Below is a sample email, the sample subject of the email, and the email addresses to send the email to. Feel free to write your own email, make changes to this one, or just simply send the one below. Personal stories are already great to include. Whatever is easiest for you! We just need emails sent. The Planning Commission Subcommittee is meeting Tuesday November 17th. Attending this meeting is important to help keep short term rentals legal in Austin. RSVP to the meeting: https://www.facebook.com/events/705961402838492/ --------------------- To: --------------------- bc-Stephen.Oliver@austintexas.gov bc-Fayez.Kazi@austintexas.gov bc-Tom.Nuckols@austintexas.gov bc-James.Schissler@austintexas.gov bc-Patricia.Seeger@austintexas.gov bc-James.Shieh@austintexas.gov bc-Jean.Stevens@austintexas.gov bc-Jeffrey.Thompson@austintexas.gov bc-Jose.Vela@austintexas.gov bc-Trinity.White@austintexas.gov bc-Michael.Wilson@austintexas.gov bc-nuria.zaragoza@austintexas.gov --------------------- Subject: Please Oppose Short Term Rental Regulations That Punish Good Owners --------------------- Dear Planning Commissioner, Please oppose any new rules and regulations that punishes good short term rental owners. - Requiring random inspections of people's homes and their properties is an invasion of privacy and constitutional search and seizure protections. Short term rentals already have to provide a certificate of occupancy or get a third party inspection to get a license. Independent third party inspections to get a license allows owners to get the inspection and come up to code on issues found without inviting code enforcement into their homes, which can be intimidating. - Banning short term rentals from residential areas has nothing to do with enforcement and only harms good short term rentals owners. Short term rentals are and have always been a residential use in Austin (http://forum.atxfriends.org/t/strs-are-a-residential-use-not-commercial/199). - Allowing eyewitness accounts to be used as evidence in administrative hearings for violations encourages abuse by anti-STR activists against good STR owners. - Requiring a conditional use permit, board of adjustments approval, a waiver, or any other neighborhood approval will only allow anti-STR activists a way to deny good short term rental owners a license. Conditional use permits can take years and can cost thousands of dollars to obtain. Please oppose anything that allows good short term rental owners to be denied a license by a vocal minority in our neighborhoods. Getting a license should be fair, easy, and not encourage a process that pits neighbor against neighbor. - Requiring an arbitrary 1000 feet between short term rentals preemptively bans good short term rentals without any reason or cause. There is already a strict limit based on census tracts that is fair, makes sure there can not be many short term rentals in any one given area, and provides everyone an equal chance at a license. We should be focused on enforcement and not banning good owners. - Requiring a guest registry will do nothing to help with enforcement. It will simply make it difficult to maintain a license and violate the privacy of guests and owners. - Any new regulations that could result in the loss or suspension of an STR license should be directly related to the use of a short term rental. Adding additional ways for someone to lose their license only allows for abuse by anti-STR activists to get good owner's licenses suspended or revoked for other issues that have nothing to do with short term rentals. - Increasing license fees on short term rentals only makes maintaining a license harder for those that want to be licensed and follow the rules. License fees should be fair and not a way to punish those that have licenses and want to follow all of the rules. Fair regulation of short term rentals ensures greater compliance and greater receipt of local hotel taxes. Onerous regulations of short-term rentals can drive the industry underground, thus evading local regulations and local hotel taxes. Please focus on enforcement instead of unnecessary bans. Sincerely,