Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Planning & Development Services

TO:	Tom Markus, City Manager
FROM:	Scott McCullough, Director
CC:	Diane Stoddard, Asst. City Manager
Date:	March 11, 2019
RE:	Short Term Rental, 921 Holiday Drive

At the March 5, 2019 City Commission meeting, the commission considered a special use permit (SUP), SUP-18-00572, to establish a short term rental (STR) use at 921 Holiday Drive.  During the consideration, there was concern about the applicant’s renting out their property as a STR before approval of the special use permit.  I explained to the commission that staff had been advising applicants that enforcement was being stayed for those units in existence as long as efforts were being made to bring the unit into compliance. This is because the vast majority of applicants contacting us are existing STRs and it would be counterproductive to both pursue enforcement and expend resources on processing SUP applications when the first enforcement measure is normally to point violators toward a path of compliance.

The applicant advised during the proceedings that:

“From day one, we reached out to the city.  We wanted to do this right. We were told by the city, go ahead, you can rent your property.  There are others doing it, your fine, until you have your hearing then you’ll find out.”

In addition, it was learned during the proceedings that the applicant began operating the STR in December, 2018.  During the meeting, I did not take the opportunity to refute the framing of the applicant’s statement because I had already explained to the commission that staff had been advising applicants that enforcement was being stayed for those units in existence as long as efforts were being made to bring the unit into compliance.

In hindsight, however, I should have inquired during the meeting with the Planner, Mary Miller, as to her knowledge of the applicant’s timing of beginning the STR operations as it seemed to be a distinguishing factor in the matter – if we knew that the applicant was just beginning the STR use, contrary to other SUP applications we had received, then why did we not counsel the applicant to wait for the decision on the SUP?

I have since interviewed Brian Jimenez and Mary Miller, the staff that had discussions with the applicant during the SUP process.  Mr. Jimenez recalls having a general discussion about the process and the city’s position related to enforcement of this use and directing the owner to the Planning division to begin the SUP process.  He does not recall knowing or fully understanding that the use was just beginning.

Ms. Miller reported that she was not aware the operation began in December and, based on discussions with the applicant, assumed it was in operation prior to the ordinance being adopted.  In short, assumptions were made resulting in beliefs that this property was in operation prior to the effectiveness of the ordinance in November, 2018.

Thereby, I refute that we counseled this applicant in the way he stated and implied – that we gave approval to begin an operation prior to city commission approval.  We have no authority to grant tacit approval or to counsel applicants to not comply with the city’s codes.  Quite the contrary, we are speaking with potential applicants almost every day about the requirements of the new program urging them to submit applications to become legal. 

I do not refute that a discussion was held regarding this issue and assumptions may have been made by all parties, but I do not believe, after interviewing Brian and Mary, that staff counseled the applicant to start a new operation prior to the city commission considering their SUP application.

I have reminded staff of our responsibility to uphold the codes of the city when discussing such issues with applicants.

Of note, to date the city has licensed 49 STRs with another 48 in some type of pending status.  For non-owner occupied units requiring special use permit approval, 3 have been approved, 1 denied, and 21 are in process.