you you you you you you you you We are going to call to getragansett Town Council regular meeting. Today is Monday, March 18th, 2024. The time is 7 p.m. Let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I'm going to move on to the approval of minutes. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes from the February 20th, 2024 regular meeting? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion by Councillor Lawler, seconded by Councillor Copa, motion passes 5-0. Next, we have a motion to approve the minutes from the February 22nd, 2024 executive session meeting. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Steen. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Second by Councillor Copac. Motion passes for with one abstention. Next we have a motion to approve the minutes from the February 26th, 2024 work session meeting. So move second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler, second by Councillor Copic, motion passes 5-0. Next for announcements and presentations, we have our town manager's report, Mr. Tierney. Good evening, members of the council, the public here and at home. Just a few developments for the week. Several weeks ago, a couple months ago, two months ago, we had an accident on Great Island at Contra Road at the Curve and we met with the residents who were affected by it and DPW and we came up with a design to prevent that from hopefully happening again. They did a great job and it should provide some peace of mind to the residents that appeared to be in the line of fire when motorists leave the road on that curve. I'd also like to thank all the staff at DPW for the quality project in the town right away and also Jeff Farrell from Sunset Farm who donated a significant amount of the materials, all the polls saving us probably about $20,000 on purchasing from somewhere else. And we appreciate that. The town operating budget as a council knows was due to the council on Friday, March 15th, and it was provided to them. Fire negotiations, the town negotiating committee and the Narragansett IAF Local 1589 have reached an impasse in our negotiations and they've indicated that they're going to fight, they wish to file for arbitration. When I have more to report, I'll request the town council to schedule an executive session. As this is the matter of collective bargaining, legal council advised that notice of depending on the operation is appropriate, but further discussion should be an executive session at this time. We'll notice some of the work that our police department does. Chief Corrigan reported that the department had arrested two individuals from Brooklyn, New York, and it was the work of Sergeant Chris Riley and of sub-brendon gagging in the detective division. Both of these individuals were charged with felonies in a scheme to work with gift cards that they changed the coding on them so that when people charge the cards, the money goes direct into their account. Both of these individuals were illegal aliens undocumented. She's not have been on US soil in the first place, and they were referred to the federal authorities for a deportation hearing and go through their process. Good work by those offices. Whether you're from, whether you belong in this country legally or illegally, the crime and arrogance of police will investigate it, they will find you and they'll arrest you. And when it's appropriate, they'll notify the federal authorities. The Beach Capacity Study. The study is ongoing. We spoke with Michelle Kershaw. We anticipate the full report in late spring of this year. We do have some details, but it would be premature to release individual details of it. The mouth of narrow river, far-th-engineering study, additional information from the Dredging Alternatives was provided. They did not have cost estimates for the evaluations, but they provided three different scenarios of dredging, which ranges from 3,700 cubic yards to 88, 800 cubic yards, all with a different price figure, which we're working on now. The disposal alternatives presented by Fawth included doing restoration at the beach, sand bar, town beach restoration below the high tide line at the south end of town beach. It would be longer and more extensive permitting for that process. The bike path, another update, we're hopeful we're not hopeful of getting CRMC approval for wooden deck structure through the wooded area unless it was elevated four to five feet of the ground, cost estimate for that 3,200 feet would be about $6 million, which is not really doable. But they are generating a cost estimate for this option as well as some over road alternates. And when we know more about that, I will let you know. And that's about it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tierney. Next I will move on to the open forum public comment portion of the meeting. Please note that the comments of citizens addressing the council are neither adopted nor endorsed by the body but heard as requested. Note public comment will not be taken on matters involving open litigation. And the rules are we have a sign-in sheet in the back of the chambers. When you come up to the podium, you need to state your name and address, and speak only on topics, not on the meeting agenda, and there's a three minute time limit per speaker speaker subject matter and please be orderly and respectful. So again, this is just for anyone wishing to speak on something that is not on the agenda. This is also not the public hearing portion of the meeting. So anyone wishing to speak on that, this is not the time to do that. So is there anyone who has signed up? Mr. Gerken. Oh, okay. Next. Do I know any? Okay. Heather Kelly Rachel Michelle Cronio dancing playing Here's heroes here in the agenda? So you know hands up we'll move on to consent agenda. So I have a motion to accept consent agenda. So moved. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Second by Councillor Copec. Motion passes 5-0. Moving on to new business. From the finance department, I have a motion to approve and authorize the town manager to sign the Nihar agreement for the 2024 experience study in the amount not to exceed $22,000 pending review by the solicitor. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Motion by council lawler. Second by Councillor Copac. Motion passes 5 0 Next we have a motion to approve the one-year contract extension for general construction services with ab core Restoration company incorporated at their quoted bid prices Revised to meet the prevailing wage schedule and markups under the same terms and conditions as the original contract. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? Anyone from the public? All in favor? Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler, seconded by Councillor Copac. Motion passes 50. Next from the information technology department, we have a motion to approve the updated job description for the network and security administrator positions within the Narragansett Information Technology Department and authorize the filling of that position after resignation. This position is in the L. LUNA AFL CIO local 1033. So moved. Second. Any discussion with the council? Anyone from the public? All in favor? Aye. All opposed. Motion by council lawler. Second by theer CoPEC motion passes 50. Next up from the Parks and Recreation Department, we have a motion to approve the installation of new ADA accessible ramp and entrance to the Parks and Recreation Administration building to be completed by ABCOR Restoration Company and incorporated in the amount of $76,840 utilizing the general construction services contract Some moved second Any discussion for the council Anyone from the public all in favor? I all opposed motion by council lawler second by councilor copack motion passes 5 0 Councilor Lawler, second by Councillor Copac, motion passes 5-0. Next we have a motion to waive the current policy and authorize the use of miscellaneous repair and construction services contract with George Sherman Sand and Gravel, incorporated to restore the town beach dunes, retaining, and sidewalks to pre-store conditions in the amount of $125,940. So moved. Second. And discussion from the council. Anyone from the public? All in favor? Aye. All opposed. Motion by council lawler. Second by councilor Copic. Motion passes 5-0. Next from the Public Works Department, we have a motion to approve the contract amendment to include the proposal for professional engineering services related to the Design Study Report and Work Plan for the roadway improvement project phase four with beta group incorporated in the amount of $619,895. And authorize the town manager to sign the contract amendments after review by the town solicitor. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? Just one question, Jim, if you don't mind. Is this the next phase to go out to bid for the road improvements? Paving? Yeah, for beta they do all engineering, for all the new jobs for the phases, yes. Have the streets been picked at all yet? Or is it just the same ones? Yeah, it hasn't changed, but I don't have to listen for an amendment. That's still on the website. The same. Hang it up. Anyone else? Anyone from the public? All in favour? Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler, seconded by Councillor Copack. Motion passes. 5-0. Next we have a motion to approve the purchase and installation of four security cameras and hardware for public works from the Land Telecommunications Incorporated in the amount of $19,163.95 pursuant to the state of Rhode Island master price agreement. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? Anyone from the public? All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Motion by council lawler, second by councilor. A co-pec motion passes five zero. Next from the engineering department. We have a motion to award the bid for the rooftop solar photovoltaic array and Electric vehicle charging station for more eluptures memorial library to the soul bidder Grid wealth for bid item one in the lump sum amount of 197,751 dollars and bid item two in the annual amount of $17,751 and bid item 2 in the annual amount of $3,200. Routop solar photovoltaic array annual maintenance for a three year period conditional upon the towns entering a loan agreement and closing on a financing note with the Rhode Island infrastructure bank to provide funding for construction. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? Anyone from the public? All in favor. Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler, seconded by Councillor Copack, motion passes 5-0. Next up is a motion to approve, ratify, and confirm, change order number 8 with EW bourbon incorporated for the Mori-Lunches Memorial Library renovation project in the amount of $33,828. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? Question for Jim. This is within budget still? With the change orders, it has exceeded some of it, but some of the funding is going to come from all this reimbursement and I continued from the donation fund. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Any discussion? Any other discussion for the council? All in favour? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by council lawler, second by Councillor Copic. Motion passes 5-0. Next from the councilistor, we have a motion to receive and make a determination on the validity of a voter initiative to amend chapter three section one-three-one Of the Narragansett town charter by eliminating quote, but only may sell property after approval by the town's voters, after being submitted to the electorate on referendum ballot at the next scheduled election, close quote, they're from and replace it with quote, but only sell property within a praised value of $500,000 or more after submitting to the electronic electorate, a referendum ballot on the next election and having it approved. Close quote. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Motion by council lawler, second by councilor Copac, motion passes 5-0. Next from the town council, we have a motion to receive and place on file the final report on the comprehensive housing study and needs assessment report by crane associates. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? No, it's just a motion that I put on to receive the report. Okay. Anyone from the district? There's a lot of good suggestions. And so for the next council, they could really act on them because they're listed out. And there are certainly things that we can do in the town. Whether it's a low hanging for a big vision picture for housing. But that was a $20,000 study that came back. And he worked on it. He shared it with us last month, last meeting. So you should all be aware of all the different strategies and ideas that he had and some of them were excellence. I agree. I may have done some of them tonight as well. Yes. Any other discussion? Okay. Yeah, that was a great study. Great information and definitely be looking into all those recommendations. All in favor. Aye. Aye. All opposed. I would like to ask you to ask the motion. I would like to ask the motion. I would like to ask the motion. I would like to ask the motion. I would like to ask the motion. I would like to ask the motion. I would like to ask the motion. I would like to ask the motion. I would like to ask the motion. I would like to ask the motion. I would like to ask the motion. I would like to ask the motion. library for the town of Narragansar, Rhode Island. So moved. Second. OK, this one is coming from Councillor Sisslingabonano. Would you like to discuss it? I just want to say the, you know, took a long time, but we're happy that the library is complete. And this resolution is really basically saying to the town that it's a public institution. It's funded by the town of Narragansett and all this from the state. And that it's a beautiful building. If you haven't been there, please go and visit it. But it's a municipal building and everybody should enjoy it. And the end of the resolution is just talking about, when we have an opportunity to share services, we should do that. And so if there's an opportunity to collaborate and work together with the library board, that we should definitely recognize that here at the town hall. So it's just a celebration. I think you probably could read the resolution if you want. But it