{"id":16293,"date":"2024-06-19T05:26:51","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T09:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=16293"},"modified":"2024-06-19T05:26:51","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T09:26:51","slug":"seaside-park-debates-pros-cons-of-possible-airbnb-ordinance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2024\/06\/seaside-park-debates-pros-cons-of-possible-airbnb-ordinance\/","title":{"rendered":"Seaside Park Debates Pros, Cons of Possible ‘Airbnb Ordinance’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Seaside<\/a>

Seaside Park\u2019s repainted water tank, May 2024. (Photo: Shorebeat)<\/p><\/div>\n

Should Seaside Park, like many other Jersey Shore communities, adopt an ordinance placing restrictions on short-term rentals in town?<\/p>\n

Often referred to as an \u2018Airbnb ordinance\u2019 due to the proliferation of web-based home rental platforms in which guests can book overnight or very short stays at a private home, towns up and down the coastline have cracked down on short-term rentals, saying they are often used as party houses and end up generating noise complaints from loud parties and general troublemaking.<\/p>\n

Seaside Park has never adopted such an ordinance, but some property owners have asked officials to consider such a measure after noise complaints were called in during Memorial Day Weekend and the first few weekends of the summer season. Other residents, however, do not favor the restrictions, saying families utilize short stays as an affordable trip to the Shore, or come down for event such as weddings or family gatherings and would otherwise be forced to rent rooms at a motel at a steeper cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the people who\u2019ve raised the point at least wanted us to deliberate this,\u201d Mayor John Peterson said at the most recent borough council meeting. \u201cI\u2019ve heard arguments both ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police Chief James Boag said his department responds to noise complaints, generally from homes rented by young tenants whose partying sometimes gets out of hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had issues over Memorial Day Weekend,\u201d he said. \u201cNeighbors called, which allowed police entry onto the property. The owners apparently had cameras set up so they could watch their renters, and the first thing the kids did when they showed up was to pull the plugs on the cameras.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe owner probably should\u2019ve called us to check the house,\u201d he explained, \u201cbut they didn\u2019t, and the neighbors weren\u2019t happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The noise complaints may have resulted in summonses being issued, and the police department received a call from the borough\u2019s code enforcement office, which handles the administrative side of complaints regarding rental units. In Seaside Park, owners of rental properties must obtain a rental certificate of occupancy and undergo an annual inspection. But the borough does not regulate the time periods of rentals.<\/p>\n

Borough Attorney Steven Zabarsky, who represents several Shore communities in different capacities, said neighboring towns have enacted ordinances that range from very restrictive to very basic in terms of what is and is not allowed. He cited Point Pleasant Beach\u2019s ordinance and Brick Township\u2019s ordinance on short-term rentals as representations of the two sides of that range, suggesting Seaside Park could craft an ordinance to address its specific issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the barrier island towns have a short-term rental requirement of at least seven days because they don\u2019t want weekend renters to rent a house, have a huge party and leave,\u201d said Zabarsky. \u201cThen, they have all kinds of inspection requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Point Pleasant Beach, he said, year-round residents and seasonal homeowners voiced support for restrictions on short-term rentals, which often attract partiers who take the train to town and utilize the boardwalk and its many bars. Seaside Park, he said, would likely consider a less restrictive measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Point Beach, they have more of a problem than we do because of the boardwalk,\u201d he said. \u201cPoint Pleasant Beach even goes into advertising \u2013 you can\u2019t advertise for weekend rentals. The realtor or whoever does the advertising can be issued a summons, and they do it all the time. It happens frequently, and they\u2019re probably the most restrictive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Point Pleasant Beach requires the registration of the names of occupants and notices to be posted on doors in addition to time restrictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s Point Pleasant Beach, we\u2019re a different town and have different issues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Seaside Heights regulates short-term rentals based on the time of year \u2013 \u201cprom season\u201d includes the most restrictive measures \u2013 but Brick Township\u2019s ordinance is more basic in nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrick\u2019s is probably the least restrictive \u2013 they just said, \u2018off the barrier island, you can\u2019t rent for less than seven days,'\u201d Zabarsky explained. \u201cMaybe there\u2019s somewhere in between for Seaside Park.\u201d<\/p>\n

While residents agree that homes should not be rented out purely as \u201canimal houses,\u201d resident Shirley Kreszl, who spoke at the meeting, said services like Airbnb also bring quality renters to town.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some times when people just need to rent a couple of days,\u201d she told council members. \u201cIt could be a wedding, it could be a graduation, or a family reunion.\u201d<\/p>\n

She suggested the borough more strictly enforce its existing ordinance that subjects property owners to a revocation of their rental certificate of occupancy if there are three instances of troublesome tenants identified over the course of a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think making it seven days is fair, because then you\u2019re telling people they have to go to a motel,\u201d she said. \u201cWith inflation, a lot of people can\u2019t afford to rent a whole week down here \u2013 they want to rent a couple days, so I really think you need to look into that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peterson said the borough\u2019s land use committee will consider the issue as a whole and make a recommendation as to whether an ordinance is needed and how restrictive it should be.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome towns call them \u2018Airbnb regulations,\u2019 and some towns have different seasons, some towns have two-week minimums,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s something people have asked us to consider.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should Seaside Park, like many other Jersey Shore communities, adopt an ordinance placing restrictions on short-term rentals in town? Often referred to as an \u2018Airbnb ordinance\u2019 due to the proliferation of web-based home rental platforms in which guests can book overnight or very short stays at a private home, towns up and down the coastline […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[2080,1959,32,1114],"class_list":["post-16293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seaside-government","category-seaside-heights","tag-airbnb-ordinance","tag-featured","tag-seaside-park-nj-news","tag-short-term-rental-ordinance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/dji_fly_20240517_153528_302_1715974629501_photo_optimized-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-4eN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}