The Mountain Home City Council approved an ordinance to allow short-term rentals in the city limits of Mountain Home during their regular scheduled meeting Thursday night.
The updated ordinance took out many unnecessary regulations. The new ordinance reads as follows:
– Short term rental operators must show compliance with state, county, municipal and tax requirements and will obtain and maintain a business license through the city prior to operation. Business licenses will be published monthly;
– Each short term rental operator must provide the city with 24-hour contact information;
– Must use city business licenses number on third party sites, such as Airbnb, VRBO, etc;
– Any other state requirements for rental properties must be in compliance, including collection of appropriate taxes (state, county, municipal, and tourism);
– Parking for guests must be provided on site;
– Guests shall comply with local noise and pet ordinances, and will not create a disturbance for the adjacent land owners;
– Prior to issuance of the initial business license, the property owner shall submit to an inspection by city building inspector and fire department to insure compliance with all city codes; there after they shall have an annual fire inspection to include the following safety devices: fire extinguishers, smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector;
– Short term rental operators shall follow all state, county and city fire codes;
– The issued permit is not allowed to be transferred to another person or location;
– Short term rentals in platted subdivisions are not allowed to put advertising signs up on the property that indicate a short term rental. They may however put a sign attached on the entrance house that gives it a special name – example “Honeysuckle House.” Owners are allowed to advertise on third party sites like Airbnb, VRBO, Flipkey, etc. and other printed material;
– Upon compliance of the terms and conditions, business licenses will be issued to the owners by the city and will charge each home $50 per house per year for the business license. Annual license fees are due at the beginning of each calendar year.
The city council may revoke a rental business license at any time if there are substantiated written complaints from adjacent neighbors and they are not corrected in a timely manner. If three separate violations occur, the city could revoke the license permanently. During discussion, officials were confident not many issues would come before the council since most would be able to be handled before it got to that point. Any complaints would have to be proven to have violated the ordinance. All the ordinances with in the new short-term rental ordinance tie back to existing ordinances.
Officials also stated when it comes to licenses, each business location must have its own license, i.e. Redbox. Each Redbox in the city has its own individual business license to operate.
The council approved the updated ordinance unanimously.
Other items on the agenda included the approval to allow the newly hired code enforcement officer the authority to write citations since he is not an Arkansas certified police officer at the current time, but is in the process of completing the necessary training. In order for him to write citations until that is completed, the city council can grant approval to do so. The new officer has previous experience as a police officer in Las Vegas. His role would be similar to the Fire Marshal with the fire department. The ordinance was approved unanimously.
The council also approved an update to section 6 of the sign ordinance in regards to the removal of political signs. They passed the measure that would extend the time from 3 days to 5 days after the election which would give candidates through the weekend to retrieve the signs. It would also put the responsibility from the property owner to the candidate to make sure that all signs have been picked up in a timely manner.
Other approvals included recognizing JUNETEENTH as a city holiday to be in line with the state; adopting a resolution to approve the Arkansas Diamond Plan as a voluntary retirement savings options for employees; the removal of park program coordinator grade 12 position and created two new positions center program coordinator and recreation program coordinator to allow a better work flow for upcoming park program additions; approval of the disposal/auction of items in the police department that are no longer in use; and the approval of sale of a field drag to Viola School District.
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