just, it's really a final step to recognizing that building for the town. That's a public building. Any other comments? Okay, so we, so just to, like, when this, any council member can put something on the agenda, so we reviewed it. I just wanted, we always want to make sure everything that's in there is accurate. And so there were a couple of things in there that we wanted to edit and change. Just for your information. And then we had a review by the town solicitor if you could just, if you're fine with making some of the amendments that we're going to recommend, then we can pass it. Yeah, so yeah, so we'll just, we'll hear it. Mr. Davis, could you just comment? And so there was like two sections in there. Why don't you want to just stop by reading the resolution? I'm sorry. Mr. Davis, could you just comment? And so there was like two sections in there. Why don't you just stop by reading the resolution. I can't pull it up. So maybe if you read it, we can, the public in here as well. Okay. Okay. So the resolution reads, it's the Mori-Luenshism Memorial Library Resolution for the Town of Narragansett, Rhode Island, whereas the library is recognized as a public institution in the town of Narragansett, and whereas the library is governed by the board of trustees, which is made up of seven members of the Narragansett community, and whereas the library is funded by the town of Narragansett and Rhode Island Office of Library and Information Services in order to provide access to information through materials, research, services, community events, and through the library collection. And whereas the library provides over 650,000 books in their collection to the public. And whereas the library plays an essential role in our community by providing access to information and resources, supporting literacy and education, promoting lifelong learning, and serving as a community gathering space. And whereas the library is recognized as one of the Narragansett town departments and the library director will collaborate and participate in all senior management meetings offered by the town. And whereas the library shares town services with all other departments. And whereas the library staff will collaborate with the town on new technology, purchasing and new equipment. And whereas the Narragansett residents and visitors can enjoy this modern state of the library for years to come. Now therefore, it'll be resolved. We the town council, the town of Narragansett, do hereby recognize the more and looages more at library as a public institution for the residents and visitors to enjoy the town of Narragansett. Okay, so just in reviewing that, just to just make sure it's consistent with our charter. So Mr. Davis had reviewed it. Okay, from a pure legal standpoint, Jim can speak to how we views it, whether we views it as a department or not. From a legal standpoint, the new building per the charter has not been named as of yet. So the old building, which housed the library, was the Morrill-Lugins Memorial Library. But we all recognize that the townshorter requires the town council to name projects that the town's involved in including buildings, fields, parks, and so on. This building has not been named as of yet. That's number one. Number two, it's recognized as an arrogance at town department and I don't believe that's true. Under Rhode Island General Law, 29-4-7, once the town council allocates funds to the library, the funds are in the exclusive control of the trustees. Further, 29-4-6, the library board of trustees and the person that they place in charge of the library's day-to-day operations is responsible solely for hiring, termination, setting compensation, raises bonus and health coverage. So there's zero oversight by the town manager. That is not a town department. Every true town department has complete oversight by the town manager. So I don't think it's recognized. I don't know what that means, recognizes a town department. Maybe Jim recognizes it, but from a legal standpoint, there is no oversight authority, and that is by the Rhode Island General Law's direction. I spelled out in chapter 44. So that's it from a legal standpoint. It sounded lovely. Again, it's on there for a vote. Again, we'll go back to, do we think it's governed by the library, right? The library board. I guess the hope is moving forward after the 14 years that we would collaborate when the opportunity arises. And, you know, legally, I don't, I know how there is just like the school committee. They, you know, are governed by the school board, but I, hoping that moving forward the town and the director of the library can work together that she could attend meetings, be a part of that, when and if she has to order things. I mean, legally, if not, I hope that would be the goal of the town after the 14 years of divide. It would be helpful and it would be good for the town to work together with the board or the director. So you know, we don't have to pass it and maybe the legal language isn't there, but I guess the message is the library is here. There's a board of trustees, there's a director that attends the senior management meetings and it would be good if she could be a part of that. Sure, if there are services, whether it's plowing or garbage, if there's an opportunity to work together, I don't know the legal aspects, but it would make sense, financial sense to work together. And we don't have to pass it, I can pull it, but that would be the hope that we could join hands after the 14 years of divide. Madam President, could I just say a couple of words? The Director of the Library does attend SMT meetings regularly. She's invited to them and she attends them. Is that, and then here what you said? I'm not sure if she's invited to them along with everyone else that's on the town senior management team. It's always been like that. So I just, you implied initially that that was not the case and that is definitely the case that she's invited to all the meetings and has been since I've that she's invited to all the meetings and has been since I've been here and probably and I know before. Great. Okay, so if we're not gonna be able to vote on it legally, that's fine, I'm glad that the residents here today could hear it. I'm glad that everybody understands the message behind it. And that's all I needed for tonight. Yeah, I mean, I support what's behind it, but we can always bring it forward when it's like we need to wait. No, it's fine. I got the legal perspective on it. I just, again, just after the 14 years, I'm just happy that the buildings built and that if we could work together as we move forward that would be beautiful for the town of Narrowganza. Thank you. I agree. Okay. Okay. All right. So, um, give me the hand up. We'll pull the agenda item. So we're going to be getting ready to go to, we have a council president. There's one item that you skipped over that you could approve, which was F2. Okay, let's go back to, I believe it was G2, it was F2. Oh, the second reading, yeah, you're right you're right sorry things I like to do that quickly A motion to read pass and from the town clerk's office a motion to read pass and adopt as a second reading and Amendment to chapter 14 entitled businesses of the code of ordinances of the town of Narragansett so moved Second all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Second by Councillor Copac. Motion passes 5-0. Okay. We will be starting our public hearing in a few minutes. So we will, we have like two minutes before we start that. Thank you. And thanks for coming. Are you leaving? Are you leaving? Are you staying? Yeah, I'm in. You're gonna stay? Thank you. you you the the town is the time is now 730 so we're going to be moving to our public hearing portion of the meeting. First up we have a motion to schedule a public hearing on April 15th, 2024, on amendment of chapter 70 of the Code of Ordinances of the Town of Narragansett, Rhode Island, entitled Taxation and Finance, specifically section 70-1A, entitled List of Radable Property. So moved. Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. I have a list of the list of a list of the list of the list of a list of the list of the list of a list of the list of the list of a list of the list of the list of a list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the list of the application of Ocean State Pickleball. LLC doing business as Ocean State Pickleball Club for a new class B, Vickshaw or Limited Alcoholic Beverage License Assessors Plat P, lot 284-A and 284-B, 360 South Pier Road, Narragiancet Road Island. So moved. All in favor? I'll second it. I have a question. All in favor, we're going to open it. Oh, I'll open it right. Second. Or. So I get us. All in favor. I. Hi. Hi. So it was motion by Councillor Sistlin-Banano, second by Councillor Copeck I believe. I'm just a specific. So this is the ‑‑ do we have the applicant? Yes. Anyone from the council? I just have one quick question. I know this is a ‑‑ that we have limited licenses for this class and I just was wondering how many were at and how many we can have. So this is going up to seven. This is going up to seven but seven of what? We have a limited number? Oh, we don't. Okay. No. Okay, thank you. That's all I have. Any other comments from the council? I have one question for the clerk's office. Were there anyone who objected to having this license? No, there was not. Anyone from the public wishing to comment? Seeing none do I have a motion to close the public hearing so moved I have I just just one question I did I If it's possible yeah to get an answer I did have I did visit the building last week and it's very nice inside. And the only issues that I had were, this might be a correction to it says in the suggested action, class B operate food, beer and wine and that actually is more than just the food beer and wine correct. Isn't that regular alcohol tour or that's just beer and wine. So was that changed? Okay, just a beer and a wine. Isn't that regular alcohol tour? That's just beer and wine. So was that changed? Okay. Just a beer and wine. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. That's one question. I thought it was a complete alkyl over the whole full bar because he had talked about a bar area with seats and also I just wasn't sure if it was going to be full alcohol and else. Okay. Also. Thank you. All right. Motion closed. Public hearing. So moved. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Second by Councillor Copic. Motion passes 5-0. Next we have a motion to approve the application of Ocean State Pickleball. I'll see you doing business as Ocean State Pickleball Club for a class B. Victual or Limited Alcoholic Beverage License, assessors Platt P, plus 284-A and 284-B, 360 South Pier Road near Gantza, Rhode Island, subject to the conditions listed on the special use permit and state and local regulations. So moved. Second. Any discussion from the council? And we're from the public. We just had the public hearing with no comment. Okay, all in favor. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler, seconded by Councillor Copac. Motion passes 5-0. Congratulations. Yes, congratulations. Next we have a motion to open and hold a public hearing on a petition from John V. McGreen, a squire on behalf of his clients, Christoph L. The Hamler, Rich, and Lisa M. Horricks, for the abandonment of a portion of Conj Road adjacent to 22 Conj Road assessors Platt R-T lot to 16. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. I'm opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Second by Councillor Copic. Motion passed it's by zero. So do we have. floor is yours. Good evening. Just quickly the applicants. So do we have Laura's yours good evening just quickly Applicants could you please identify yourself for a record? Jack attorney Jack McGreen for the applicants They're seeking your approval for the abandonment of approximately 939 square feet of a public right away off of Contra road on the right away is unimproved and The planning board board recommended a pool excuse me to the town council finding that that portion on the right away has no further utility utility to the town. I'm here to answer any questions that you may have. Okay. Anyone from the council? I'm not sure if you're getting answer any questions that you may have. Okay. Anyone from the council? I have a question. Councillor Ferrandi. Maybe this is a mark question but would this have to go on the ballot because you're in between the whole issue with and we do not have an ordinance yet. Do we have it yet ready or it's not ready? My understanding is Mike Deluk is working on the ordinance and it would certainly have to go on the ballot. Those were a couple of the provisions from the planning board. As well as getting an would set the value for the time council. Yeah. Okay. Anyone else from the council? I'd like to see the ordinance that's going to be written and what's going to be in that before we have a vote on it. Okay. That's my opinion. Anyone from the public? Yeah. Okay. We don't have any. So we don't have the ordinance yet. So we can. It's further on in the agenda. We can make a decision there whether we're going to. Thank you. All right. So do I have a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Council Lawler, Second by Council, Coupac. Motion passes 5-0. Next up, we have a motion to open and hold a public hearing for an ordinance and amendment of chapter 70 of the code of ordinances of the town of Narragansett, Rhode Island, entitled taxation and finance specifically section 70-4 entitled compliance with state law. