The Lewis appeal was moved from the Jan. 11th P&Z Commission hearing to the upcoming Feb. 8th session (Thursday). We described the issues in the
Appeal and Interpretation of Use
section of a previous post.
Public Comment
If you want to comment, you can always submit written testimony to Planning@gallatin.mt.gov – details and some advice under the Submitting Testimony heading here.
You can also comment at the hearing, in person or via Zoom.
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Thank you Tom for the comprehensive background of the Lewis Appeal.
This is an addendum to your Summary.
POINT OF CONTENTION – The Feb 8 meeting (Lewis Appeal) is NOT about whether STRs are good or bad or how they should be regulated. That is a debate for another day.
__The question to be decided by commissioners, is whether the county is correct to ban short-term-rentals with an administrative technicality bypassing the due process normally granted such a monumental change in property rights. Tom’s summary explains the justification that amounts to “regulation by omission” upending the status quo and negating an inherent property right for everyone in Bridger Canyon whether they ever intend to short-term-rent or not. It appears the county quietly altered their website in July 2023 to reflect this change in the zoning interpretation without notification to the public.
UNWARRANTED INJUSTICE – This stunning lack of respect for the history of inherent property rights and the hardships this decision will bring about has kept me up at night. We are not wealthy or renting for “profit.” We are just striving to pay the mortgage and taxes to keep our cherished home. Without cause, the county has instantly made well established, fully compliant short-term-rentals like ours, suddenly illegal.
No grandfather clause. No path to compliance.
BASIC PREMISE – Whatever you think of the merits or menace of short-term-rentals in general or the Lewis situation specifically, the decision of how STRs should be regulated in zoning must be initiated by our community, not dictated by the county alone upending the status quo without due process. This is the definition of Government Overreach.
POINT OF CLARITY – Except for prohibiting an accessory dwelling from being “rented separately,” Bridger Canyon zoning does not mention renting at all, long or short term, in the AE subdistrict which is most of the canyon except homes in Bridger Pines. Previous interpretation of the same zoning language was to give property owners the “benefit of the doubt,” especially for “similar uses,” because a visiting family (renting or not) uses a home in the same way as the owner’s family, for cooking, sleeping and sanitation.
BEST RESOLUTION FOR LEWIS SITUATION – The Lewis problem with their neighbors is their own to solve. They clearly violated a prohibited use in zoning text and already punished by the county revoking of their CUP. However, the compliance officer’s further penalty expanding the renting prohibition to include a primary residence not only obliterates a historic inherent property right, it sets a precedent with enormous collateral damage.
__If the residents of Tepee Ridge do not want short-term-rentals in their immediate vicinity, they should use their own HOA bylaws to enforce that intent. Or they should apply for a zoning text amendment (like Bridger Pines) to create their own zoning sub-district with whatever land use restrictions they see fit. In other words if Tepee Ridge Community wants further retribution for Lewis, the compliance officer and zoning commissioners should advise Tepee Ridge residents to initiate zoning changes themselves and leave the rest of Bridger Canyon alone.
RELEVANT HISTORY – Short-term-renting is NOT a new land use or historically controversial in the Bridger Canyon community. I know from experience because we have been short term renting our home in full compliance and within zoning rules for 17 years. Beyond my word, a search of Web Archives shows the very first Bridger Bowl website in 1998, booking short-term-rentals 26 years ago (they called them guest houses) to attract tourist skiers. A screen shot from 2006 advertises numerous short-term-rentals, including 8 homes within BC Zoning. In fact, several neighbors before we bought our property, were already listed on the early version of VRBO, Bridger Bowl and the Montana Tourism Bureau websites. AirBnB did not yet exist.
__Historic precedent implies that zoning originators considered renting a primary residence (for any duration) an inherent property right trusting owners the discretion to rent as a “similar use” already granted as “permitted.” In other words, renting is so fundamental that regulation was not considered necessary by original writers to specifically mention in the zoning text.
INCONVENIENT TRUTH – Planning Department itself is responsible for missing short-term-rental regulation. A whole section of STR regulation, worked on for years by the Zoning Committee headed by the late Richard Lyons, was rejected from zoning updates in June 2021. According to Tom Fiddaman, it was the county planning department who decided the proposed STR regulations needed more work before implementation.
__Ironically, the Part 1 Administrative regulations with the clause used to justify “regulation by omission” was voted into BC zoning at the same June 2021 meeting that STR text was left out, setting up the current unfair and insidious government over reach we are now suffering.
BEST REMEDY – Mr. Lyons asked repeatedly at subsequent P&Z meetings in the last 2 years for a new zoning committee to be appointed by the county to finish the job of regulating STRs, but no committee has been appointed. Why?
BOTTOM LINE:
1- Historic evidence proves that short-term-renting a primary residence has always been part of the status quo and practiced in full compliance with understood meaning of zoning regulations
2- Since the county rejected amendments that would have included text specifically regulating STRs over 2 years ago, the county itself is at fault for the missing text and therefore engineered the current untenable situation.
CONCLUSION – I welcome STR regulations that are vetted by our community through the established zoning committee process. But until appropriate text is adopted, I ask other Bridger Canyon Property Owners to join me in protest against the regulatory determination that bans Short-Term-Rentals through an administrative technicality, as a breach of due process and fundamental fairness.
**At a minimum, Bridger Canyon Property owners in the AE subdistrict who have done nothing wrong and rely on tourist rental income, deserve to be grandfathered into current zoning regulations or offered a reasonable path to zoning compliance.**
IMPORTANT REQUEST IN PUBLIC COMMENTS – Please ask commissioners to honor the late Mr. Lyons persistent request that a new zoning committee be appointed to create appropriate STR regulation through the normal Zoning Committee process.
Your feedback is always welcome.
Wendy Dickson
314-805-1858 (talk and text)
I live in Bridger Canyon and bought my home specifically after reviewing the zoning regulations and our CCRs to verify that shirt and long term rentals were allowed. I am retired and on fixed income. I wanted the possibility of renting my home part time or full time should the costs of ownership become burdensome.
That time is fast approaching and I believe that I should be able to produce income from my property investment if the need dictate it. Especially since I checked all regulations and CCRs before making my purchase decision. Please do not change the zoning regulations as they pertains to short or long term rentals. We are all facing inflation burdens and increased property taxes and need this option to retain ownership of our properties. Thank you for listening. I am a senior
in our community. You may be forcing many of us to lose our homes if you make this change.
To be clear: BCPOA did not change anything, nor did we even propose to do so. In fact, BCPOA endorsed the inclusion of a short term rental provision in the zoning updates, and board members spent several years promoting adoption.
Hi Tom.
I know you said that the survey had some issues, but it would be helpful see what it says in the last few months and not just rely on results from 7 years ago. The old results were not scientific either and I imagine enough people participated for it to be somewhat representative.
How many people participated since you put it back up a couple months ago?
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