Moore: Resident offers suggestions for short rentals in Sun City
Posted
Here is my opinion and suggestions for the Sun City Home Owners Association about the “short term rentals” debate.
First, I believe SCHOA should learn more about “short term rental” topics and maybe discover how it really effects our community — and state of Arizona — because from what I’ve read the knowledge about it is limited and seems negative, where as I believe the opposite, which is having people visit our community and sharing our beautiful state with visitors is more of a positive thing for Sun City and all of Arizona.
I don’t think our visitors just want to “party” and cause problems. These visitors not only come to visit family but some are actually moving here, need a temporary place to stay or want to buy a home, are buying a home or working a temporary job here. In the winter they come for the sunshine and warmth, they shop in our shops, eat in our restaurants, attend our sport events, hike on our trails, visit our parks, theaters, museums and many other venues all over our state and spend their money here. Arizona wants and needs these visitors.
I suggest that you define what a “short term rental” is. What is the rental time period? Is it for a night, a week or three months? Then what is it exactly? Is it a standalone house, condo or is it a room inside someone’s house? Is it a guest house on someone’s property, is it a mother-in-law unit or an in-suite with a bathroom? There are so many different types of these things that one can list on Airbnb or VRBO, plus there are several more websites to list rentals like this, not just those two.
A unit could be listed on a site but not be available most of the time. Or a unit could be available and not even be listed on the Internet, just go by word of mouth or an advertisement in a northern state newspaper somewhere.
So I don’t envy you; you got your work cut out for you and really should do your homework on this issue.
I do ask that you please not be so judgmental and restrictive on in-home rentals — with the rooms or in-suites inside someone’s own home. In these instances the visitors are not called “renters,” rather they are called guests. And you should not put restrictions on “guests” that people invite into their homes.
Standalone rental houses that owners don’t live in are another thing. However, please do not restrict or infringe on people’s rights to use extra rooms in their own homes to help with the unrelenting increase in the cost to maintain and keep up a home these days.
Not everyone who lives here gets a cushy pension. Some of us can’t make ends meet living off small Social Security checks and I say that if someone wants to offer a room inside their own home to a visitor and have them as a guest, plus do all the hard work involved that comes with that endeavor, then SCHOA should allow it. It is a tremendous amount of work and expense to do that and the small amount of money that these people get helps them to maintain their home, keep up their yards and even get their outside windows cleaned, too. SCHOA should like that because it helps preserve the value of homes in the area.
My only suggestions for in-home guest rentals are to maybe restrict the number of “paid guests” for one household. You could ask that all cars belonging to paid guests be provided a driveway or carport parking area off of the street; no loud parties allowed and no children under 19.
That’s about it. Because under our own roofs we do have our rights, correct?
And I am sure, when the CC&R rules are in place, people of Sun City are very good at reporting broken CC&R rules so you will know in good time if anybody violates them so you can address it ASAP as you do so well. Thank you.