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion by Councilor Lawler, second by Councilor Copic. Motion passes 5-0. Just housekeeping. So just anyone from the Council have any comments? Anyone from the public? Dr. Alba. Dr. Albert, A. L. B. E. A. T. Alba, A. L. B. A. 24 Eagles, Nest Terrace. And that's an arrogant, what I Rhode Island O2882. Thank you. Did you write down the second? So I think that we really have to be careful in regards to, I know we're gonna be talking about tax code restructuring and what have you. And we have to make sure we don't set us up for litigation. And if we're gonna be moving forward on this, we have to make sure your eyes, cross-season is equitable, equitable. We don't want it. Dr. Alba, this is only striking out that just as should have been clearer about it. So the only thing that we had to amend in here is changing the date from December 31st, 2020, 23rd December, 31st, 2022. So the only change in that is 2022. So are you commenting? That's what you would be commenting on. OK, so we're not going to be discussing about. Nothing, no. Taxation, the tax structure. No. It's just this change to this. That's all it is. It's like. Then what was the notice in the paper about at 730 today, we're going to be discussing the proposed tax structure. Was there an announcement, so to speak? Is that so to speak? That's not. So it's not the new gants of chamber it's not here where was that located chamber? Um, we haven't chamber here because I saw it and I saw it advertised in the name. I don't know I saw an advertising Never again sometimes it says the town chamber Nope No, this is again again. This is just changing 2023 to 2022. That's all we're doing okay Well in any event if we are going to be doing any kind of changes on a tax structure let's make sure I think we're not opening ourselves up to litigation thank you thank you okay anyone else want to put okay all in favor I mean actually sorry motion to close the public hearing so moved so much so second okay thanks all in favor I all opposed most of my council law are second I'll have posed. Motion by Council Law. Second by Councillor Copec. Motion passes. 5-0. Okay. So next up on the agenda is I believe many people are here for this one. It's a motion to open and hold a public hearing on an ordinance in amendments of chapter 14 of the code of ordinances of the town of Narragansett entitled businesses, specifically article 16 entitled rental dwellings, reordering article 17 solicitations, and adding a new article 17 entitled short term rentals. So moved. Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler, second by Councillor Copic. Motion passes 5-0. So I actually was just going to- Councillor Preston- Before you start, just make a announcement. If you're here for pickleball, you don't need to stay for this short term rental if you want to leave. We're typically fine too. Oh yeah, this is just. Yes. Oh, bye, thanks. And it realises her. Okay. Mr. Holland, so do you have the PowerPoint just going to read the suggested action so that we're familiar with everything that's we're going to be going over and then I'll go over the PowerPoint quickly. So just the town council has been working since 2021 towards implementing an ordinance governing short term rentals. In 2023, Granicus was hired as a third party vendor to draft the ordinance at the September 18th, 2023 town council meeting. The draft ordinance was referred to the solicitor and de-sisto law for review and recommendations after review by the solicitor, by solicitor Davis and de-sisto law with the state law regulations from other municipalities in several town departments. The short term rental ordinance is finalized. At the January 16th, 2024 town council meeting, this agenda item was pulled from the agenda in order to make some final changes to the proposed ordinance and to schedule for a public hearing and refer the matter to the planning board for recommendation. Since the time this proposed short term rental ordinance was first advertised on March 1st, 2024. Solicitor Davis made a modification to the definition of Narragansett resident in section 14-524D from quote one that qualifies for homestead exemption pursuant to Chapter 70, Article 2, Division 3, Sub-Division 5, Homestead Exemption of the Code of Ordinances of the Town of Narragansett, Rhode Island, to a resident taxpayer who has his, her, principal, residents and legal domicile, and Narragansett and whose property is legally titled to the resident taxpayer, a trust to which the resident taxpayer is the name beneficiary or to a corporate entity owned and controlled by the resident taxpayer. And so more detailed background of the process for development of the short term rental ordinance can be found in the short term rental ordinance process memo provided by Granica. So there are documents that were with the agenda item, but for now I'm just going to go over some of the key points and just talk about where we're how we've come to this point. And I think I've given a little bit of background already. But just as an overview, Narragansett as a town has lost more than 1300 permanent residents between 2010 and 2020. That's an 8.4% decrease since the last census. It's the largest loss of any road island municipality by a wide margin because the state grew by 44,000. So the short term rental registry is required so on the Rhode Island registry and this is taken from September 2023 data. The registry had 4752 short term rental units. 83% of those come from 10 locations and the top municipality was 21%, which was 641 of those and that's Narragansett and of no Narragansett makes up 1.3% of the state's population. So just for the impact of local short term rental trends, it actually is contributing to housing unaffordability. So we are losing housing stock for year-round families. And I call this a consumption issue. When I say consumption, that means people are buying second homes, investment properties, and this is leading to a housing crisis. We have had a conversion of single-family homes to rentals. We have less year-round residents, and our school population is decreasing. In 2008, we had 1448 students, and in 2023, we have 1053, so that's a 27.5% decrease. So when we talk about what kind of adverse consequences we have from short-term rentalsals is the fact that there's an increasing number of short term rentals year over year. We have real estate speculators buying up entire neighborhoods. We have increasing costs of housing. We have conversion of year-round rentals to short term rentals. And we have a conversion of single family homes to short term rental businesses. So when we talk about our goals of implementing a short term rental ordinance, I think this council can agree that, you know, we have a primary goal of increasing housing affordability. And that was one of our primary goals, I think all of us are very interested in seeing a more affordable affordability in town, and we've actually recently received an affordable housing study. And one of the recommendations was addressing short-term rentals. So we've already accepted that report. We had the gentleman who did the report present at Crane Associates present last meeting. So that was an important piece of the puzzle here. And we also want to create balance among residents, vacationers, students, and seasonal renters. And there's that word balance. And we always talk of balance. We want to see balance. And we want to increase quality of life for everyone and I think it's important to build community. We want people being here year round We want more more your families moving into nearer GANS it. We want year round We want year round residents So those are that's pretty much what we set as our goals for implementing this short-term rental ordinance And just discussing our the town for implementing this short-term rental ordinance. And just discussing the town efforts for the short-term regulation. Again, we started working on it the last council term. So it's actually been worked on longer. I put 2022 because in 2022, before the end of the council term, we brought forward the short-term rental ordinance before the end of the council term, we brought forward the short-term rental ordinance and it was a work session. And we had a draft. It was basically a draft version of working version. It was different, I believe it. We had a 30-day minimum and there were a lot of different variables there. But we did go back to the drawing board. We decided to take a step back and hire a third party vendor. So we've been working with RANICUS, which they specialize in short-term rentals, ordinances, best practices all throughout the United States. So it's something that we put a lot of time effort in as a town. We, you know, and actually if you want to know the process so it's in the memo, I'm not gonna, I know it's gonna be a long meeting. So I'm gonna just say that the memo delineates what all the work that the Granica has done to get to this point. We also doing our due diligence, we hired, you know, outside legal counsel. We've worked with the Sistel law firm on this. We also in collaboration with our interl... Our town solicitor. So we reviewed all the legal compliance with the Rhode Island law. So we wanted to dot all our eyes across all our teas, and this ordinance is where we've come to. And again, we've had it, and we've actually pulled it previously, earlier this year. And we just wanted to add some of the recommendations from the Affordable Housing Studies. So it was very timely, because it did address short-term rentals in addressing that so that we could help with housing affordability. So that was important and we did add the recommendation from that. So then we do have one recommendation that we're trying to address from our Affordable Housing Study. This is up here because I did read that at the beginning, there is a correction to the ordinance since it was advertised. So I just want it to be clear that the definition of resident has been changed since it's been published and advertised. So again, I write it before, but I'll read it again. So the definition of resident in the draft that was published said of the short-term rental ordinance an air against residence defined in section 14.542D as one that qualifies for the homestead exemption pursuant to chapter 70 article two, division three, subdivision five, homestead exemption of the code of ordinances of the town of Narragance at Rhode Island. And again, the amended corrected version is a resident taxpayer who has his, her principal residents and legal domicile in Narragance and whose property is legally titled to the resident taxpayer, a trust to which the resident taxpayer is named beneficiary or to a corporate entity owned and controlled by the resident taxpayer. So I just wanted to get that on the record. Next slide, please. And this did, we did refer this to the planning board. And the planning board came back with the record actually concluded that the proposal is compliant with the 2017 there against it comprehensive plan and it was unionists unanimously approved just for the next slide please. And then just the key points for this ordinance you know and just I'm not going to go over in big detail but the highlights of this and I just wanted it to be up there while we're discussing and you know I know there's a lot of individuals that are out there who want to speak on this ordinance. But the key points are that it requires that it's going to be a formal permitting and application process. There's going to be inspections, both building and fire, including but not limited to safety, occupancy limits and number of parking spaces. A seven day minimum, again that was included because we have the affordable housing study that came back with that recommendation. There's going to be requirement for an assigned property manager. And there's going to be permitting limits. So that means a cap on the number of short-term rental registration licenses. So that would be currently, we don't have the short-term on so the way that we have it in our data right now before we pass an ordinance is that we have academic and summary of 898 of those registered rentals our short term which is less than 30 days defined by state law is 151 and summer only registered is 122. So the in the ordinance the recommendation is 1100 permits initially for 2024 and then 2025 and be a thousand permits and then 2026 reducing it to 900 permits and then just with you know focusing on enforcement and fines and we get a lot of well how is this going to be enforced? Enforcement is the key. And we are looking into just getting a compliance package from a vendor, like there's a lot of vendors that specialize in tracking short-term rentals. And so we'll be having that coming soon, just in steps. And so there'll be also, well, if we need more staff, and you know, obviously, we're going to make sure that we have the personnel to be able to enforce an ordinance because if you can't enforce an ordinance, it's not really going to do anything. So that is really all I wanted to introduce and just have if anyone wants to speak on it. It's just a synopsis of it. Everyone I think has read hopefully of the ordinance. I know it was published and posted. And so I'll write now if anyone from any of my council colleagues want to comment initially or you want to wait until the end. That's fine as well. So anyone wishing to comment first? You want to wait, okay. I just wanted to just mention the compliance vendor. Wouldn't that maybe if we had that to help us with this because I'm afraid to adopt another ordinance that we can't enforce? So yeah, so not knowing what the compliance vendor would entail or what it would cost or how it would work is going to be hard to jump to the leap of passing an ordinance without having that piece. So actually that was something that I had on previously on agenda and it talked about what kind of what their monitoring services are and that they usually will check like they list like what the what houses they search all the sites and all that and They do address identification So it was spelled out previously and I you know, it's been Something that we've already had a quote on but we need to go out to bid So that's why I didn't put it on because it is something that requires this there's more than one company that does that Granica's also does that so that I thought it'd be an easy kind of weighted, kind of transition. They helped us with the ordinance, but we do have to go out to bed. So we already got a hurry. I'd rather go out to bed and have that with me, but go ahead. No, I mean, this is the take, we can't, we can't, because I discussed this with our town manager and we need this step first before we can we need to approve an ordinance before we can move to the next step. So it's pretty much the feedback I got. So, okay. I'm a little uncomfortable with that, but okay. Anyone else? Okay. So now, well, the Council members want to speak at this point. So we can go to the public. Anyone wishing to comment? Dr. Albic, your hand