Residents of the Wellesley neighborhood in Collegedale are asking for the city to stop issuing permits for short term vacation rentals (STVRs) for homes in their subdivision. Two representatives at the commission meeting Monday night said it had been a single-family neighborhood since it was built 16-17 years ago but recently has had a homeowner using their house for a STVR. And another has had multiple, unrelated people living in the home, causing problems with numerous cars in the driveway and parking on the street, the commission was told.
People bought houses there, relying on it being zoned for single families, said both the speakers, who said they want to keep it that way. City Attorney Sam Elliott said that several years ago another issue with unrelated people renting rooms was interpreted as “dorm related,” or operating as a boarding house. The city filed suit regarding that case.
The Wellesley subdivision has a homeowner’s association with restrictive covenants. When it was developed there was no such thing as short term vacation rentals, but the covenants specify that the homes are for single families. Often more than one family stays in a STVR, pointed out one of the speakers, which is a violation of the city’s ordinance in addition to an HOA violation. Additionally, if the family who owns the house lives there and stays while another family rents it, that means that two families are sharing the house and that, too, is against Collegedale’s single-family zoning ordinance.
City Attorney Elliott said that the city does not enforce the rules of a Homeowners Association, but that the HOA has the right to go to court to have its covenants enforced. Collegedale can only enforce its own single family zoning ordinance, he said. But that is a big expense for the neighborhood, responded the neighbors. The neighborhood’s position is that if there is a conflict between the rules set by an HOA and a municipality, then the strongest one applies, and they believe their covenants have more weight. This neighborhood has 170 people living there and 150 of them have been there for years, it was stated. “When you expand other people’s rights, you are adversely affecting the others,” said one of the speakers.
They asked for a stay on issuing more permits. Vice Mayor Tim Johnson said it is a problem because a lot of neighborhoods do not have an HOA, and he said that the city cannot make an exception just for Wellesley. Commissioner Debbie Baker said it is difficult to define just who are relatives living in a house that may be a temporary situation, so that has to be considered case by case. The vice mayor also commented that in parts of the city it is common for multiple unrelated people or more than one family to live in a single house, but they do not apply for permits from the city.
Attorney Elliott said a statute passed by the state of Tennessee said if an STVR was operating when they passed the law, they will be allowed to continue. He will research when the rentals were put into service.
Currently interpretation of the rules regulating short term rentals is under discussion by the city of Soddy Daisy, Hamilton County and the city of Chattanooga. Mayor Morty Lloyd said that the city wants to be in the bounds of the law regarding these rentals.
The commissioners voted to update Collegedale’s fire code. After the International Building Codes are adopted, they have to be updated, said the city attorney. The vote Monday night made Collegedale’s codes consistent with the surrounding communities with issues such as the width, the grade and the number of fire access roads into and out of both single and multi-family residential areas and added some parking requirements. Existing developments will not be asked to add access roads unless there is a significant change to the neighborhood. If a development has been approved but not yet built, the regulations that were in place when the development was approved are frozen for three years. What was in place at the time is what must be followed. The new version of the code sets the threshold of needing to have two access roads for neighborhoods of 200 or more homes.
The financial report from Finance Manager Michelle Toro shows that Collegedale is right on track for the year. She said at 66 percent of the way through fiscal year 2023, the city has received 67 percent of projected revenue and has spent 63 percent of expenditures.