We are writing to express our deep concern for the excessive short-term rental regulations being proposed by the City Council in Peachtree City.
As residents and homeowners who believe in fostering an environment of economic growth, individual freedom, and protection for the rights of property owners, we find it disturbing that City Council Members Phil Prebor, Mike King, Frank Destadio and Clint Holland are attempting to impose overregulation on this valuable industry.
Phil Prebor’s comments toward prohibiting short term rentals altogether and Clint Holland’s comments intended to punish property owners were particularly egregious.
The proposed short term rental regulations discussed in the May 2 workshop signal the encroachment of an excessively large government and serve to target a specific type of small business with undue fees and outlandish operating requirements.
Short-term rentals, such as those available through platforms like Airbnb and VRBO, have become an integral part of Peachtree City, allowing visitors and potential future residents the opportunity to experience the unique charm of our beautiful city.
These rentals not only provide alternative accommodation options for guests, but also offer homeowners an opportunity to earn additional income. Income that is welcomed by many citizens who are already feeling the sting of the 17% tax increase City Council passed last year.
Perhaps Mr. Prebor, Mr. Holland, and other privileged members of the council are above feeling the effects of such egregious tax hikes, but there are some local families who now count on income earned from their short-term rentals to continue living in our increasingly costly city.
In addition to the income benefits these rentals provide owners, one of the most notable benefits of short-term rentals is the economic boost they provide to our local businesses.
Visitors staying in short-term rentals frequent nearby restaurants, shops, and entertainment establishments, injecting much-needed revenue into our local economy.
As operators we create value for the city by paying hotel taxes on the stays we host, and providing jobs for local handymen, cleaning services, golf-cart rental businesses and lawn care companies. This increased spending creates jobs and supports fellow small businesses, contributing to the overall prosperity of our community.
We are disheartened by the council members’ attempts to over-regulate short-term rentals. It is crucial to strike a balance between protecting the interests of our residents and allowing the free market to thrive. Excessive regulations will stifle entrepreneurship and limit the opportunities available to both property owners and visitors.
Rather than burdening homeowners with cumbersome regulations, undue operating costs, and unnecessary inspections and notifications, we should focus on implementing common-sense policies that protect the rights of property owners and ensure the safety and well-being of our residents and guests.
Collaborative efforts between the City Council, homeowners, and short-term rental platforms can lead to responsible guidelines that address concerns without stifling economic growth.
Rather than crafting proposed requirements and restrictions for short-term rentals behind closed doors without citizen input, we urge the council to further educate themselves about how short-term rental businesses truly operate, and to include residents and experienced rental operators in collaborative discussions to define appropriate operating requirements.
Peachtree City has always been a place where the spirit of individual freedom and entrepreneurialism thrives. While we understand that several of Mr. Prebor and Mr. Holland’s acquaintances are vehemently opposed to any type of rental in Peachtree City, we would hope that personal relationships and the desires of a privileged few would not be allowed to stifle the rights of the masses.
It is now clear that the “Smokerise Party House” incident frequently referenced by certain members of the council was in fact NOT a short-term rental. Sadly, this incident is being leveraged as a scare tactic to further the desires of a select few, and to punish reputable Peachtree City citizens and owners operating legitimate short-term rentals.
We should celebrate the diversity of rental options available to residents and visitors alike, rather than impose unnecessary restrictions that hinder progress and burden city resources. It is crucial that our City Council embraces the positive contributions of short-term rentals and works to support their responsible integration into our community.
Let us not allow the ideals that have made Peachtree City great to be overshadowed by excessive regulation and costly big government. We must remember that a flourishing community is built on trust, collaboration, and the freedom to engage in the fair market. We urge city council members to reconsider their stance and work towards fostering an environment where short-term rentals can continue to thrive for the benefit of all.
Chris Anderson, Casey Devaux, Sean Freeman, Emily McDaniel
Peachtree City, Ga.
When you buy a single family home in Peachtree City you invest a lot of money to live in a nice home, in a beautiful city. You might expect there would be a long term renter or two in your neighborhood.