up. I do. Dr. Albert Alba. ALB-AT. ALB-AT. Albert. ALB-AT. Alba. ALBA. Thank you. So, you know, I reviewed a lot of these documentations and, you know, I reviewed a lot of these documentation and, you know, I understand the talents concern about implementing short-term rental control. And I appreciate that we are doing something so that, you know, we're not going to have people who abuse a situation such as, you know, having people over capacity, you know, we're not going to have people who abuse a situation such as, you know, having people over capacity, you know, we heard about over capacity study. So if we have a three-bedroom house and we have 15 people put into that housing, that's not a good thing. So I respect that, but on the other hand, we also have to make sure that the laws that are going to be put in place are not so restrictive that it's going to allow people to own properties who are doing the right thing to be overly burdened. There has to be a compromise. And I think that has to be looked at. And I think that some of these regulations are overburdened some from what I've seen. I hope they're not going to open us up for more litigation and cost. And as Councilwoman Susan Bonanno said, we have to have some kind of game plan for enforcement, so everything's treated equally and equitably. Because if that's not the case, we pick and choose who are going to be pointing the finger at, we are going to have litigation. And that's going to set us up for a lawsuit. It's going to be costly. Because people are going to be losing money. If they feel they're singled out, that's not right. So I strongly recommend that town solicitor and we get lawyers on board to make sure that we're not going to be setting ourselves for future litigation because sadly that's the case, it's going to be setting us out for future litigation. Because sadly, if that's the case, it's going to be costly for our town. It's going to be setting people up to be that they feel they're going to be targeted, and that's not a win-win situation. Thank you. Thank you. We did have outside legal counsel and our solicitor review it. Thank you. I'm going to go by the list that would. Okay, if going by the list, the next speaker will be Jack Durkin. Mr. Durkin, state your name and address please. Jack Durkin, three, Martin Avenue. Do you need to be sworn in? Yes. Jack Durkin, three Martin Avenue. J-A-C-K-D-U-R-K-I-N. My name is Jack Durkin. I own property in Erragance and managed Durkin Cottage Rility, fourth generation family business. I keep pairing with the hell is going on down there in Erragance. That is what I keep pairing from all different types going on down there, and Eric Anset. That is what I keep pairing from all different types of people from around the state, where they have politicians, policemen, or friends, and family. No one seems to understand why these regulations are being put in place, and I don't really know how to answer their questions. I do know that recent ordinances that have been passed have come from a good place. And if I understand correctly, the whole idea is to make narrowing ants at more affordable for families to buy homes in our town. Obviously, no one can argue that be a great thing, but is it actually realistic? Narragansett is arguably one of the nicest towns in the state. We have amazing ocean access, beautiful beaches, restaurants, schools, events, and it's an extremely safe place to live. Of course, it's going to be expensive to live here. According to the province journal last year, they wrote an article, Black Island, Little Compton, James Town, Newport, and then Narragans in that order, were the most expensive. So we're fifth in that list. All these towns share these great qualities. And of course this all got exacerbated during or after the pandemic. Housing prices skyrocketed. For reasons we really can't explain. America is a great country because it is controlled by the free market economy and you don't control the free market by putting caps or limits on things that are controlled by supply and demand. The housing market being one of them. Limiting the supply of rentals in this town will cause the price of these vacation rentals to skyrocket. Instead of finding a beach house for $1,200 a week, the prices are going to go through the roof where median income Rhode Islanders and tourists will go vacation somewhere else. Speaking to that same cap limit set in this ordinance, who will get to decide who is granted permanent rentals? Will this be random lottery system? Are they going to be grandfathered in? How will this be fairly decided? To speak regarding to some of the other points on the agenda such as an increase in tax rate, I think just raising the taxes on rental properties will not do anything except raise the rents. And landlords are gonna push that onto their customers, essentially. I think one idea that has been talked about and I think should be considered is that if the tax rate is going to be raised for short term rental landlords, the tax rate should actually be decreased for year round landlords. And I think that could incentivize landlords to rent year-round. It might be a significant swing in tax savings and would make sense to them at that point. I think we should be proud to live in such a beautiful town where all people from around the country want to come spend their summers and their money. These vacationers spend so much money here, I believe, they are what makes this town so unique and special. We should embrace this. It's kind of ironic, actually, because in some ways this ordinance may help my family's business because traditionally we have been doing seven-day rentals and we will continue to do so, as long as we're allowed to. But I think it's actually gonna do the opposite of what its intention is. I think it'll make rents increase. I think it'll make housing more scarce. And it'll actually increase real estate costs. Narrogant, it is so nice that people from New England and New York will come down, they'll buy houses, they'll use them for themselves in the summer, and they will literally shut them down in the winter. You can actually see evidence of this today if you look closely enough. This ordinance is so massive and so important to the fabric of our town. I don't think it should be left to decision of a three vote majority of the town council. Something of this magnitude should be on a ballot and voted on by the town members. This will show the true opinion of the town citizens. Then knowing how the majority of narigants and citizens really feel the town council can make a better informed decision. Throughout my time working with my family at Durkin Cottages, I had heard multiple testimonies from customers about how their families have been vacationing here for generations, and they eventually end up buying a home here to raise a family. But in the meantime, they rent it out so they can afford it and possibly retire here or hand it down to their children. Same goes for your I alumni. They fall in love with the town. They try and buy a house here and again raise a family. There's multiple people in this crowd that have done that and possibly on the council. Whether you like it or not, that is our history, that is our community, is and the way of life and arrogance it, and we hope to continue that way of life for a long time no matter what you decide with this ordinance. I hope this does not move forward and hope we can find different ways to make our town more affordable. They do thank you for your work because we know it's not easy and yeah again that's all thank you. Thank you. APPLAUSE George Nounis. I do. George Knowness, 60 Exit Abulavide, Narragansett, Rhode Island. A full-time resident for 20 years choosing to live in Eastwood Look. I oppose this short term rental ordinance. But first I want to would monitor some of town council members who just regard emails from people who don't live in Narragansett, meaning they don't vote here. That's disrespectful to hardworking people who board in Narragansett, improve their homes, pay taxes here, support local service providers, whose renters are the economic engine of Narragansett. You should be ashamed of yourself as an elected official. It's more than just getting votes. For years, I've asked Mike Deluka, the planning board, and you, if you had a recent study on the impact of students and tourists on the local economy, which you used in making your decisions about these ordinances that you passed, I got back silence. It's unbelievable that you put in place ordinances which affect thousands of people with no regard to their economic effect. I speak for the local businesses you disrespect. Many businesses oppose this ordinance, which negatively impacts them. But choose not to speak up tonight because they fear retribution in boycotting. Notice in the pretty presentation, not a single word, a single word about local businesses. That has to tell you a lot about this ordinance. It does not even come up to the town council about local businesses. That has to tell you a lot about this ordinance. It does not even come up to the town council to identify what will happen with this ordinance to the local mom and pop stores that generate income. And you know what? You didn't have the numbers, I have the numbers. And I'll give them to you tonight. And I'll give them to you to the ordinances you speak to. 7,000 students in there against it's been $4,000 locally annually a conservative figure supplied by URI student leaders, resulting in the annual impact on local businesses of $28 million in sales from people who live in the homes owned by the landlord you despise. Reducing 1,200 students through the three college student ordinance limits equates 1,200 lost students who can't live in Narragansett and a 4.8 million dollar annual loss and sales to local businesses. Short term rentals 1100 registered short term rentals who rent for nine weeks and spend an estimated $1500 a week locally residing resulting in 14.9 million in annual sales impact on local businesses from, again, people who rent homes from the land laws you despise. The planned reduction of 200 short term rentals in year two of this ordinance equates to 200 less homes for a $2.8 million annual loss to local businesses. These ordinances have under and an under stated negative impact of 7.6 million a year on local business sales. Businesses who depend on students and tourists to survive, but you seem fine with that. This ordinance along with a no more three unrelated ordinance and increased taxes are aimed at eliminating over time vacation homes and tourism. The permitting process does that, reduces the number of permits each year, non-renewable, no detail on how they're approved, no due process, plus other restrictions. No boats, RVs, tents, parties, is this restriction applied to all homes? If RVs and boats shouldn't be in neighborhoods, then they shouldn't be allowed for anyone. And if tents and parties are not allowed due to noise, again, the same restriction should apply to all homes. By the way, there were just two nuisance reports all last summer and zero the previous year. If these are all such a big problem, why don't they apply to everyone? The answer is simple. They're targeted. This is consistent with your moves to make Narragansett an elitist, exclusionary, non-welcoming, discriminatory community. This is not the Narragansett we all love. You were destroying the Narragansett brand and fabric built over the past 130 years. Under your leadership, this town has become a laughing stock across the state. And I might add, in the presentation statements, there were no lack of numbers. Some of the items were large investors coming in from over outside the state. But I didn't see numbers there. And some statements that were just verbal statements with no backing of numbers. Maybe you should look at the numbers when you make statements like that. You need to go back to the drawing board and sit with those involved on a daily basis which you have not done in touring up this ordinance. In fact, you talk about the outside consultant and I read that consultant's report and what seemed to be lacking was no communication of the people that directly involved, no communication with landlords, with property managers, with small business owners. Why is that? Is it because they are looking for the end result to satisfy what the council is looking for? It's time now to take a look and to talk to those people, to talk to the local businesses, the property managers, the rental owners and the police to develop a reasonable ordinance which does not hurt local businesses, working hard to survive and families looking to vacation here. Thank you. Heather Kelly. Heather Kelly. Heather Kelly. Heather Kelly. I do. My name is Heather Kelly. H-E-A-T-H-E-R. Kelly. K-E-L-L-E-Y. