Law to prevent home hotels

By Mindy Honey
mhoney@bransondailynews.com

The city of Branson continued its work this week to prevent certain homeowners from using their homes as nightly-rental businesses.

The board of aldermen passed the first reading of a bill that amends the city’s ordinance that deals with nightly rentals by adding a concise definition.

“This does not prevent someone from renting a home by the month or by six months or a year,” said Planning and Zoning Director Jim Lawson. “What we are trying to do is prevent someone from turning a single-family home into what is, in essence, a hotel.”

Late last month, the board approved an ordinance that prohibited the city from granting a business license for any nightly rental in an R-1 residential area after the problem was brought to the city’s attention.

“Simultaneous to that, Mr. Lawson, our planning and zoning director, also started work on some modification to our zoning code,” said Dean Kruithof, Branson city administrator.

Lawson said clearly defining what the city views as nightly rentals will prevent any future misunderstandings. The change defines a nightly rental as a building that has sleeping accommodations available for four or fewer rooms for a term of less than 28 consecutive days.

Wayne Kennedy who owns a home on Parnell Street in Branson said he lives near a home that has been rented out by the week. He said, so far, they have not had any problems.

“I think our concern is what is going to happen in the future and will that become a particular problem for us and run down our (property) values,” he said.

Kruithof said the city’s goal is to protect its single-family home areas.

“We have very few single-family areas within Branson and one of our goals is to maintain and preserve them,” he said.

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