East Providence Council plans to revisit short term rental ordinance

Will hold workshop reviewing how revised law has worked in practice

By Mike Rego
Posted 4/22/21

EAST PROVIDENCE — The matter of short term rentals in the city was once again discussed by the council at its April 20 meeting, members agreeing they need to more formally revisit the topic as …

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East Providence Council plans to revisit short term rental ordinance

Will hold workshop reviewing how revised law has worked in practice

Posted

EAST PROVIDENCE — The matter of short term rentals in the city was once again discussed by the council at its April 20 meeting, members agreeing they need to more formally revisit the topic as it increasingly becomes an option used by homeowners here.

Ward 4 Councilor Ricardo Mourato, in conjunction with his Ward 3 colleague Nate Cahoon, placed the item on last week’s agenda, calling for a workshop to be held to potentially begin a review process of the existing ordinance, which was last encoded in mid-2020.

A date for the workshop, Thursday, May 6, 2021 at 7 p.m., was settled upon. Participants will be available to attend the meeting in-person in the council chamber at City Hall or virtually.

Councilor Mourato said during the ensuing period he and Mr. Cahoon had “communication with numerous residents since the last adoption of the ordinance.”

Key to the amended law as it reads is the requirement that the properties being rented be owner-occupied: “Short-term rentals of single-family, two-family, three-family, semi-detached or multi-family homes may be used as short-term rentals if they are owner-occupied.” Also, the proprietors must apply for a temporary use permit.

Among the reasons given for amending the existing ordinance at the time was some properties had become a nuisance to neighbors with different, and often rambunctious, renters utilizing the spaces for purposes other than a place to stay.

Mr. Mourato continued, he has received “concerns and phone calls on the flip side of this conversation, like ‘I’ve been operating an Air B&B, I don’t live in it and yet I don’t have any complaints…We feel the topic is important enough that we really need bring everyone together and come up with middle ground solution.”

Those owners who recently spoke out against the changes said their ability has been infringed upon, that they were missing out on the opportunity to offer their properties to such clients as parents making weekend visits to their children at nearby colleges, temporary workers coming to area for limited periods and to some prospective buyers who utilize the short term experience to determine if they would like to purchase a home in the city.

Mr. Cahoon said he wondered if the amended law may be creating problems that did not previously exist, asking if there are now “elements of the ordinance that are unnecessarily restrictive and potentially counterproductive.”

“It’s only the reasonable thing to do for us to take input before we put something on paper and create an ordinance that folks really can’t live with,” Mr. Cahoon said.

He continued, “It sounds like there are a lot of people in the city who know a lot about short term rentals and Air B&Bs and things like that, and I would say the expertise we need to make this decision is not resident on the council,” adding holding the workshop “is the right thing to do.”

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