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. My name is Heather Kelly, H-E-A-T-H-E-R, Kelly, K-E-L-L-E-Y. My address is 17 South Trail. So I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this issue. I am a small business owner myself. My partners and I opened sunrise properties in 2019 after it been at a larger firm. I chose this field because I grew up in this town my entire life. After college I looked to see how I could still stay a part of this community. This career path has not offered, has offered me a chance to stay in town, have a family, and not only that continue, this town has been, has had tourists since the 1800s, since its inception. It went from hotels to weekly rentals, and that's how it's evolved. That's actually how my father found this town by his family vacation here. So I appreciate this town. I want to continue to live here, and I also want to continue to enjoy this town and have other people be able to find and enjoy this. In regards to the ordinance, I think it still needs to be reworked. Quite a bit of this ordinance seems pretty ambiguous, In regards to the ordinance, I think there, it still needs to be reworked. Quite a bit of this ordinance seems pretty ambiguous, you know, whether it's how people are applying for a permit or even the turnover days, it says in the ordinance, you can't have more than two rentals on any given day. Renters aren't just, aren't defined in this ordinance as well. In regards to the implementation, it doesn't state at all. I don't know where the town is as to how, you know, the 14 days renters have, how are they going to be able to apply? Is there a time limit as to when they will know whether a permit is or isn't accepted? And as we were talking about with the number of permits, how are you going to decide the following year if people are going to apply and who continues to get those permits? And lastly, I would like to talk about the impact on the town to small businesses, not only my own, but restaurants. We reside in peer marketplace is where our office is. Those businesses survive on the short-term rentals. That's when people are visiting every week. It's not going to be people coming down from providence for the day. It's the weekly turnover that keeps those businesses alive. As a matter of fact Most of them are shut all winter all winter long because they make their money in these three months alone If you go to restaurants in town you can they're not busy during the winter months It's the tourists who are here weekly Going out to dinner each night that support those I just think that before this ordinance is implemented, there's a lot of further discussion that needs to be had to clarify some of the provisions in how they're in what constitutes a short term rental, how long the term is, and the feasibility of also, how is this going to be enforced? Because it doesn't seem to be another problem just like they will have with the short-term rentals, especially coming up so quickly in this period as to rentals are expiring in 2020, you know, these expire in 2024 and how quickly are people going to begin to market again and obtain a permit. So I do want to thank everybody. I think this town is fantastic. I think there does need to be a balance and keeping the balance between year round renters and also vacationers who make up the fabric of this town as well. And really, I would encourage you to listen to more small business owners, not just myself in this industry, but also the people who are impacted by the tourism each week. And I do appreciate the hard work. I think there is a compromise to be had. It doesn't need to be contentious. I think everybody's voice compromise to be had. It doesn't need to be contentious. I think everyone's voice deserves to be heard. And I do think that this is too big of an issue to push through without further discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Rachel Laramie. Okay. I do. I'm going to go to the next slide. My name is Rachel Laramie, R-A-C-H-E-L, Laramie, L-A-R-A-M-E-E, address 110 South Bay Drive. There you have it. Hi, my name is Rachel Slikowski Laramie, and I'm here to speak as both a town resident and a short-term rental host. Thank you for taking the time to read through our countless emails and listening to us here tonight. I'm not opposed to having some STR restrictions and requirements in place, but I'm pleading with you to vote note to this ordinance so it can be realistically revised. I came in and spoke with Mike Deluca a few weeks ago about a few major points of ambiguity. An example was the Terminar Against at Resident, which I'm happy to see updated, and 14, 549 C, in regards to limiting bookings to one per day, when most summer rentals are weeklong and turnovers on the same day. He and I had different interpretations of the wording and I would like clarification from the town council if they intend to do away with same day turnovers. I've lived in Narragansett since birth, and I understand as well as you, that tourism is necessary for our town to thrive. My husband, Joe and I are both teachers and own and operate two short-term rentals in arrogance while living between them, now while we're young. This is part of our retirement plan and ensures that we can continue to live here. We care tremendously about both properties, as well as in neighborhood, and prioritize keeping everyone happy. We are our own cleaners, maintenance people, points of communication, and we're 100% invested in every aspect of our properties. We let all guests know that we live in town five minutes away, monitor with security cameras, and let any neighbor know that they can contact us anytime with issues. In the few years that we've done this, we have never hosted disruptive renters and only received positive feedback about our guests from neighbors. We do this by screening rental inquiries using a minimum age requirement and catering to families looking for a quiet getaway. Previously, we tried college rentals and as hard as we tried to ensure great students, 19 to 20 year olds just don't truly know how to take care of a home. Our experiences and that of our neighbors have been far better with short-term rentals instead of academic. A bad group of college students next door can be a challenging battle for the whole year. I see the orange stickers around town and none of which appear to come from short-term rentals. If you vote yes, our hands are tied and will be forced to rent to college students again for the academic year. Nobody is taking seven day vacations in the winter, and this ordinance does not specify seasonality. Nearly all of our off season, fall to spring, rentals are two to four days long, with most being families looking for a quick weekend getaway, or a URI parents visiting their kids. Last weekend, we had a couple with three young children, came to explore hikes in the area and bike around town. Next weekend, a woman is bringing her 88-year-old father to see a show. It's not all bad, and these are just a few examples. We get wedding guests, families for funerals, local events, road races, and people traveling for work. These guests are bringing some off-season tourism to shops and restaurants while being respectful of the area. If you pass this ordinance, all of this goes away, and more college students will move into town. At a minimum, please consider grandfathering in people who have been doing this responsibly and are already actively permitted with the state in a town. Make it effective for new STR applicants moving forward so future home buyers will plan accordingly with home purchases. We are a popular town with attractions and events, and there is a need for some short-term housing less than seven nights. Please continue to hear us out as this decision has a massive financial implication for many of us in this room and as well as the town. We'd be happy to meet somewhere in the middle. Michelle Cattronio. I have a rental property here that family home that my kids grew up in town. I've been on both sides of it. I only have one home. I monitor it. I have cameras out of front. I have great summer rentals, mostly families, quiet. I have my neighbors have my phone numbers. They can reach me any time. I'm always there. I'm within a half hour way I'm there, whether which I respond, I have five star ratings from people who rented from me that shows how much I'm there. I'm invested, all right? I'm just trying to keep our family home. My ex-husband passed away, a cancer and I'm trying to keep the home. Oh, where are my kids grow? They consider this home. They can't afford, well, most, I mean, I laugh because you're like saying how you want affordable housing when you never really had it. And then I get my task estimate of my new assessment. And when I'm almost $300,000. So how is a family going to afford it anyway? I don't understand what you guys are really even trying to do. And you're choking small business. I'm going to be honest with you, my parents, both own businesses, all they're like, I grew up in a family where we grew. I always was self-employed. I always worked for myself. I mean, I did two jobs sometimes. I worked for someone, but I always was self-employed. Self-employed, I get crushed with this. We even went like the signs. Everything, you guys, I mean, this whole state relies on tourism. This town is the top tourism town in Rhode Island. The people come here. I met my ex-husband here. When I was 20, I was old and I wanted to live here. I want to raise my kids here. And then I'm just shocked. I mean, everything has changed so much. It's just sad. And the families that are running, it's not the rentals. It's not the house rentals. I had five media rentals beside us. When I was raising my family, we were probably a lot of them. But you know what? They were, we talked. We worked together as a neighborhood. You know, if I'm getting forced, I mean, the pressure and now all this, I got to do a, now I can't do a three or four day rental to a family. I mean, they're quiet. I have to direct me, but she's 90 years old. She's my best friend. I hang out with her. She, I mean, I talked to her. I talked to my neighborhood. Nobody says anything to me. And I'm there. I do most of the work myself. I work in the yard. I work on the house. My kids will come down, but they rent them, they retire. I have cameras on fine, I monitor everything. I've done everything I'm supposed to do. I'm paying extra tax, I pay hotel tax, I do everything I'm supposed to do. And then I'm just constantly, like, what do you get into the point where you just want us to just sell to corporate? Corporate's buying up half of the United States, buying up the doctors, buying up a nurse at home? Are they going to own our communities next? I only have one house, one house. I'm trying to keep, and you guys are choking me. You know, and it's so easy sometimes you say just just out, right? You know how many times I got phone calls and offers? I know so many people that go to buy houses and my son tried to buy four times, four times cash buy is outbidded him in Boston. All right? I have friends, I have clients. They're like, what? Don't it went to buy a house 600,000? Someone big cash. Overbed it her in Coventry. It's corporate. You're getting one of the people that have been here. They want to keep it here. I've watched people leave for this reason when we all started this whole thing years ago when they wanted to limit students. My neighbors should be grateful that I haven't told you yet because if I sell, it's supposed like going to be corporate. And then at least you can call me and talk to me. You have a problem or you can talk to me. Because if I sell it to the highest cash bidder, you ain't going to get a hold of that. I'm here. I love my neighborhood. I will do whatever I have to do to work with my neighbors. If they have an issue, I can help other people. I just want to keep my house and I love nearer, and it's totally changed. And I don't know what's going on with it. I don't even recognize it. Nobody, I'm laughing affordable housing. 300,000, really. And I'm laughing affordable housing, 300,000 really. And I'm limited to three. I'm paying the, like, assessment, I'm assuming when you do an assessment on a house or an appraisal, I have five bedrooms, but I can only rent three. So what is that doing for us in the price set? I have a mortgage. That's all I really have to say. I do. Nancy McLean, N-A-N-C-Y-M-C-L-E-A-N, 59, Exeter Boulevard. You're welcome. Hi, good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak. I will not be as eloquent as the preceding speakers. But just a little bit about me, I am not a landlord. I am not a rental owner. I was. We rented short term rentals from 2005 to 2018. We now live here full time. We've invested in our property. We love it here. I'm going to get in a little bit into the weeds, and I know that you're not going to be able to answer my questions tonight. But I hope that this shows is there's just too many open questions right now for this to pass. It's just not cooked right for this to go through. So some of my questions, 14, 549-D2, prohibition of weddings, banquets, bachelor and bachelor rep parties and corporate events. Where does that stop? Can you have gender reveal parties? Can you have engagement parties? Can you have anniversary parties? I mean, it just seems like quite an overreach of government to try to monitor what goes on, what legal activities even, go on inside of a home. They already have noise parking and occupancy limits. So I really think that those are what is going to keep, you know, any party, a noisy party to a crowded party in check. I'm confused about the permitting limits. So, Evie, you sitting here, one of your sides of your presentation, there was a number of 641. But then there were numbers of 800 something. And the first limit is going to be for 1100. I'm just, I'm confused with the numbers. Yeah, so I put those numbers just to clarify, usually, it's not my question. So the 641 was the number from the article that was published, and that was the one that it's the short-term rental registry in the state of Rhode Island, because it's mandatory to register your short-term rental with the state. So we had 641, but we have other types of rentals. So when we don't have a short term rental ordinance yet, so that's why I put the numbers that we had Listed summer only or summer, you know rental so that's where those came up and then not all of them are like short term So it was 11 said I think it came up to 11 so those were the only numbers I could use because that's what we had So that's why yeah, I think we just need a lot more clarification on the numbers Those are the numbers yeah from the town so that that's where that came from and then How will waiting list work it says if this they'll be waiting list? So how will those work when when when August 31st rolls around are the waiting list get wiped out or will it be like a waiting list for the Cabana's at the beach you know like they'll be forever and ever and there'll be years long. I'm just not understanding that at all. And then the third thing I just want to point out is just the timing. I just don't understand when you accept applications for this. What is the preferential period for narrow-gancit residents and how does that work with everyone else that's applying? When will the next year's permits be awarded? How does the waitless work, as I already asked that? And just how does same-day rentals work when you're one party's leaving on a Saturday morning and the next party's coming in Saturday afternoon? And Steve and I live in the same neighborhood, and you know that happens in almost every house in that neighborhood. How will that work? Will that be able to be done? So I guess in general, I just want you to realize that there's just a lot of unknowns in the ordinance as presented. And I think it would really benefit the town. I'm not against regulation of short-term rentals, but I think it would benefit the town and everyone, all the stakeholders, to have more discussions and more back and forth and questions answered before this is passed. Thank you for hearing me. Nice job, Nancy. You are all prepared. