Medina Planning Board working on ordinance for short-term rentals

Photos by Tom Rivers: Village of Medina Planning Board Chairman John Dieter, center, looks over a draft of an ordinance for regulating short-term rentals in the village. Planning Board members Chris Goyette, left, and Kathy Blackburn also review the document. Other members at the meeting included Dick Moss, Mary Lewis and David Flynn.

MEDINA – The Village of Medina is working on an ordinance for regulating short-term rentals – the Airbnbs, Vrbos and others locations where people stay up to 30 days.

The Planning Board has been tasked with coming up with a draft ordinance that will go to the Village Board.

“We want to get ahead of this,” code enforcement officer Dan Gardner said about the short-term rentals. “But I know it’s already happening. Currently we have nothing to regulate short-term rentals.”

The STR operators will likely need a special use permit and could be subject to inspections, perhaps every year to three years.

The village currently charges $150 for a special use permit which includes $100 to the village and $50 for the public hearing. That is a one-time fee.

Some communities charge an annual licensing fee. In Kendall, it’s $250. Medina isn’t considering an annual fee to have a short-term rental so far in the discussions by the Planning Board.

One issue is whether Medina will require the operators to have insurance. Kendall requires a $1 million liability insurance for STR owners.

John Dieter, Planning Board chairman, said the board still has a lot of research and homework to do in the draft ordinance for STRs.

John Dieter, the Planning Board chairman, said the board is in discussion stage with the draft ordinance.

A big talking point during the board meeting on Tuesday was whether the STRs should be allowed in the downtown business district. There already is at least one.

Gardner, the code enforcement officer, doesn’t think STRs should be in the downtown, where there are already options for hotel rooms. He said “flooding” the downtown with STRs would hurt the hotel operators.

But board member Mary Lewis said STRs are “a great use” of the upper levels in the central business district. Board member Kathy Blackburn favors allowing them in the downtown with regulations.

The STRs could provide a much-needed source of revenue for the building owners, Blackburn said.

“There might be some cases where we’d want some Airbnbs in the general business district,” Dieter said.

The board will continue to discuss the issue, and could decide to limit the short-term rentals to certain zoning districts.

In some communities there are STRs in garages and secondary buildings on a lot. But in Medina, only one habitable building is allowed on a lot so having STRs in a garage wouldn’t be an option.

Planning Board members and the code enforcement officer said they don’t know how many short-term rentals are currently in the village. Medina started collected a “bed tax” last June and that would provide a list of many of the STRs. In addition to the 8 percent sales tax, there is a 4 percent occupancy tax that goes to Orleans County and the new 2 percent tax to Medina.

Gardner wants all STRs to be registered in the village. Airbnb lists about 20 sites in Medina, and that includes a boat in the canal basin and a tent for “glamping.”

Dieter said the Planning Board will work to finalize recommendations on the STR ordinance that will then be referred to the Village Board, which would need to have a public hearing before it’s adopted.