandpoint and have a full registry of all tenants and vehicles in the home. Their contact information must be given to residents within 200 feet of the home in the event of rowdy guests. The same information must be posted inside the residence as well.   

Current owners of tourist rentals have a 90 grace period to apply for a rental license and have their home inspected by the fire department for safety concerns. Property owners can download both the ordinance text and an application at www.cityofsandpoint.com/PlanningZoning.

The problem of vacation rentals first came to the council’s attention when council members received complaints of noisy, hard-partying tourists causing trouble for their resident neighbors. This issue underscored the fact that many renters were advertising their properties on the sly without having the property inspected or paying the required bed taxes.