Ocean City voters turned back an effort to impose new restrictions on short-term rentals. Delmarva Public Media's Bryan Russo talked with Bethany Hooper, reporter for OC Today/Dispatch, about the outcome and what comes next. The full interview can be heard on Delmarva Today on our website delmarvapublicmedia.org.
Voters in Ocean City turned back an effort last week to place new restrictions on the resort's short-term rentals. This is Don Rush. It was a squeaker with approval missing the mark by 34 votes out of over 1600. cast. Turnout was just under 23%. The measure would've placed a limit on R1 single family development and mobile home residential districts. Bryan Russo talked with OC Today dispatch reporter Bethany Hooper about the campaign and the results.
“The ordinance talks about short-term rental length of stay restrictions essentially. So the ordinance implements a five night minimum stay for short-term rentals in the R1 residential and MH mobile home districts in the 2025 and 2026 rental season. And then it would increase to 31 night minimum in 2027. So essentially, this ordinance would implement a short-term rental ban in single family neighborhoods by 2027,” Hooper explained.
And the argument on the other side was that these Airbnbs or short-term rentals were coming into these residential areas and they were leaving behind a lot of trash. They were creating a lot of nuisance and noise. And then on the other side, the people who wanted this question, A to be overturned, debated that the government should not be telling them what to do with their properties. Properties, which in many cases are investment properties. But what's stopping the city from coming back and laying out a new ordinance?
“There's nothing stopping the council from coming back and adopting a new ordinance. So from the get go, the council, a majority of the council has stated that short-term rentals are a problem in these neighborhoods and we need to do something about them. So it remains to be seen whether they stand behind that and they will find some other way to regulate short-term rentals. Or after seeing the results of Tuesday's election, maybe they will decide, hey, we are going to follow the will of the people and we're not going to touch this again,” Hooper continued.
I did hear some arguments saying that if the referendum goes the way of "the people" and that question A dies or is voted down, that the city should take that message and try and address some of the main reasons why there is a referendum vote. Why there was a call for short-term rentals to be regulated, and that is the aforementioned noise complaints as well as the trash. How can the city try and mitigate some of those concerns, despite what was decided in this referendum vote?
“They're going to turn to enforcement. That's what the argument's been this whole time for those against the ordinance. The city needs to do a better job of enforcing the rules and regulations that it has on the books,” Hooper said.
Have you heard from anyone in the city that they have a plan?
“I have not. I will say that it is going to be a very difficult task to figure out what the next steps will be. If they don't find a way to limit these short-term rentals in some way, it'll be very difficult to find a solution that works for everyone and that works for the city without it being a major, major task on their part. Because I mean, at the end of the day, you think about a trash pickup. I mean, that's great if you have more trash pickups, but can the city fund that? Can the city afford that? You have to maybe have more staff. I mean, it's a lot of things that the city would have to go through to think about how they're going to address some of these issues without limiting the rentals,” Hooper finished.
OC Today dispatch reporter Bethany Hooper with Bryan Russo on the rejection by Ocean City voters of a measure that would've imposed new restrictions on short-term rentals. The full interview can be heard on our website at Delmarva Public Media. This is Don Rush.