You do not expect the house next door to become a motel.
Nor should you.
Hotels and motels operate in properties zoned “commercial” for many good reasons.
I promise I won’t build a factory or warehouse next to your home, if you promise you won’t build or operate a motel next to mine.
In tourist “hotspots” you expect STR houses and condos.
Peachtree City is not a vacation mecca.
Let’s not ruin Peachtree City by forcing young families to compete to buy houses by encouraging investment groups to buy houses for the sole purpose of renting them as short term rentals.
Permitting Short Term Rentals will eventually keep young families stuck in apartments or buying houses outside Peachtree City because the investors will price them out of the market.
I say it again…Ask cops and EMT’s how many more rental houses they want…let me just say I own a home in a residential neighborhood where I know my neighbors and their children.
If I wanted to have short term rentals around me, I would have bought a time share.
Rentals never improve residential property values or the overall experience of the homeowners living there…33 years ago I left a very fine home in Riverdale GA precisely because of slack housing codes and residential rentals and the transient troubled nature of the renters.
We just had a 2-year nightmare near us because an LLC had a rental house…constant loud thudding base music, cops constantly visiting because of domestic problems, eventually evicted and property trashed.
Short Term Rentals operating in neighborhoods are the “New Hotel/ Motel” At minimum these Short Term Rentals should be held to the same standards, rules and regulations a PTC Hotei/Motel Business would be required to meet .
I am against intrusions on personal freedom by government bureaucrats. We get almost-daily reminders of our government’s heavy hand, from prohibiting a church from hosting a car show to outlawing gas ranges.
So I was thinking I would also be against PTC’s over-regulation of short term rentals after hearing what this group has to say. Nope. They lost me.
This letter gives no specifics of what is so horribly wrong with rules on short term house rentals, just generalities with a dash of victimhood that I would expect from a typical progressive rant.
It is long on describing potential benefits of short term rentals to PTC (yet these also are gained from stays in hotels and apartments) and the rights of homeowners to rent their place out. Fair enough.
But it misses the most important part: it says very little about their responsibilities and the protection of the rights of other homeowners surrounding a short term rental. Since you want to inject a potential nuisance into a stable neighborhood, it’s on you to assure us this isn’t going to go sideways.
Finally, some free advice from someone who has often had to influence others in business and government: you don’t set yourself up for success by taking personal swipes at members of council in an open letter. After all, these are the people you want to see the strength of your argument, not get lost in an emotional reaction.
DROP THE MIC! Best reply and common-sense argument I’ve read in a long time. You nailed my thoughts exactly.
I also noted the bold claim about this “valuable industry” – where’s the data to back that claim up. Valuable to who? And you’re correct – there’s no tangible difference between VRBO’s and an extended-stay hotel. Probably even less so, because hotel guests are paying more in taxes with every nights’ rent than a VRBO, I’d think.
Short-term rentals like this are great for tourist destinations……PTC is NOT a tourist destination. We are a quiet suburban community and want to stay that way.
I love the last comment – “so short term rentals can thrive for the benefit of all”. Can the LTE writer tell us one benefit the rest of us non-VRBO’ers are going to gain from having these properties in our communities, on our streets, or as neighbors?
VRBO’s and Air BNB’s offer ZERO benefit to the community. They benefit the homeowner, period. Ask the neighbors of the existing short-term rentals how they enjoy being being next to them. This LTE writer is focused on one thing – what benefits them. Zero respect for the impact on the neighbors and the community.
Congratulations on the hypocrisy Penny. You begin, “I am against intrusions on personal freedom by government bureaucrats. We get almost-daily reminders of our government’s heavy hand, from prohibiting a church from hosting a car show to outlawing gas ranges.” Then you spend 5 paragraphs explaining why you welcome intrusions upon these homeowners’ personal freedom by the government.
You might apply for an anchor on Fox News. All you need now is a confused look to use when facing the camera.
