After several community meetings and outreach efforts to address short-term rental units Woodland Park, the city’s planning staff presented recommendations to the Woodland Park City Council and Planning Commission in a joint work session July 21, held before the regular council meeting.

Community outreach included stakeholder interviews, questionnaires and roundtable discussions. Information obtained through these efforts was compiled and used to formulate recommendations for regulating short-term rentals, which are not specifically addressed in city codes.

Deputy City Manager Rob Felts said there are currently 188 short-term renals operating in the city, including 32 that received business licenses during the week between the approval of a moratorium on issuing such licenses at the last council meeting and the date the moratorium went into effect.

Planning Director Karen Schminke outlined recommendations, which included updating city codes, separating short-term rental business licenses from other kinds of business licenses for easier tracking, prohibiting subleasing, requiring off-street parking setting occupancy limits based on the number of bedrooms available, requiring a 24-hour contact person, creating good-neighbor guidelines, and collaborating with homeowners associations.

In addition, council members and commissioners wanted new definitions for owner operated short-term rentals and non-owner operated units, including corporate owners. Many were against setting a minimum stay period. They were in favor of determining an acceptable percentage of short-term rentals available compared to long-term rentals and other residential units.

Everyone favored better enforcement of existing nuisance regulations.

One of the city attorneys, likely Nina Williams who has a lot of experience crafting short-term rental ordinances, will use the guidance to draft ordinances for Woodland Park. Another joint work session is planned, potentially for Aug. 18.

During public comment, Deb Miller, president of the Greater Woodland Park Chamber of Commerce, asked council and commissioners to consider the economic impact of short-term rentals on local economic development, especially when it comes to commercial lodging.

“Developers put a lot of money into motels and hotels,” she said. “There are currently 160 rooms available in the city. I was shocked by that 188 STR (short-term rental) figure. …This is the first year we’ve seen a 20 percent vacancy rate in our commercial lodging. How much of that drop is because of STRs?”

Miller sais she was also concerned that one of the recommendations was self-attested inspections. “Commercial properties are highly regulated,” she said, adding that she wasn’t comfortable with short-term rental owners attesting to the safety of their own properties.

With that, commissioners left the work session and Mayor Hilary LaBarre convened the regular city council meeting.

Tracie Bennitt, commemorating the 20-year anniversary of the Hayman Fire, asked council to continue to fund local firefighter wildfire training.

“It’s been 20 years, and nothing much has changed,” she said. “We need to continue funding and training local hot-shot crews.”

LaBarre told the audience that the agenda item pertaining to Andrew Wommack Ministries and Charis Bible College is an ordinance on initial posting, and that there would be no public comment on it.

“Public comment will be encouraged at the Aug. 4 public hearing,” she said. “So come back for a big evening … bring popcorn.”

She explained that the vote on initial posting was not about the merit or substance of the ordinance, but about setting the process and making sure the applicant gets a fair hearing.

In other business, the council approved a new liquor license for Red Diamond Gastro Pub, which owner James Deimling described as providing upscale comfort food at affordable prices. His restaurant will be located at 112 Elm St. in the former Wildflour Bakery.

Council also approved a two-year extension of a conditional use permit and site plan review for the Ute Pass Self Storage, formerly Woodland Park Self Storage. If all goes better than it did when COVID delayed the project, applicant Michael Harper of M3XP2 LLC, said construction should start next spring and the facility should open in fall 2023.

Because of a family connection to the property owner, LaBarre recused herself from the vote. Council voted 5-0 to approve the extension.

After listening to a recommendation from Woodland Park Police Chief Chris Deisler, council voted to opt out of receiving direct opioid funding in favor of allowing the Teller and El Paso County regional committee to use the funds for bigger programs. Opioid funds are the result of lawsuits against “big pharmaceutical companies” for causing the current opioid crisis.

City Manager Michael Lawson said the city and county are working with Verizon to alleviate cellphone issues (see related story on Page 1). Verizon is overwhelmed, he said, and it’s affecting the city’s public safety departments, which use Verizon.

Tracie Bennitt reminded the Woodland Park City Council at its July 21 meeting that 20 years after the fire local fire departments and firefighters still need funding, support and training to fight wildfires.

Norma Engelberg, Pikes Peak Courier