The city of Buchanan is adopting a short-term rental ordinance to help ensure residential properties throughout town aren’t bought up by those seeking to rent them out to vacationers.
Speaking at a meeting of the city commission this week, Mayor Mark Weedon said the plan being worked out by City Manager Tony McGhee and the Planning Commission will help prevent what’s happened in many lakeshore communities.
“Short-term rentals have overwhelmed those communities because they did not get ahead of the short-term rental ordinance,” Weedon said. “We chose to, by Tony’s guidance, to implement that sooner than later.”
Commission Dan Vigansky said he was initially opposed to having an ordinance restricting STRs as a matter of principle, but when he considered how the school district could be harmed by a loss of students due to fewer year-round residents, he accepted the idea as a necessary evil. Weedon agreed.
“We are a community-focused community. We care about our school systems first and foremost, and this is designed to protect those school systems and to allow our children to flourish and to grow young families whocan afford homes within these local communities.”
Weedon said some residents may be opposed to telling property owners what they can’t do with their property, but the commission has to act for the good of the community.
Before the ordinance can be formally adopted, a public hearing will need to be held. That’ll be in late August. The new ordinance restricts the number of STRs allowed in town and where they can be located.
The commission earlier this year placed a moratorium on STRs while the issue was studied.
