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Lunenburg planning commission to pursue transient-occupancy tax rule, event-venue and short-term rental ordinances
Summary
The commission said an ordinance is needed to require remittance of a transient occupancy tax and flagged growing interest in glamping and other short-term lodging; it instructed committees to review subdivision and venue rules and safety requirements for short-term rentals.
At its Feb. 3 meeting, the Lunenburg County Planning Commission identified several planning priorities for 2022, including crafting an ordinance for the transient occupancy tax and developing definitions and permit rules for event venues and short-term rentals.
Chairman James Tharpe told commissioners the county needs an ordinance so transient occupancy taxes currently collected by some companies are remitted to the county. He said revenue collected above 2% would be designated specifically for a tourism budget. Commissioner Pennington supported formalizing rules so the county "is not behind." Commissioner Trent noted he is serving on a committee to review possible updates to the Subdivision Ordinance.
Tharpe said the commission is seeing new lodging formats and should examine how to regulate them: "glamping, wilderness camping, RV hook-up, etc." He also outlined prior Event Venue Committee work and said event-venue regulations should include boundaries and parameters, permit or license requirements, site-plan reviews, and general conditions such as limits on the number of events per year, attendance numbers and food-service controls. He said prior practice tied conditional use permits to a person rather than the land and that the committee would recommend that parcel subdivision not be allowed as part of such approvals; he added that a wedding venue should not be classified as agritourism.
On short-term rentals, Tharpe said the commission will consider safety requirements such as fire extinguishers and an emergency-services contact number, and will review ordinances from other jurisdictions to inform recommendations.
The commission did not take formal action on these items at the meeting; staff and committees were directed to research and bring recommendations back to the commission for future consideration.
