Murrysville council continues fine-tuning short-term rental ordinance

There is only one short-term rental unit currently listed in Murrysville on the AirBnB website. But municipal officials want to ensure that if that number grows, they have some local controls in place.

Council continued working to hammer out the finer points of the ordinance at its Aug. 2 meeting, and opted to re-advertise it after solicitor Wes Long suggested a substantial change to the definition of a “short-term rental.”

Under the current draft ordinance, it is defined as “any dwelling unit utilized as a single-family home, which serves as the primary residence of the owner, rented for the purpose of overnight lodging for a period of 30 days or less.”

“So the question arose as to what would occur if somebody who owned their own home purchased another home in a housing plan, solely for the purpose of operating it as an AirBnB?” Long said. “We thought we should amend that provision, and thought it was a substantive enough change that it should be re-advertised.”

Councilwoman Jamie Lingg also took issue with some of the draft ordinance’s other provisions, particularly determining a short-term rental’s location through zoning, which she felt opened up a fairness issue. The ordinance would allow the rentals in business and mixed-use zoning, and on properties five acres or larger in areas zoned residential.

“The way this is written now, it prohibits nearly all residential property owners from operating a short-term rental,” Lingg said. “We do need to ensure that any regulation doesn’t negatively affect property values and that homes aren’t turned into party houses. But we also need to give permanent residents the option to occasionally utilize their property to generate extra income.”

Lingg suggested reworking the ordinance to remove zoning references and treat short-term rentals as a permitting issue.

“If they violate the (current rental) ordinance as it’s written — and there are lots of contingencies there — we revoke their permit and fine them.”

Council President Dayne Dice said he felt it was worth a continued discussion.

“I think the point is well taken that this should be a permitting thing,” he said. “Let’s put it on the next agenda as a discussion item. I don’t want to drag this out, but it keeps evolving.”

Council meets next at 7 p.m. Aug. 16 at the municipal building, 4100 Sardis Road in Murrysville. Meetings are also broadcast live on Comcast local access Channel 21, and streamed at Murrysville.com.