By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
The Kenton County Mayors’ Group met Saturday at the Independence Senior Center, and the main topic of conversation was the short legislative session in Frankfort.
Crestview Hills Mayor Paul Meier distributed a list of bills that need to be watched to see what the Kentucky Legislature does with them.
“House bill 134, or SB67, restricts the increase in valuation of property for anyone over 65,” Meier said. “This would be on their primary residence. It would require a constitutional amendment.”
He said if the tax stays the same on the houses of the older people, the revenue might have to be made up for by increasing taxes for those under 65, but that would be another concern. Meier said that the Kentucky League of Cities is against this bill.
Another bill is HB 160, which prohibits a local government from adopting or enforcing zoning regulation on manufactured housing. This could allow a manufactured home to be placed right next to anyone’s home. Meier said the bill passed the Local Government Committee and is now up for consideration on the House floor. Kentucky Representative Kim Moser said that the bill was further along than that, which was a surprise to Meier.
PDS Executive Director Sharmili Reddy said she has only seen a handful of these come through PDS. Reddy said the bill specified that the manufactured house has to be on a foundation.
“The bill in itself is not bad,” said Reddy.
Meier said he thought the bill would throw out some setbacks and have some square footage rules. He said quite a few had signed on for the bill, but none in Northern Kentucky.
House bill 173 preempts local governments from adopting or enforcing ordinances that create a registry of rental property.
“Crestview Hills has such a registry, with 21 people on it, and it has helped by knowing who to contact when an issue arises on rental property,” said Meier. “It also makes sure that the owner has a business license and pays the business taxes required. Twenty-one people had not been paying business taxes.”
The most known of the bills is HB253, which recommends the centralized collection of business taxes by the Office of the Treasurer. This bill is currently in the A and R Committee.
Meier said there are only four counties that have centralized collection, Boone, Kenton, Campbell and Scott counties. He said some parts of the state don’t have centralized collection, and this bill is coming out of Jefferson County.
“What the bill is saying is that the businesses are going to have to pay the extra money for this change,” he explained. “We’re opposing this bill, just like we opposed the telecommunications tax years ago, and that didn’t turn out well for us. Of all the bills, I think this one will hurt us the most.”
Meier said HB 258 requires local governments to install cameras at all school bus stops, and they have to retain videos if they maintain the road of a bus stop. Many of the mayors thought this bill would be extremely difficult to install and maintain.
Senate Bill 110 prohibits local governments from requiring a conditional use permit on short term rentals.
“Our short term rentals don’t require that, I don’t know if anyone else’s does,” said Meier.
They said Air B+B is pushing hard for this, but they don’t pay any income tax for the cities.
Representative Moser said they won’t be able to get a lot passed because it is a short session, but they did reduce the personal income tax to 3½ percent, and she said she is working on several health care related bills.
“What about the cigar bar bill?” she asked. “Does anyone have an opinion about that? The cigar bar would preempt any local smoking ban, if there is one, and allow cigar bars in town.”
Meier said he thought maybe it would not be approved because it takes away local control.
Villa Hills Mayor Heather Jansen asked about Senate bill 59, which allows religious institutions to develop affordable housing without planning unit review if approved by a local government.
“The KLC came out opposing that bill,” said Meier. “A lot of it has to do with Taylor Mill’s situation where a non-profit builds the affordable housing and basically they don’t have to pay property taxes; it stays in the non-profit’s name. In Dan (Bell)’s case, there are a lot of seniors, and there are a lot of ambulance runs there, and they don’t pay property taxes, but when you are using city services, and then you have 50 units in your city that aren’t paying any property taxes, it has to come from somewhere.”
He said that the burden of taxes then goes to all the other taxpayers.
Mayor Jansen agreed, saying their costs are increasing because a lot of ambulance calls go to Madonna Manor, and over the years the cost to the taxpayers keeps increasing.
Meier told the group that the KLC generally puts out a list of the things they are working on every weekend, and he suggested that if anyone is not on the list, they should sign up for it, so they can keep up to date on the different bills.