The White County Board of Commissioners has been struggling with a flood of zoning applications from homeowners seeking to put their property up for short-term rental use. The process has become so burdensome that during Monday night’s commission meeting, Commissioner Edwin Nix proposed placing a moratorium on the process.
Nix told the board that letters have been mailed out to people who are not sanctioned for that type of business but continue to operate, and he felt something needs to be done.
“I don’t think we will ever get rid of them. I think we will have to deal with them, somehow or another. I think this board needs to put a 120-day moratorium on all short-term rentals until the planning commission gets an opportunity to clear the ones that are clogging the system up and we get an idea of how many we really have,” said Nix.
The moratorium will go into effect on October 2.
“Any application that has been filed up to October 2 will be honored and will be allowed to go through the zoning process,” said Commission Chairman Travis Turner.
Commissioner Terry Goodger seconded the motion and the board approved it unanimously.
The county has installed new computer software that is helping them determine just how many short-term rentals are operating in the county legally or illegally.
The commission board addressed four short-term rental issues during their meeting on Monday. That process took more than an hour because of special situations surrounding some of the requests. One such request was denied by the board following an outcry of opposition from residents in the Kellum Valley area north of Cleveland.
