Asheville City Council hosted a special meeting yesterday on short-term rentals. The problem is there are hundreds of online listings for the accommodations, but they are illegal, unless a home happens to be in a commercial district. Also, if a homeowner wants rent money, he may declare himself a homestay. The odious and obnoxious practice becomes sanitized if the homeowner lets “one to three rooms for less than thirty days if he or she provides a morning meal in a home that is at least 2500 square feet.”
I’m at work all the time, so I don’t really know what it is like to enjoy a neighborhood ambience, but one common tater put it this way:
“The reality is that renters are here for vacation, and they do what vacationers do. They stay up late during the workweek, drinking and smoking and making noise outside often until early in the morning. There is increased traffic, and they are constantly coming and going and sightseeing,” said Amy Alfred, who said she lives next door to a short-term rental property.
I once lived on Kimberly Avenue. Imagine my surprise when, about a year or so later, my landlady told me she was leasing to me illegally, as were many fixed-income retirees in the hood, who had resorted to renting rooms to help them pay taxes.
