Lorain council holds public hearing on short-term rental zoning changes; staff seeks administrative review and BCI checks

Lorain City Council held a public hearing to discuss proposed amendments to the city—s zoning code and short-term rental regulations, including moving short-term rental permitting from the Planning Commission to administrative review and requiring a Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) background check for hosts, property owners or local agents.

The planning commission met Jan. 2, 2025, and "recommended approval of this application to Lorain city council," the City Clerk read into the record. Council also referred the item to a committee for detailed discussion at a later date.

City housing officer Emily Atkinson told council the change would reduce delays applicants now face when a short-term rental conditional-use permit is scheduled for planning commission rather than being processed administratively. "We are just now coming up on our 1 year of, the ordinance passing to allow short term rentals," Atkinson said, and described how the current conditional-use workflow can force applicants to wait months for the next planning commission hearing. She said the proposal changes the code so a use listed as conditional (marked "C") would be marked as permitted ("P") and that the conditional-use requirements would be relocated into a general provision so staff can enforce them administratively.

Atkinson also described a proposed new step: "we are asking that the host of the short term rental obtain a BCI background check. So all those who are 1, the applicant, which would be the property owner, the short term rental host, or the local agent, which is a requirement. They have to have a local agent if they live outside of the county. The property manager, if it's applicable, they all have to obtain that background check and provide that with their application." She said the administration is consulting with Airbnb about options to help streamline collection of transient-tax information for the city treasurer—s office.

Atkinson said staff is still developing the threshold for disqualifying criminal records and expects denied applicants would be able to request a hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeals. "Most of the criminal records that we're looking for is like *** offenders or fraud, and criminal activity, but we're still looking into that threshold of who we're going to allow or not," she said.

Members of the public who spoke at the hearing raised enforcement and fairness concerns. A resident identified as Miss Duvall said background checks can be circumvented and urged clear, spelled-out grounds for denial to reduce litigation risk: "If it's not spelled out, then they're gonna come back at you and say...you're just not giving me this because you don't like me," she said.

Patrick Cohen, of 1015 Hellion Park Boulevard, told council that if hosts must submit background checks, landlords should also be subject to similar vetting. "If you're gonna do this with the Airbnbs and make them do background checks, then I think that every every landlord in the range should have the background check," Cohen said.

Former council member Dennis Florence recounted past neighborhood problems he linked to transient and congregate housing and said he supports background checks as a tool for knowing "who not to rent to": "I like the idea of the background check... People need to be held accountable," he said.

Landlord and resident Keith Gordon urged stronger city enforcement of chronic nuisance properties and suggested the city consider certification or penalties tied to property tax bills for unaddressed code violations.

Council members and staff repeatedly emphasized that many substantive questions about standards for denial, the appeals process and enforcement would be taken up in the committee meeting to which the item was referred. The City Clerk announced the planning commission application deadline and schedule cited by staff (an application deadline of Feb. 13 and a planning commission meeting on May 5, described by staff as the commission—s regular meeting on the first Wednesday at 9 a.m.), and Atkinson said some applicants have paid a $500 planning commission fee for what she characterized as a largely administrative review.

No formal council vote on the ordinance amendment occurred at the public hearing; the item was referred to committee for further consideration and public comment. The planning commission—s recommendation (Jan. 2, 2025) and the referral to committee were recorded on the hearing record.

Next steps: Committee chair Mr. Nutt will schedule a committee meeting to continue the item; staff indicated the committee meeting will provide additional detail on denial criteria, administrative procedures and enforcement options and that the public will be notified of the committee date.