St. Joseph City Commissioners have tackled an issue they’ve been talking about for years, as this week they moved forward with allowing short-term residential rentals in downtown St. Joseph.
Commissioners held a first reading on a zoning ordinance amendment that would allow second floor apartments in the downtown commercial district to be used for vacation rentals of 30 days or less.
After hearing from several downtown business owners in favor, the question was really about whether the ordinance should require the owners of those properties to ensure there are parking spaces for each unit. City Manager John Hodgson explained commissioners opted to apply the same parking rules to STRs that apply to long-term dwellings. That is, for the most part, they don’t have any parking requirements.
“The rules for the long-term dwellings are essentially that if new dwelling units are created outside of existing structures, they need to provide parking spaces,” Hodgson said. “If they’re created within existing structures, they don’t, and if they existed before the ordinance was amended, they don’t.”
Hodgson said the downtown business community is pretty united on wanting to allow the STRs, believing that will solve the issue of downtown apartments being vacant.
The commission’s decision to not require parking spaces went against the planning commission’s recommendation. Mayor Brook Thomas told us she thinks commissioners came to a good solution.
“I think it’s a decision based on citizen input and resident input, and I think they we’re heading into the right direction to make the downtown area vibrant and ready for business all year long,” Thomas said.
Right now, there are about 55 dwelling units that could be used as short-term rentals.
The ordinance amendment is expected to be finalized at the commission’s next meeting later in December, and Hodgson says applications for short-term rentals downtown could start to be taken in January.
