County Planning Commission Mtg 2017-09-13 Notes

(For agenda and packet, see here or here.)

Discussion on B&B Regulations:

Zacharia Levine, GC Community Development Director, reviewed the previous proposal that the Planning Commission sent to the GC County Council:

• The proposal had inconsistencies and redundancies, included language lifted from industry standards (staff noted this type of text is not usually incorporated into County codes, and the language was geared towards growth, rather than neighborhood protection), and other problems.
• the proposed requirement that breakfast be served would be generally unenforceable
• the proposed requirement that the B&B be owner-occupied was acceptable
• the 10-year provision to make existing B&Bs come into conformance w/ the “new” requirements is probably legal, but would check w/ County Attorney’s office
•  limiting # of BRs would be acceptable

Comm’r Cricket Green asked a couple Q’s about B&Bs conforming to new requirements and the OAO districts, but it wasn’t clear that she understood that the “new” requirements were aimed primarily at continuing to allow new B&B’s in residential zones, outside of the OAO districts. She also asked about having different requirements for “mom and pop” B&Bs vs. mini-hotel B&Bs, but was informed by Staff that would not be practical or advisable.

Comm’n Gerrish Willis mentioned the 500’ buffer and said he essentially pulled it out of the air at the last meeting and maybe the Comm’n should discuss the buffer.

Comm’r Rachel Nelson noted that a 500’ buffer would not likely do much to limit # of B&Bs and that the buffer also resulted in “rule of firsts” – i.e. if you got a permit first, you could shut out other later permits.

Comm’r Bob O’Brien commented that a buffer would help w/ density but wouldn’t help w/ fairness

Comm’r Abbey Scott suggested a different buffer for various sizes of B&Bs – i.e. small vs big B&Bs w/ a sliding scale buffer

The discussion was rambling w/ no decision on anything discussed.

In the end, Zacharia suggested Staff would present 2 proposals to the Comm’n for discussion at next meeting:
1 – Cleaned up version of the initial proposal the Comm’n had sent to the County Council – remove redundancies and inconsistencies, removed industry standards language, etc. This proposal would continue to allow new B&Bs in all residential neighborhoods and make them subject to the new requirements.
2 – Restrict new B&Bs to the OAO districts (i.e. no new B&Bs in residential neighborhoods).