Equal Regulation for All Housing Providers - Protect Homeowner Rights and Address Conflict of Interest

July 9th 2024: I have applied and paid for Short Term Rental Permits for all of the homes we host for less than 30 days. To my knowledge, no one other than myself has had an issue with the limitation of their rights as a property owner and the infringement on what they can use their property for being limited by our Greensboro City Council who I suspect most have registered agents guarding their real estate rental Llcs from being found. When I filed a request through the city of Greensboro's freedom of information act I was given information that showed each of our council members only receives income from their city council job.

This is the letter I sent to all of my city council members and mayor concerning the upcoming meeting on May 2nd that aims to limit my abilities to rent homes I own in a non-historic, non-HOA-regulated neighborhood in Greensboro NC.

Dear Mayor Vaughan and City Council Members,

I hope this email finds you well. I am writing as a concerned homeowner in the Idlewood neighborhood to express my disagreement with the proposed regulations for short-term rentals in Greensboro. I believe that these regulations unfairly target short-term rental providers and limit my rights as a homeowner in a neighborhood without an HOA.

My family and I specifically chose to purchase our home in this neighborhood to avoid the restrictive nature of an HOA-governed community. We have invested time, effort, and resources into improving our property, transforming it from the blighted condition left by the previous traditional length of stay landlord. Our efforts have not only enhanced the appearance of our home but have also contributed positively to the overall appearance and safety of the neighborhood.

The proposed regulations for short-term rentals appear to impose more stringent rules on property owners like myself, compared to those governing traditional rental properties. I believe that if the City of Greensboro is genuinely committed to addressing issues related to blighted homes and disrespectful neighbors, all housing providers should be held to the same regulations, regardless of the rental length.

Creating a separate and more restrictive set of rules for short-term rentals undermines the principle of equal treatment for all homeowners and housing providers. Every resident in our city, irrespective of their rental duration, deserves a minimum standard of housing that is enforced equally across all types of rentals.

I kindly request that the City Council reconsider the proposed regulations and ensure that all housing providers are subject to the same rules, promoting fairness and protecting the rights of homeowners in neighborhoods without an HOA.

Furthermore, I would like to bring to your attention a potential conflict of interest in the deliberation of these proposed regulations. It has come to my knowledge that some City Council members are housing providers themselves. To ensure fairness and transparency in the decision-making process, I kindly request that any Council member with a vested interest in rental real estate recuse themselves from the deliberations and voting on this issue.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I trust that you will take my concerns into account when deliberating on the proposed regulations. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or require further information.

Sincerely,

Joy Watson and Eric Hunsucker

928-699-8883 336-254-3113

knittedpiecrust@gmail.com

erichunsucker@gmail.com

Update: Eric and I were traveling on Tuesday and my Mom, Dottie said she’d read my letter into the record via Zoom. Thankfully we got all of our virtual links and registrations processed and Mom got logged in with time to spare while she waited for the other items of business to be heard. Once we landed, my Mom told me, "They just came back in session. They just voted to postpone the STR item until May 23rd. It will be a stand-alone item that night and speakers will be limited to 2 minutes."

Additionally, I shared the letter I wrote to the city council members and mayor with News2, Fox8, and RhinoTimes and attempted to boost the post on Facebook. My Facebook post was rejected. They have added a certification process that I can get approved to post some content that Facebook wants to limit IF I am approved. I will have to share my thoughts on Facebook in a different post but, I am currently not planning to be Facebook approved. I have not heard anything from any other local media source.

City Counsel met. We were in attendance and provided a short history of boarding houses and similar housing that has been available for centuries. We also asked our elected public servants to recuse themselves if they receive any portion of their income or their family’s income from residential real estate, including hotels or traditional rentals. One counsel member replied that they are not limited by conflict of interest due to positive voting laws but after doing some research, I have found no such information that allows even city council members to vote on issues that they have any financial interests in. I have no idea what the city council member who responded was referencing but there is no such ethics loophole.

There were not as many people in attendance at this meeting as the past meetings. There were lots of open seats and we were not limited to two minutes as previously told but had three minutes to speak. Many people spoke for and against the regulations, each shared their reasons. Some people had issues with living in an older neighborhood with limited on street parking or were fearful about who might be living in the Airbnb next door. Some people use the income to support the needs of a neurodivergent child, or supplement their dwindling retirement income.

Whatever the reasons, people shared their concerns publicly and city council responsed to a few of the comments. At the end, city council voted and passed the regulations with the promise to meet again in a year after the regulations go into effect. These regulations are scheduled begin in January of 2024. I am expecting to get a call from the city planners office about our variance requests being added to the agenda for one of the June meetings.

Before and after the meeting I was contacted by local media and asked for my opinion about the regulations on Short Term Rentals. Last fall, I told them I was not really for or against the regulations. We had our Wendover Ave homes rezoned to multi-family and have variance requests submitted for them to allow us to continue to do what we have been doing since we finished rehabbing these homes. It is my understanding that the new regulations will not apply to me because I have been grandfathered in? Also, a lot of our guests are people moving here or working here with need for temporary housing. We do host short stays too and those guests are just as diverse as the 30 day or longer guests. Still, we needed to request variance to allow us to offer the same variety of length of stay. This is what the people in planning and zoning have recommended we do and since they seem to understand the government terminology on the applications better than I do as a Suma Cume Laude Greensboro College graduate, I listen and have trusted that what they are telling me is correct. This is the route we will choose until something happens to make me choose otherwise.