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Kim Chiros. Hi there. Good evening. I do. My name is Kim Churras. It's Kim, KIM. I am. Churras, CHURRA. You are AS. Hi there. Good evening. So, I'm going to read you right here. Can you tell us where the testimony about the human matter now that we're releasing? I'll take it up in the next slide. I do. Now I can stay here and you can start with it. My name is Kim Churris. It's Kim, K-I-M. Churris CH-U-R-A-S. Hi there, good evening. Thank you for having us here tonight. I do not live in near-against at a live in South Kingston, but I know near-against at better than in South Kingston, because I have been doing rentals in near-against at for over 25 years. I've seen a lot of changes come and go over the years. In my previous position, we were the ones that actually drove the rentals to be better than they used to be. I pushed linen service and whatnot, and here we are now, and most rentals have linens, but I've seen a lot of changes over the years, and I can honestly say that the changes that you're proposing tonight are onerous, we're the good guys. We screen heavily, we get the name of everybody that's renting from us, where they live. We practically draw blood, we're here, we're on the ground. We're making things work really well. And it seems like we're constantly fighting, constantly fighting. It's one thing after another. The compliance, the, do they have their town permits? Do they have that now? We're going to have to have, you know, copies of the leases in the house. When we opened Sunrise Properties, my partner was here earlier. I am a small business owner. Sunrise Properties is located in the peer marketplace. When we opened that company, we were technology forward. Everything we do is based their leases are electronic. They sign electronically. They get notification before they check in. You're coming tomorrow. Here's your code to get in the house. All of our access is electronic. Now we've got to go to the house, print out these paper copies of the leases, put them in the house. You know, we have to comply with, you know, do they have insurance? Do they have this? Do they have that? It's just become very difficult to do our jobs properly. We want to be able to screen, we want to do what we do best instead of having to go back and comply with most of the stuff you're putting forward. And honestly, we will comply because that's who we are. But there will be a lot of people that will not comply with these things. I know it. I've been in this business too long. And my partner was here earlier, so she did touch on some of the things I had written. So I'm kind of going to be jumping around and I apologize about that. But I did want to touch on some really good points. Looking at your slideshow earlier, you talked about the need for having more families moving into an air against it. Well, if they're coming to an air against it and they want to be here, then why aren't they buying a home here? So if they're not buying a home, then they want to rent here. So you're asking these owners who are currently renting short term to turn around and rent these. You're making it so owners for them so that they're going to just say, I'm done. I'm going to rent you around. At least I think that's what you're hoping they will do. So the money that they're making to support the cost of these homes isn't going to justify your yearly rental. These families who come here will not be affording $4,000 a month rent. It's just not going to happen. The goal that you're trying to move forward towards, this isn't the way to do it. I respectfully hope that she would sit down with people like us in the trenches and look for ways to make this work for the town of Narragansett. The way that you've gone about doing this is not the way. We're currently fighting some academic rental ordinancesances and now we're back at short-term rentals. I know that at the state level there's some things that are happening with that and I just don't want to see this being at the state level next year with lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. There's so many things in here that are ambiguous. I don't even know how to read it. We've read it 15 times. We still can't figure it out. A couple of people have touched upon that already. There's another one in here that I don't think anybody talked about. And that is you're saying that everybody that's the host shall have a separate written least or rental agreement for each renter. Who's a renter? Who's a renter? Who's a renter? Is that the host? Is that everybody that's renting there? So you're saying that everybody that's renting there, the mother, the father, all the kids are going to be signing this rental agreement? It's just so many things here that we don't even know where to go with a lot of this. Let me see here, give me just a second. As far as inspections go, you know, what's the timeline on that? Can our owners start calling the fire department right now to go get their homes inspected? We're booking a year ahead often. I don't know how this is gonna work. Who's not getting a permit in the second year? How is that gonna be determined? It's just like buying tickets to the folk festival where you've got to sit at your computer one minute after the clock ticks and everybody's going to be there, blah, blah, blah, blah, trying to get their permit. Are they camping out at the town hall so that they can be first in line? Are the people that don't get permits going to be filing lawsuits? I don't know. There's just a lot of things here that we haven't figured out. Just we just don't want to, you know, paint everybody with a broad brush. You know, we just want you to take a step back. Let's come up with some reasonable solutions. There's a lot of middle ground here. We'll offer safety. But it sounds like everything you're putting forward is safety issues. But really, your ultimate goal is to make it so difficult that people just throw up their hands and they say, hey, let's just turn around and run to yearly rentals. And I just don't think you guys have thought this through thoroughly. I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Suzanne Maashan. I do. Suzanne Marshand, SUZ and any, M-A-R-C-H-A-N-D. Hello all. You might say I have a long history in Narragansett. Close to 50 years ago, I was a URI student living in Scarborough. Eastwood Look was much then like it is today, fully rental neighborhood. I've been a homeowner in Narragansett here for 23 years and I've lived here full time for 10. I've been a landlord for 20 years and I currently own one three bedroom, summer, and student rental. After reading the proposed changes to the short term rentals, it seems the primary aim is to reduce the number of rentals and create more of what you're referring to as diversity in town. And the word diversity is where I get stuck. It's my understanding that the town wants to replace the rentals with young families, with the median sales price of a home in Narragansett at $995,000 last year. And the cost of rent nearly double from what it was two years ago, due to the new three student restrictions. I think it's unlikely that the town is capable of drawing young families. Our prices are simply unaffordable in that demographic. State, since prices statewide and country ride are rising, and this is a desirable coastal community, I don't think there's any hope that you'll see a decline since prices statewide and country ride are rising. And this is a desirable coastal community. I don't think there's any hope that you'll see a decline in home prices to attract young families no matter how many land lord you eliminate. What I do know from being familiar with the real estate market and from looking at red fin data is that coastal real estate in Rhode Island is still much cheaper than in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The changes will force many landlords to sell, which I'm thinking that that is your aim. This will trigger yet another wave of wealthy buyers coming in from that tri-state area. I think it will result in the gentrification of our community, basically, that being defined as the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and investment. So we won't have attracted young families, but instead we'll have attracted buyers of second homes, many left empty for much of the year. Empty homes equal empty shops and restaurants and no work for those who are employed by rental businesses. I would also like to remind many of you that many of the landlords you seek to eliminate are not huge investors. I don't know what the statistics are. I would love to see I wasn't aware of some of the studies that you've done. I'm not sure if I would hope those statistics and those studies are available to the public. I would just I would love to look at all of that just to see and sort of make sense of it. But I believe that there are many of us who are just investors in a single home. We are not huge corporate investors. So I would love to see actually those numbers as well since you made the statement that people are coming in and buying up neighborhoods. That I have not been witness to that. The proposed changes strip us of our property rights, and in many cases deprive us of planned retirement income. As landlords, it seems to be forgotten that we contribute directly to the economy in this town by paying higher property taxes and taxes on our rental income. I feel you're placing us at the mercy of the town by denying our property rights. There needs to be clarity in these proposals because they leave us open to cronism and lawsuits. We don't live in a communist society. We live in the United States which protects its citizens from targeted discrimination and encourages a free market. That being said, I've loved this town for many years because it's already rich in diversity between the families, tourists, and students that it's housed for generations. Please consider all of the facts and the evidence and the consequences of what you're proposing that could destroy the landscape of this beautiful town. Thank you. Applause The next speaker is Eric Wright. I do. Eric Wright, ERIC, WRIGHD, 5-digital drive. I want to take a second to thank all of you for your service at town. I know this ordinance is a controversial topic and you're all serving with the town's best interest at heart. As this bill stands, it should not pass. There are many unintended consequences that I see. While I disagree with limiting people's property rights as a whole, I'd like to give you my perspective on the issue of mandating a seven-night minimum specifically during the off-season. I've lived in the narrow our against my entire adult life. I went to URI, loved it here and set roots down right after college. I bought my first home ten years ago. I loved it here so much that I decided to invest in my own town. Last year, the house next to me went up for sale and decided to purchase it. I did this for two main reasons. I saw an opportunity in fixing up my own street and I was afraid that if I did not purchase it, someone from out of town would and make it a college rental. Our neighborhood is split between year-round residents, college students, and short-term rentals. One of my neighbors who is here today has lived in her home for 47 years. The college house on the other side of her is a reason I decided to protect my own property. For those of you who have not lived in a neighborhood where college rentals have taken over, you have seen that they can negatively impact the quality of life. For those of you who do not have to deal with it, I need to explain to you about the midnight phone calls I can sometimes get from my neighbor who's on the verge of tears because it's Friday night at midnight and her bedroom walls are shaking from the base at the party next door. She does not want to cause problems at the college house, but she also needs to go to work at the nursing home inside of the morning. I do not want our neighborhood to become an extension of URI's campus. Let you are I build more upper-classmen housing. While many concerns with this article as it stands my concern for the calling of a seven-night minimum we need some rental support or local economy that's a given. I decide to take less money in the off-season not rent to college students and I rent my house for two or three nights on the weekends. These people are not coming to party they're mostly families and young couples. People stay for many reasons in the offseason, weddings, funerals, baptisms, families visiting, you're just a weekend away with less crowds. There are a lot of people that come in the shoulder months and spend significant amount of money into our local economy. When people come to the short weekend, they're not cooking, they're going out to local businesses and spending. Places like Georgia's where I work for five years will suffer. It's already hard enough for local places to survive the offseason. This will overall be bad for our local businesses. I understand where this bill is coming from, but as it stands with seven-night minimums, this will force people like me who are residents to rent to college students in the offseason. I've asked everyone or my surrounding neighbors, and there's an anyone that would prefer my house to become a college rental over an Airbnb next year. I'm not sure if people understand, but as someone who is a resident and a short term rental owner, with many friends in the same situation, passing this bill as is will make sure that all houses currently are being used in the office season will have no choice but to become college rentals next year. I know this is what you are, I would like, but this is not with myself or my neighbors would prefer. Thank you for your time. Applause. The next speaker is Tom Peary. You're going to be coming to the center and I'm going to be in that area. Are you here? I'll be with you in the center. Yes. Thomas Peary, THOMAS, AS, Peary