You can’t make this stuff up. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Fiction – Once again, your reading comprehension needs work, but at least you did get your usual trite swipe at Fox News in, for whatever reason you think that is relevant.
We clearly need less government, especially at the federal level, but nowhere did I state that that means no laws or regulations. That would be anarchy. Where regulations are necessary, they need to be narrowly tailored to address real problems.
What you and the writers of this letter also miss is that freedom and responsibility go hand-in-hand.
“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt
Someone’s freedom to use their property cannot come at the expense of their neighbors and the community. Short term rentals do negatively impact a neighborhood (see vics1966 below), so there need to be codes that protect PTC residential areas from having to deal with “mini-hotels”.
He obviously lives and dies on Fox News
Maybe She..you know what they say about assuming.
The bottom line is that most people are quite willing to infringe upon another’s freedoms if it suits their own ideal of what is best for society. Liberals will gladly take your guns and tax you to penury. Conservatives fall all over themselves seeing who will be most severe in controlling women’s reproduction or choosing whom you can love.
What Penny, Trey Hoffman, Steve Brown, etc. won’t recognize is that their certainties are no more clear to others as are liberal ideologues’ demands are obvious to the right wing. They listen to their echo chambers and repeat this orthodoxy as if it is self-evident truth much as a pastor preaches to the choir. The left will be happy to do the same thing.
We need compromise so that neither extreme dictates. The center position always feels safest to me.
That’s why I make fun of these Fox News arguments. They so convincingly fail to convince anyone but the true believers who are the only ones who don’t need convincing.
“They so convincingly fail to convince anyone but the true believers who are the only ones who don’t need convincing.” – kinda like someone’s repetitive rants on this public forum.
Fiction – You completely miss the rights of homeowners not to have their enjoyment and property values infringed upon, and the responsibility of any business not to violate them. Again, your reading comprehension is lacking.
A hotel doesn’t belong in a neighborhood of single family homes in PTC any more than other businesses. By your logic, I could start a quick oil change business from my home since any restrictions would infringe on MY freedoms. Neighbors and community be darned.
You may now go back to your safe zone.
Penny – These homeowners aren’t in the purview of my comments. Rather, I am referring to the overarching tendency to proclaim one idea as indisputably right and all others wrong. Keep up.
Oh Stranger…I had an old classmate who was in the film industry for years, his biggest need was rental for 60-120 days while filming. The schedules were intense, often 7 days a week, coming and going at all hours.
Rather than residential rentals he was hoping the film studios would invest in purpose-built short-term apartments or dedicated bungalows near the studios.
It’s an honest fact that PTC must be very careful about code and zoning at all levels for business and residential to preserve the community.
Why not reach out to code enforcement, police and EMT officers to get a boots on the ground view of what they can tell us about expanding rentals in PTC.
You, vics, made a good comment with “reach out to code enforcement, police and EMT officers to get a boots on the ground view of what they can tell us about expanding rentals in PTC.” I imagine our City Council receives pertinent input from our public safety and code enforcement people.
Thanks Doug Tucker…don’t want to infringe on individual and property rights…just preserve our city’s neighborhoods.
Ask cops and EMT’s how many more rental houses they want….
We have had a residential rental house near us, and it negatively affected two neighborhoods for 2 years with noise, police calls, trashed yard, etc….renters were evicted, and house was filthy and finally after two months rented to decent people who had to fight with the owner to clean it up for habitation.
Owned by a Chicago LLC….we don’t want or need more rentals….rules should be strict for code and city ordinances.
Rentals require more city services, police calls, EMT calls, etc.
Ah, the smokerise nightmare!
I’m not in favor of short term rentals at all. If they do get approved we need strict regulations with a maximum of 120 “rental” days a year. Subdivisions with HOA’s often have a set limit of no more than 10% of houses in a development may be “rentals”. Otherwise, hedge funds and real estate investment trusts will be buying every house that goes on the market to capitalize on the short term rental cash cow.
I am very much in agreement with all the regulation we can throw at short term rentals in Peachtree City. We have apartments that can handle the needs.