By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
The Boone County Fiscal Court decided last week at their regular meeting to allow short term rentals as a conditional use in the Graves Road interchange.
Since Judge Executive Gary Moore could not preside at the meeting, the court decided that Commissioner Cathy Flaig should take over for this meeting, and she did.
Michael Schwartz from the Boone County Planning Commission, explained how the issue came up, saying that the two issues, the Graves road study and the short term rentals, became mixed up together in the beginning.
“The Graves Road study was adopted somewhat simultaneously with the initial report and evaluation as to short term rentals in the county,” Schwartz said. “At the time that the draft regulations for the short term rentals, an original text amendment, was being drafted and put together, the Graves road study along with the permitted uses and all the background and requirements for Graves road were just about in their final iteration. At the time it was felt that we didn’t want to open the door for the Graves road which is why there was this timing discrepancy of how short term rentals got into the county zoning regulations, but were not part of the Graves road text.”
Schwartz believes that is one reason why the court asked the planning commission to evaluate whether or not short term rentals should be allowed in the three Graves road districts, the Graves road residential section which is featured in the slide shown at the meeting in yellow, the Graves road commercial section, featured in red, and the Graves road business park section, featured in blue.
Based upon the required 1000 foot spacing for short term rentals, depending on where the first one is applied and approved, the staff came up with a possible 8 sites for the short term rentals that could be within the Graves Road locations.
The planning commission had held a public hearing, at which, Schwartz stressed, no one came, and after that the planning commission came up with a three part recommendation. They recommended approval of short term rentals in the residential district, as well as in the Business Park district, but disapproved of short term rentals in the commercial district. The disapproval is, first of all, based on the fact that there are not as many single family homes in the commercial district, only 11, as opposed to 45 in the residential district and 43 in the business park district. Other than that, they reasoned that short term rentals are not appropriate in commercial zones, that it would lead to an expansion of non-conforming uses, and it is, on the whole, not consistent with other actions taken by the fiscal court. The recommendations in the other two districts cited conformity with the Comprehensive plan, and reasonable and appropriate for the districts.
Commissioner Chet Hand questioned how the public hearing was advertised, and Schwartz said they published it in the newspaper of record, the only legal record, and it was on the website, as well as the agenda. They didn’t put signs up because they would have had to put up in excess of 150 signs.
“So it is theoretically possible that there were people that own residential houses in that area that had no idea from start to finish that their property was rezoned,” said Hand. “We’re talking about zoning text.”
“The zoning text is not a re-zoning, I want to make that distinction,” stated Schwartz.
He said when the zone was changed, every property owner in the area was notified by mail, but for the text amendment for the short term rentals, the document that they had before them at this meeting, it was only advertised in the paper as a legal requirement.
Commissioner Flaig asked how many acres it encompassed and how many home owners were affected. Schwartz said it was about 550 acres, and 99 homeowners.
Commissioner Hand asked if the county had received any applications for short term rentals, and County Administrator Matthew Webster said they had received two in the past two years, one in the commercial or red district, and one in the business park or blue district, but they had been denied out of hand because of general conditions, which included the fact that short term rentals were non-conforming uses until this ordinance is passed.
The agenda contained two potential first reading of ordinances, the first containing approval of the Planning Commission’s recommendations that short term rentals should be approved in the business park district and the residential district, but not in the commercial district, and the second version where short term rentals are allowed in all three districts, somewhat against the recommendation of the planning commission.
Commissioner Jesse Brewer motioned to have the first possible ordinance, 5a, removed so they could only consider the second possible ordinance, 5b on the agenda.
Commissioner Hand agreed, saying it doesn’t make sense to have one side of the street zoned one way and the other side of the street another way.
The ordinance, 5b, was read, but not voted on since it was the first reading. The second reading will be at the next regular commission meeting on October 24, at which time the commissioners will vote on it.
County Administrator Webster said that they would attach some findings about the 5b ordinance so they would be part of the record for the next reading.
Planning and zoning are messed up. All the residents involved should have received a letter in the mail.