PIRRI, 56 Overlook Road, in our answer. So I had written a couple pages worth, but after listening to everybody speak here, I'm not going to repeat the same thing over and over again. One thing that I did have that was a little bit unique was that it's kind of tied to the overall purpose of the ordinance, which in 155.4.1.c. says that certain forms of short term renting can negatively affect the availability and affordability of long term housing units. So like in other words the town has a problem. The problem is that there's not enough long term rentals which are affordable for people to live in flourish and now against it. I totally understand that. That's noble. It's a noble cause for you guys to take this up. However, implementing these draconian measures on short-term rentals only gets you partially there to meet this purpose. If you want more housing available for younger families, then the town should be finding ways to dangle carrots to developers and tax paying homeowners rather than implementing stick after stick after stick after stick. I hope that you guys do not pass this ordinance. I think some elements of the ordinance is valuable to regulate the routiness and the riff raft, but all of these measures are not necessary. I think that it's possible in some ways, why can't we just take things more in piecemeal and see how things go and see how those piecemeal items positively impact and achieve your objectives. Thank you very much. Pamela Sheffield. Yes. Pamela Sheffield, EAM, ELA, SHE, FF,LD. I live at, my summer home is 20 gasp e-road and I own a rental property next to, right next door, 16 gasp e. And I've tried renting to college students. And what happens is that they just, as was stated before, they just don't take care of the property. I've had marijuana being grown in the basement. Beebees shooting, Beebee guns all throughout the inside of the house. I had a service cat scratch up all the furniture in the home. So my husband and I decided we were going to try short-term rentals over the academic year. So people would come and do come for two or three days a weekend getaway. Their families, their quiet. They're not, I think the college students are more of a problem with noise and parties. But if like they said before, if someone's having a birthday party or a wedding, it's still right to do what they want to do in the privacy of their own home. And I think that this goes against the landlord's rights. It says right up there, liberty, justice. We have to think about what's right for the property owners also. We're paying the taxes. We're not sending our kids to school here, but you're getting the tax money. If I can't rent that property, I'm depending on that for part of my retirement income. My husband and I want to eventually move to Narragansett permanently, and then we'll have the rental property right next door. I don't want parties there, I don't want crazy, it's better for the neighborhood to have a short term rental. So I think the seven day restriction is, I oppose that. And I'd like to know how you're going to determine who gets the permits and how that's going to work. Because if I air be and be my property, sometimes, like it was said before, it's rented a year ahead of time. What happens if I don't get my permit? And I have that rental already booked. And the other thing is the restrictions on the bedrooms. Scabreville Hills was made for, it's a beach town. It's a beach development. There are little cottages there. The house next to me is three bedrooms. They're not 12 by 10. They might be 10 by 10. I Can't see why a couple can't sleep in one bedroom. Why has to be one person per bedroom? And also the parking restrictions 20 by 10. I mean, I have a garden You want me to just pave over the whole front of my house and have parking? So I say that just take a step back and just rethink this whole ordinance. And I hope that we come to an agreement that's good for landowners, that's good for the town, and just good for everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Lisa Beth Sanford. Hi. I do. Lisa Beth Sanford, LISA, High Fetton Capital BETH, S-A-N-F-O-R-D. Thank you guys for letting us speak. capital B-E-T-H-S-A-N-F-O-R-D. Thank you, guys, for letting us speak. It's really nice. I do appreciate that. But as with everyone before me, I oppose this ordinance, especially the way that it is written. And like Nancy said, it needs to be cooked longer, just a bit. Narrow cancer has always been and is still a seaside village, with tourism, a bustling summer retreat and a quiet winter enclave. Even with students, the rhythm is the same. And point to the, just driving down there the other night to go to Georgia's, I saw dark houses all over the place. And in the summer, those houses are filled with families, mostly from Rhode Island and North and neighboring states, making memories that shape a lifetime. Memories that brought most of these people here. And yet, this ordinance shows that this town council is not happy with that. You want to re-engineer the town and you're listening to a small portion of people and there's a lot of us, almost 1,100 property owners that are not being heard. That's not a representative democracy. With this new, this ordinance, as we've seen, has not had the stakeholders be part of it. There was no local short-term property rental owner, short-term property or any property managers, any rental real estate people involved in creating it, that would bring the balance that you bring up all the time. That would create the balance. And there's a lot that's been said. So I'm not going to repeat about it, repeat it all. And just like the night, no more than three ordinances, the repercussions will be very different than the purpose. Just like the No More Than 3 unrelated, you will reduce this supply, demand will remain the same, and prices will increase. And this will stop family vacations, but not all vacations. And just like the No more than three you will not stop large corporations. This will greatly affect small homeowners like myself with only one one one short term rental And there's been a lot of concerns being mentioned. I'm not going to go into the weights, but there's this I do not feel and I agree with a lot of the previous speakers that this ordinance will bring, will not bring, provide the purpose that you want it to. It will just, it will provide, it will bring up something else. So thank you guys for listening. And I really hope it does not pass. The next speaker is Ames Kaiser. Good evening. I do. Ames Kaiser, AMES, KAI, S-E-R. Hello. Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Ames Kaiser, owner of 139, it's a connet boulevard a, um, I appreciate the chance to speak. I appreciate everybody's testimony tonight. Um, everybody's made some really good points and all of which everything I had to say has already been brought up and I don't want to butcher everything that they said. So I'll keep it really brief. Um, I, I understand the concerns that have been raised about short term rentals, particularly through VRBO and Airbnb. I think that the rental registration that was implemented was a great step in the right direction towards landlords and property managers being reachable and accountable. I viewed that rental registration as at least one good thing that it did was it made everybody have a means of getting in touch with whomever was renting the property a quick easy means to get in touch with the property owner or the property manager. And I thought it was a step towards keeping people accountable so that their neighbors had a chance and a means to, you know, get in touch with them or get in touch with the property owner when there was an issue. And I think people should be accountable when they're short-term rental, long-term rental, college rental, whatever they're doing. I think it's extremely important for property owners who rent their homes for the summer to host guests who respect the neighborhood that they are renting in and respect the community that these guests are spending their summer vacation in. But imposing a minimum rental period of seven days is very concerning to me, particularly during the months of May and June and September and October, and of course during the winter as well. You know, July and August, I think it's not going to make a huge impact on most people who are currently renting because people like to come for a week. And if I recognize that you guys are going to pass some kind of short-term rental ordinance, and recognize the need for it. It's a growing industry and certain boundaries need to be made. And imposing a seven-day minimum during the middle of the summer. You know I think that's a compromise if compromise is something that everybody's trying to achieve. I think that's something that I'm not a big proponent of it but when you start imposing seven-day in May. Memorial Day weekend, people come for three days. They come, they enjoy Narragansett for three days and they leave. People aren't gonna come to Narragansett. They're not gonna come spend the weekend in Narragansett when their kid is graduating from URI, the weekend before that. They're not gonna come for just a nice weekend in late April or some of the nicest months in September and October, they won't come because people can't afford to take a week off of work or just can't afford a house for a week. It's almost like people would have to rent for a week, pay for a week, and just come and use the house for like two days, which people aren't programmed to do that. So you're going to be just having just a ghost town. After people, a lot of people can swing a week in the summertime, but after that, it's just going to be a ghost town. It's going to be like a boardwalk and, you know, a boardwalk community. And just everything's going to be, you know, boarded up the restaurants, the bars, the shops. They're all going to be bone dry on those weekends during those shoulder months in particular. And they make, you know, that's what they rely on to make the year work. You know, the summer's great, but those shoulder months are a big part of what makes it work for the year. And without that, I believe you're going to find many businesses just find it unable to stay afloat in their against it. And I don't think that that's the goal of this ordinance, but I fear that that's definitely going to happen, especially a business that's kind of marginal right now. Just could be a great business, an iconic business, but it might be a little bit marginal, dollars and cents. That kind of thing will, will push them over the edge. And I know there's plenty of those businesses out there, and I'm sure they're fearing that result of this. The other two points that I just want to echo is what happens to the people who are doing it right in terms of people who are renting the right way, the way that you or anybody would want to see the properties rent. The hardworking people in here that got up and talked to me, they're doing it right. And they want to see the other people who are renting do it right. And what I mean by that is screening your tenants, keeping your property nice, not allowing your guests to be a problem, trying to improve your neighborhood, trying to bring in good people that stimulate the economy for that week, All these good things. What happens to those people? Our house was a shambles when we bought it. We fixed it up really nice on the outside. It's now just as nice if not nicer than most of the houses on my street. It's a benefit to the people who live long term on my street or in my neighborhood. We love Narragansett. We have kids. We spend time in Narragansett. When we spend time there when we can, and when we can't, we rent the house out. I don't think that the people who are doing it right are the people who you're targeting in this ordinance. But these regulations are so heavy, and then eventually just the permits will dry up what happens to those people. And that is a question actually have. I don't know if you're able to answer questions tonight, or it's just you're just listening to our concerns, okay? Because I think that's something that everybody would like to know, like that exact answer, and I don't think it's addressed here. The people have been doing it right for have a history. There's no issues, there's no complaints, they have the rental registration, they pay their taxes, they've done everything right. There should be some kind of like those people are grandfathered or automatically granted a permit. I think if people knew they were going to get a permit, that would feel a lot better about this ordinance, or if that could be added into an amended version of this, where there's guarantees to the people who are doing it right. And if they continue to do it right, they're not going to lose their right to rent their property. Because if you don't get a permit, then what? Then you have, that's the only other point I have is if you don't get a permit, then yeah, a lot of people have to just sell their house. So if you have a bunch of people who sell their house, what do you envision is the result of that. Considerable amount like a percentage, 5-10% of the rental house, of the short-term rental owners, if they all sell their houses. That's 100 more houses, 200 more houses that are owned by people from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, you name it, who come in and use the house for a few weeks during the summer, not even eight or ten weeks, but a few weeks, and then they hire somebody to kind of winterize the house, cut the grass while they're gone, and that's it. And I don't think that is the goal of this ordinance either. And I think that's, I don't know if that's something that you guys are thinking is a likely outcome, but when people sell their houses, nobody's coming in here with two, three kids for the school system of buy a $900,000 house. And most of the houses are gonna sell for seven, eight, nine, a million, a million, one. Nobody can afford that. So if the goal is to get more young families and functional young families or people in town, I don't believe causing a bunch of people to sell their homes is going to achieve that. I appreciate the chance to speak. Thank you. The next speaker is David Povone D.A.V.I.D.P.A.V.O.N.E. So I moved to Narragansett. I first