Neighbors, if you would like a voice in VRBO and AirBNB regulations in Lexington, please follow up with the survey, linked below. You can find email addresses for Preston Worley and the Council on this website.
Addison Hosea, Secretary ELNA
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April 24, 2024
Dear Neighbors,
The Fayette County Neighborhood Council has a Big Ask for you today because the Urban County Government appears to have overlooked the most essential change necessary to improve the very weak Short Term Rental Ordinance it passed unanimously in July of 2023. The Urban County Council will be revisiting the Ordinance in May of this year and we hope will make changes to improve it.
Urban and some suburban neighborhoods in Fayette County are experiencing a takeover of private real estate investors who view residences as commercial opportunities for making profits from VRBOs and Airbnbs. A recent Lexington Herald-Leader article identified at least fifty (50) short-term rental properties (STRs) over a small number of urban neighborhoods. Short-term rentals take residences off the market in the middle of a housing crisis, increase housing prices, and contribute to gentrification. Few, if any neighbors, want to live next to a tourist hotel rather than other neighbors.
The Big Ask is that you communicate with as many neighbors as possible and ask them to respond to a short-term rental survey the Urban County Government just posted at engage.lexingtonky.gov. While the addition of having a website is a very positive step to inform neighbors about the existence of short-term rentals, the survey leaves out hard density standards as an option under consideration. Louisville requires that an STR must be a minimum of 600 feet from another STR, and numerous other cities have placed similar strong density restrictions on STR operation.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR FILLING OUT THE STR SURVEY
1. Go to engage.lexingtonky.gov
2. Register for the site with a user ID and password and fill out demographic informationincluding your council district. Your user ID will be public, so use something that does not identify you if you want privacy. We recommend that you not enter your email address as your user ID.
3. Click on the short-term rental survey icon and be prepared to indicate if you have received or heard complaints about short-term rentals in your neighborhood and what they are. Neighborhoods may circulate information on known issues and ask many neighbors to submit duplicate information. Beware: the number of keystrokes allowed in this section is very limited, so prepare to keep responses brief and to not use complete sentences.
4. The next section is problematic because it asks that you look at a list of possible improvements to the existing STR ordinance and prioritize them. It completely leaves out numeric density restrictions, as named above, — how far apart STRs must be to receive licensure via a conditional use permit. The survey also requires that you prioritize separate sections for areas inside the Urban Services Boundary and for those outside.
5. This is very important: After the prioritizing of the two sections, the survey includes a small narrative section where it’s possible to ask for a numeric density restriction. Again, Louisville requires that STRs be a minimum of 600 feet apart. In making a decision as to whether to approve a proposed short-term rental, the Lexington Board of Adjustment “looks” at an area within 1,000 feet from a proposed STR, but it has never turned down a proposal based on the distance between an existing STR and a proposed STR.
6. The final section indicates that you may call a staffer or your council member(s) if you have any questions. Please call and be sure to mention the importance of not allowing STRs to be located close to each other, and be sure that density is stressed on the questionnaire. Please talk to your council members about your concerns and remember that you have both a district CM and three at-large CMs. Call everyone!
We need to do this quickly given that the Urban County Council plans to look at the short-term rental ordinance in May. Please work to generate responses now.
Thanks,
Walt Gaffield, President
Fayette County Neighborhood Council, Inc.