In the fall of 2012 we began renting out two rooms in our home in Chesterfield County, Virginia (a suburb of Richmond, Virginia) on a website called Airbnb.  Airbnb is a website for people to list, find, and rent lodging.  They handle the financial transactions for their guests and hosts electronically.  Airbnb has over 1,500,000 listings in 34,000 cities, and 190 countries.  It was founded in 2008 in San Francisco.  I was a little bit nervous about having strangers come stay with me at first, but after doing a little more research I realized that this would be safer than attempting to find a new roommate on other websites since Airbnb verifies all of the members that sign up for an account.  They even verify their members through criminal data bases.  

Most of guests just stay for one or two nights, but sometimes they may stay up to several weeks due to a work assignment (such as a traveling nurse), or if they are moving to the area and searching for a home to purchase.  Two of our guests have purchased homes in the area, two have rented houses, and one purchased a bicycle shop nearby that was going out of business.  We’ve met some really amazing and interesting people from all over the world.  Some of our guests have visited us from Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, and from all over the U.S.  Quite a few of our guests were small business owners, students, teachers, professors, authors, nurses, doctors, lawyers, retirees, and IT professionals.  How many of you have can say that you enjoyed a cup of coffee with a retired a couple from Australia or Belgium and learned about their culture before starting your day?  Many of our guests have become our friends and we stay in touch with them through social media.  Our lives have truly changed for the better since we started hosting guests through airbnb.   

We recently learned that we needed to apply for a conditional use permit with Chesterfield County in order to continue renting out two rooms in our home.  This is due to an old zoning law on the books that prevents people from renting out rooms in their homes in residential areas.  This caught us by surprise since we have rented out bedrooms to roommates in our home since 2003 when we lived in nearby Midlothian, VA (also in Chesterfield County).  Apparently one neighbor is upset with us for an unknown reason and reported us to the county.  I attempted to ask her about her concerns, but she wouldn’t give us a response other than saying “it’s illegal”. 

We completed the proper paperwork for a conditional use permit and paid our fee to Chesterfield County to start the process to make this legal even though we’ve already been doing it for 3.5 years with no issues or complaints.  We only have guests in our home when we’re there to supervise them.  We don’t want to put up any signs or advertising in our yard (this is also included in our application).  This permit would not allow us to rent out the entire home when we’re gone nor do we have any intentions to do this.  This permit also would not apply to other homes in Chesterfield or change any laws about opening up businesses in neighborhoods.  This permit allows us to continue our Airbnb and this will continue to have a zero negative impact to our quiet, peaceful neighborhood. 

We’re hoping that the board of supervisors will approve our conditional use permit in their meeting on September 20, 2016, so we can continue meeting these fascinating people from all of the world.  If the county doesn’t approve us, then we won’t be able to continue hosting through airbnb or any other similar website.  This would force our future guests to potentially skip over Chesterfield County and spend their money in Richmond City or other nearby counties.