Town Council approves short term rental ordinance with one significant change

The regular monthly meeting of the Front Royal Town Council – they snuck it in on the 28^th and LAST day of February 2022 – dealt with one public hearing on an emerging quasi-commercial/residential use within the town limits, short term tourist rentals. Town Planning Director Lauren Kopishke presented the updated Ordinance Amendment forwarded by the planning commission. She noted a change – addition of Item “O” stating that “If the property is located in the R-1 district, the short term rental facility shall be the owner’s principal residence.”

Questioned about that addition, Kopishke explained it was recommended by new Commission Chairman Darryl Merchant and supported by a majority of commissioners as a protection against corporate or outside people or entities swooping in to buy up available local homes for short term rental use, turning R-1 homes into essentially a commercial use in a residential district. Such a trend a commission majority feared, could possibly competitively knock local homeowners out of the short term rental market. The change would make the short term rental use more like a bed & breakfast operation involving local ownership, than an off-site motel management operation infiltrating residential neighborhoods, Kopishke explained of the planning commission majority’s reasoning.

At the request of Town Manager Steven Hicks, Kopishke reviewed previous changes made in response to council input. Those included an easing of off-rental property parking restrictions; removal of a landline telephone requirement designed to assure an ability to contact local emergency services if necessary and a customer’s cellphone service failed. She also observed a dropping of a Virginia State Code-based definition of a “Short term rental owner” as “Any person or entity that meets the definition of ‘operator’ as defined in 15.2 983, as amended …”

Council debated the relative merits of specific ownership prohibitions on short term rental operations and the necessity of a new $17,950 road message board, among other discussions Monday, Feb. 28. Royal Examiner Photos by Roger Bianchini

While all three of those latter changes remained, after some discussion council deleted the item “O” condition of operators being people who were utilizing their primary residence for short term rentals. “I would take that out,” Letasha Thompson began the council critique of the condition as too limiting. She was quickly joined in that opinion by Joe McFadden, Amber Morris and Gary Gillespie. Gillespie agreed with Thompson’s assessment that the Conditional Use Permitting process would allow review on a case-by-case basis, making a blanket ownership restriction unnecessary.

However, noting he had grown up in what was known as a “tourist town” Councilman Scott Lloyd urged continued attention to potential negative impacts from outside ownership operations. “I did witness, like a generational change in the approach to property ownership of our town. And this is something to watch closely and keep in mind as we see this phenomenon arrive on our doorsteps,” Lloyd told his colleagues of the planning commission’s concern “having some validity” in this regard.

Citing not necessarily corporate, but just business-oriented people from out of town or “a distant part of the state” buying residential properties in town neighborhoods as a commercial, rather than residential, use that could “over time change the fabric of the community,” Lloyd warned. – “So, it’s something to keep in mind. It’s something that I’ve seen. It’s not apples to apples to there from where we are now. But it’s just something to think about,” he concluded of a long-term perspective.

Citing his long-term experience growing up in a ‘tourist town’, Councilman Lloyd, right, urged council to keep a long-term eye on short term rental ownership trends that could ‘over time change the fabric of a community’.

Whether such a long-term perspective on what Lloyd termed “a generational change” will survive the turnover of, not just this, but subsequent councils remains to be seen. On Thompson’s motion, seconded by McFadden, council approved the Short Term Rental Ordinance Amendment with condition “O” removed, and other changes incorporated as described above, passed by a unanimous 6-0 vote.

FOIA policy and staff safety purchases

A seven item Consent Agenda was passed with one item removed for discussion. Unfortunately for some interested in the inner workings of the town government, that removal was not of item 10-A, approval of a new Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) policy for the town government. From some people and media outlets recent experiences with FOIA inquiries to the town government, that February 28^th approval essentially without discussion as routine business, may bare further exploration in a future Royal Examiner story, perhaps one titled: “Town Builds a Paywall against FOIA requests”.

What was removed for discussion by Vice-Mayor Lori Cockrell was a nearly $18,000 purchase for a third remote site Message Board of the kind warning motorists of various altered traffic patterns or road conditions, including road repair work. Cockrell explained her removal of the item from the assumed routine business of the Consent Agenda, as being a good steward of taxpayer money, a campaign promise of hers she observed. In prefacing her lone vote against the $17,950 purchase, Cockrell theorized the purchase as more of a departmental “want” than a “need”.

Vice-Mayor Cockrell, in Feb. meeting file photo, wondered if a $17,950 road messaging sign was a necessary expenditure for likely use just a few times a year. A council majority decided better safe than sorry.

However, it was noted by staff in the agenda summary that the Town has had to borrow a third board from neighboring localities on several occasions due to the other two being in use and unavailable at another needed location. Pre-vote discussion indicated that on some occasions surrounding localities have not had an extra Message Board available for loan when the Town has needed one.

Citing the potential safety of Town Public Works Department employees who could be forced into road repair work without the notice to approaching motorists there was road work ahead, a 5-1 majority approved that $17,950 expenditure as a needed investment in adequate year-round public messaging. As to the price, it was noted that the Message Board was listed as “a sole source” purchase because the producer, “Traffic Safety Supplies” was “the only known vendor that can meet the necessary requirements for message boards on roadways”.

And then there was Ukraine

The meeting took an unexpected turn during Public Comments on non-agenda items. Former councilman and county supervisor Tom Sayre rose to address several issues, concluding acknowledgment of Governor Glenn Younkin’s recent visit to a Ukrainian Catholic Church in Warren County he said he had attended. See related story: “Youngkin family prays for the Ukrainian people at Ss Joachim and Anna Ukrainian Catholic Church in Front Royal”. Sayre’s remarks in favor of additional American aid to Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion of that independent, democratically based eastern European nation, led to an additional reference to Ukraine’s struggle against totalitarianism from a far larger neighboring military power from Mayor Chris Holloway during his Report of the Mayor. “If you’ve been listening to the reports on the news … It makes you realize how lucky we are,” Holloway observed, adding, “Hopefully Putin will end his reign of terror before long … So, keep them in your prayers,” the mayor said of the Ukrainian people.

ALERT THE MEDIA!!! – two Warren County Republicans have publicly joined the philosophical split with the Donald Trump wing of the Republican Party on the Ukraine invasion and Vladimir Putin’s supposed “genius” in creating disinformation to justify it. Who’d have thunk it.

In this Feb. file photo, Tom Sayre, white shirt at desk at far left-center of photo, and Mayor Holloway, blue shirt far head of table, found common ground in a concern for the Ukrainian people and nation at the Feb. 28 Front Royal Town Council meeting. Below, FRPD Chief Kahle Magalis pins Officer Tim Elliott with a new Patrol Division badge.

Near the meeting’s outset, Town Police Chief Kahle Magalis welcomed Officer Tim Elliott to the patrol division. See Elliott receive his new badge and the above discussions and other business in the Town video.