We filed for a variance for each of the Wendover addresses last year. Soon after that, we filed applications for variances for each of the Wendover addresses. We then had a survey of the Wendover houses and send out letters letting everyone who lives within 750 feet, notifying them of what we are doing and why we are requesting rezoning and variances. Everyone who called us was grateful that we have removed the blighted homes from the main road of our neighborhood. No one opposed our rezoning application and our Wendover Ave homes are now rezoned to multi-family.

The variances will be at another meeting. I will enter a blog post about tiny homes before I go into further detail about the variance requests.

This is the Urban Birdhouse tiny home behind 905 W Wendover Ave. main house.

This is the inside of the Urban Birdhouse tiny home behind 905 W Wendover

There is currently no zoning category in Greensboro that equates with the Tiny Home style of construction. This tiny home has wheels underneath and can be moved via a trailer hitch with a truck that has a large towing capacity. We had this tiny home sitting behind 907 W Wendover until after we purchased 905 W Wendover. 905 W Wendover had a water and sewer line run behind it. I had wanted the plumber to upgrade that line to resemble what someone would find at a campground for RVs to connect to but they did a hard line connection that makes it a more permanent connection. I won’t share the name or link to the plumber, but I will say we no longer contract with them.

This tiny home was built by Tiny House Greensboro whose mission is “To reduce homelessness by engaging in public and private partnerships to create a tiny home community.” We purchased this tiny home that was built by veterans learning trades in construction. We had previously done a stick-built storage shed conversion into a tiny home at another property in Guilford County and had decided that even though this one needed a lot of work when we first bought it, it was a better deal than starting from scratch.

There was an issue with front door that was allowing water to get in under the threshold and had rotted the subfloor under the LVP that was installed on the main floor of this tiny house. The previous owner had likely tried to correct this issue by installing a small roof over the door to divert the water away. This likely reduced the amount of water coming in but did not completely remedy the issue as a significant amount of rot had already occurred and there was still enough water coming in that the rot continued.

The old lvp, subfloor, and joists were removed and replaced and a new waterproof system was installed. Our carpenter explained the flaw in the design that had to do with the construction of the small front porch being all one piece with the whole floor of the tiny house. I listened to him explain this flaw a few times but did not completely understand it well enough to explain it to anyone else. It was one of many times where it pays to have competent, and trustworthy contractors at work. So much trust is being placed in the character and work ethic of vendors doing work Eric and I do not have the skill set or time to learn. Clen has done carpentry work for us at every home after Idlewood House at 907 W Wendover Ave and his knowledge and skills have been a priceless resource.

This Urban Birdhouse tiny home can be seen from Wendover and was likely the original attention grabber that captured the eye of someone who reported it to the city. We will never know for sure, but 905 was the original address where we received notice from the city about a zoning violation related to short-term rentals in 2022.

We purchased all of these Wendover properties starting with 907 W Wendover in 2020. Then 909 W Wendover in 2021 and the Urban Birdhouse tiny home behind 905 in early 2022. Hunsucker's Place at 905 and The Library of Ivy and Ellie at 903 were purchased together in late 2022.

1007 Grayland was purchased in 2023 when a neighbor knocked on the door and asked if we, or someone we know might be able to help another neighbor who had a home that was about to go into foreclosure. This home was not in conventional loan condition, being that the number of necessary repairs needed would not make it through a loan process with a traditional lender. We also had a short window of time before the current loan would be foreclosed on so we needed to close in two weeks or less. This type of loan is known as a DSCR Loan. This was the option we had since we did not (and still don’t) have any stacks, thin or phat, of cash sitting around. We used a lender Bret Barrow to hold our hand throughout of very first DSCR loan process. My friend and fellow former GCS and Andrews High School Teacher Ana Falcon of Flipped by Her had used Bret for a transaction we closed a few months prior.

Ana and I met while we were teachers at The Drews and have both left teaching to pursue careers that allowed us a way to grow our passion for supporting children and families. Ana will be featured on The Kick-Ass Ladies I Know and Love page with links to woman-owned businesses that I admire, respect, and swoon over.

I have contacted the City of Greensboro to ask about my variance requests. As of today, they have not made it back onto the agenda for any upcoming city council meeting.

April 1, 2024, was the second proposed start date for the new Short-Term Rental Regulation in Greensboro. News 2 did a short interview with me that day and once again omitted my point that all rentals should be regulated equally. This reoccurring frustration stems from a conflict of interest among our voting city council members who own traditional length-of-stay rental properties. While I can not determine ownership Again, when I attempted to post this news clip with my opinion on my Facebook business page, my ad was declined.

Joy Watson interviewed by Itinese McMillian on News 2 about Short term rental regulations.