Opinion: Letter to the Editor: Focus on Short-Term Rentals in Mount Vernon

The Mount Vernon District is blessed with numerous great neighborhoods with beautiful homes and relatively low crime rate as compared to other areas. In any community, one important component of relative safety is that residents become familiar with who is living in their community as well as concerning the cars they are driving and their general habits.

In recent years, homeowners have begun renting out their homes on a short-term basis to earn additional revenue during somewhat difficult economic times. As more and more people engage in short-term rental of their homes, an important component of the safety of their communities is necessarily disrupted. New faces come and go. Unknown vehicles arrive and depart. It becomes difficult for long-term homeowners to be able to differentiate between who is actually living in their community and who is coming and going on a short-term basis. This scenario unfortunately permits the criminal element to infiltrate communities undetected.

The Virginia Legislature addressed this issue this year by passing Senate Bill No. 1578 which was signed into law as a new statute section: 15.2-983 which authorizes localities to create a registry for short-term rental of property. This new law authorizes Fairfax County to establish a short-term rental registry and require people engaging in short-term rentals to register annually. The new law requires registrants to comply with all local laws, ordinances and regulations "including those related to land use, zoning, noise, health and safety, the quiet enjoyment of property, parking, litter, yard signs, the collection and remittance of applicable taxes, alcoholic beverage control" and other issues. The new law also authorizes localities to charge fees for registering and to regulate violations.

This week, I received an email from the county inviting me to participate in an on-line survey concerning this issue to help the county craft an appropriate local ordinance. The survey may be accessed at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/short-term-rentals. I strongly encourage all community members to respond to this survey and, particularly, to provide written comments in the box provided at the end of the survey. Property owners should encourage the county to craft an ordinance which strictly regulates this activity, imposes large fines for violations, limits the number of properties that can be rented on a short-term basis in each subdivision, first come, first served, and makes all best efforts to preserve our property values. One idea might be to require property owners engaging in short-term rental of their properties to display a small but visible county-prepared sign on their home indicating short-term rentals are taking place and require their renters to place a prominent sticker on their vehicles so community members are able to identify the renters and differentiate them from criminals casing the neighborhood. I am sure other great ideas will be suggested. It is essential that community members engage their planning commissioners and supervisors on this issue.

H. Jay Spiegel

Mount Vernon