arrived in Narragansett in 1998 as a student of the University of Rhode Island. I lived here for a couple of years and then bought my first house in 2000, on Durkin Drive, where I lived there for six years. I now live in the community with my wife and three children, they attend Narrow Dance in schools. I've got one in each school. I'm sympathetic to the concerns of housing costs in Narrow Dance, but I don't believe that this organization is gonna have any impact on those housing costs in Narragansett, but I don't believe that this organization is going to have any impact on those housing costs whatsoever. The houses, I do own a rental. If I'm unable to rent my house short term, I may convert it to long term, but I don't think I'll be able to find a tenant who can afford the rent, so it'll likely sell it. And I likely sell it to somebody that's going to use it just a few weeks a year as a second home. So it'll be occupied maybe for July, maybe a couple weeks in August, and the rest of the time it'll be vacant. And I see that potentially the future of Narrow Gansett is going to be a lot of empty homes. Nine months of the year will be very active in July. It will be very active maybe in August, maybe in September when the weather's nice. But the rest of the time, it's just gonna be empty homes. Landscapers cutting the lawn, lights going on, and off automatically, but there won't be a community here. What we have is special. And for the record, I am not opposed to a two-tier tax system. One where the rental properties are paying more. This way, everybody in our agency can benefit from the rentals. It's all I have to say. Thank you. Next speaker is Paul Zonfrilo. So help me got Paul P.A. U.L. Z. O.N. F.R.I. L.L.O. Thank you. First of all, I'd like to take a minute to talk about entrepreneurship. The rental owners in this room are all entrepreneurs. They've incurred risk and they're ambitious people and they've gone out there to make money and There's really nothing wrong with that and they're here tonight to defend that money To defend their investment as they see fit The thing is this is about money and What's it driven this over the years? Last year Airbnb and VeeBro did $10 billion combined nationally. In 2008, there was no Airbnb. So people like to be very nostalgic about all the wonderful things that have happened to Narragansett over the years. I remember the back in the days when you had to rent, you had to have a two week minimum and call ahead. And what these Uber Airbnb type of services have done is skirted regulation that you normally have. So for example, if you said, you know, I want to open up a hotel and a neighborhood, you'd have to get certain permitting and certain regulations. But Airbnb is the enabling technology that allows that to happen. And it's been a plague on the whole United States. Not only Narragansk, but locally, Providence, Newport, New York City, San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, hundreds and hundreds of communities, countrywide, had their valuation skewed, their residential valuation skewed by this commercial activity. And as entrepreneurs and risk takers, if anybody told you that this was guaranteed money, they probably were right, but things have changed. The landscape has changed. And I don't know if this will lower housing costs. I don't know if we'll accomplish all the aims, but we have to roll back the effect of this regulation or lack thereof. All of the rental owners who've been here tonight are viewing this through their lens. They don't want more regulation. They don't want to reduce the profit. But these are just investment properties. These properties are no different than owning an index fund or owning a stock. And when IBM stock goes down, you know, I guess you can go to the shareholder meeting and complain. But that's the risk that you take when you invest in the stock. And I'll even stipulate that even if 100% of the landlords were awesome, let's just say they all are. And let's say everything they say is true. We have to take steps like hundreds and hundreds of communities in the United States to reduce the impact of commercial valuations. That's what it's really about. Does everybody know what's going to happen? I've heard a lot of theories here. Nobody really knows what's going to happen until we actually implement these. And they could be adjusted as time goes on. But there is so much money in this. Narragansett 2100, Mr. Knowness' organization, raised over $100,000 in 2022, and spent about $70,000 suing and lobbying the state. They spent about $1,000 on URI scholarships and waived the banner of how they're a community organization. I just wish they'd be more honest about it. It's about money. It's about entrepreneurship. And to ask the town, I've heard a lot about property rights and being on American, but the capitalism needs to be regulated. And it's really on American to ask the town to supplement your investment and your business activity. So is this a perfect ordinance? Probably not. We'll changes have to be made? Sure. But we have to start turning back to tie it. It's going to take more than this. The council has done a fantastic job. It's going to take more than just these one and two ordinances. Thank you very much. Next speaker is Christina Quinn? Is it? I do. C-R-I-S-T-I-A-N-A, last name, Q-U-I-N-N, one Mohawk Trail. I'm going to speak to what I think is the total opposite of what the gentleman just said. I think I represent many people in our community. I first came to our GANSET when I was less than one year old in 1963 to my parents' home as a summer home. When I was old enough, I bought my own home here. And I do rent it out short term because like many tonight, I've discovered that it is better to rent it out short term. But I think what's really wrong tonight is the ethics and the morality of this. Because I think that I represent many homeowners here in Narragansett who do short term rentals, who have been here for generations. We love this town. We love the full-time residents, but we also feel that we're an important part of the community. And we want to remain here. And if I'm forced to sell my home, it's not going to be someone who cares about this town, who's been here for three generations. It's going to be someone who comes in who is indeed a corporate investor or someone from outside the community, states and states away who can afford to leave my house empty all summer. I'm sorry, all winter. And that doesn't help the business owners. So the morals and the ethics of forcing people like me to sell our homes when we've come here for generations and for decades, I just think is terribly wrong. And I think that the premise of this is really flawed. And I think there are an awful lot of people like me. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Carolyn Plant. Yes. O-C-A-R-O-L-Y-N-P-L-A-N-T-E. As far as the Airbnb, Brian Chesky is one of the founders of Airbnb. And he graduated from Rhode Island School of Design. I worked there for 33 years. And he really did build a better bread box. I owned and used to look back in 1980, and we used to put a little ad in the paper and rent to someone that we never spoke to, so Airbnb does do background checks, people have reviews, and I feel like you know a little more. Anyway, that being said, I bought a house on Perkins in 2019 pre-COVID that nobody wanted. It's a four family. It's the end of Perkins. It's a dead end. I had enough parking. I could park 10 cars. I had a piece of land and back of my house. So I lived there. My daughter lives there. And we rent two units. And we do a lot of short-term rentals. And if you want to have weddings at the towers and at the beach club on Narrow Gantza Beach and the Dooms Club, people need a place to stay. That's mostly what we get. Two or three nights, people come to visit you all right. They go to a basketball game. Memorials, I open my place to my neighbors, family overflow. They just asked me what can, you know, my son and the kids and the nanny are coming or we're having a big memorial. I mean, I'm not, you know, not like we're performing a service, but these venues are booked all the time. And there's no Marriott. And I don't think anybody wants a Marriott in Marriott. My place is two little units, little kitchens. Nobody cooks. They all go to the crazy burgers around the corner. And unlike everybody here, especially you guys, everybody looks so happy. They arrive, they're happy, you can almost, you know, the what is right around the corner. My neighbors never complain, I have five star reviews. So I don't know where it came from that the short term rental is a bad thing. Maybe the transient, or if you're in a, you know, the neighborhood, oh, they're in and out, they're in and out. But because of the short term being somebody's in there every two or three days, cleaning, you know, changing linens, and I, we employ, my son-in-law does all that. That's his job. I, it's an important part of the community. I don't know. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I now for $250,000. It's gone. And it's not going to come back. If I don't make a lottery drawing, that we can't continue doing this. I mean, if I sold the house right around the corner for me, I'm Boone Street was a bed and air-baked B&B, and it's turning into a one family. Nobody mentions that. So that's a place where they had, I believe, seven rooms to rent. And there's also the side of it, maybe not any of us, but many people sold their homes and made a lot of money. And nobody stopped that from happening. The realtes didn't go to the realtes and say, stop this. Nobody's kind of for what to move in if you saw houses for $2.3 million. So it's done. I don't think you can turn it back. And I don't know. As far as the lower population in the school department, my guess is it's probably like that and many school departments statewide. That population is low school, you know, school age, high school kids. You know, so anyway, I don't support this ordinance. Everything everybody said is true and maybe parts of it, but to take people like me that, oh my God, we just bring everybody loves staying with us. We've had a couple from India. They walked with their son, college tours, all over town. And did they want to, they walked a black point from my house, which is all the way down Ocean Road with no sidewalks. We just had a couple come from Vietnam. I don't know. I don't know. I hope there's no kind of, we get all kinds of people. That's all I can say. Kids from brown, a few kids from brown will come and have a reunion. Obviously you are. I so I don't know. I think we do a great thing for the people who want to come to Narragansett, especially to go to events and visit URI. So I definitely am against the so-and-its. Get people together on our side of the ordinance, the ones that will and let us work together. Thank you. Applause That's the last name on the sign-up sheet. Is anyone else, wish to speak, General Minnetta? I do. Joseph Volpe, JOSCPH, Veeleg Victor, O-L-P-E, 19, I know it's been a long night. And the tenor of the conversations is that not everyone's a fan of this. But I'm not hearing solutions. And hopefully I can bring some data if you can hang in a few more minutes with me. And come up with a solution that I think is fair and balanced. For those of you that don't know me, I'm a 31-year resident, 30-year veteran of the Flyer Department, raising my daughter Gracie in a school system. I've been working hard outside the station for many years. I now find myself owning four properties, three of which are year-round homes. And one short term rental that I've been renting to families, I don't deal academically, since 2009. I'm extremely empathetic to the housing issues in town. I'm trying to do something about it. For example, I just renovated a house that was deemed uninhabitable just six months ago and last month signed a three-year lease with the year-round family. Additionally, I'm in the process of developing hopefully an ADU, which will provide another year-round opportunity soon. My main reason for standing before you tonight and I thought it was funny. Eric is here. He lives on one of the streets that I renovated the house on. He was opposed to the seven-night minimum and that's specifically why I'm up here. I am not opposed to the regulation. You're not going to find many homeowners or owners, landlords, more pro-regulation than I am. But the seven-night minimum where it came from and specifically why we're doing that year round is my issue. I don't want to eliminate the bad eggs, right? I think a lot of the regulation in there is going to do just that. I just spoke without part time rental officer and I think some of you may remember back when this all started, I had suggested that position. So I applaud you for developing that. That's gonna stop some of the problems, okay? And by all counts, it's working beautifully. Beautifully. I also think that this respect for neighbors needs to come from everybody, not just the landlords. Within a hundred yards in my house, and Madam President, I live on Harbor Island. 51 times the police will call to three, what we would call frequent flyers on the fire department. How's this where there's typically some issues? 51 times and all these properties were year round people. Not sure how to remember it. So I think the respect for neighbors needs to come from everybody, just something I want to point out in addition to what I want to go forward with. I want to get to some facts. Madam President, you had mentioned at a work session, Westley and Jamestown having 28 and 30 day minimums. You said to Google it, you worked to shift in Westley and that's where part of the language for this ordinance is coming from. At no point in history of Westley and Jamestown have they ever had a 28 or 30 day minimum. Never. And I'm not up here to embarrass anybody. I'm up here to get to the solution. But there comes a time where you have to be firm. You're talking about arguably one of the most important ordinances we've had in a while, property rights, and when you say something it carries more weight than anybody in this room. So I think we need to make sure we have the facts straight before we say that out of work session. You also mentioned Newport and I'm well aware what's happened in Newport. I'm well aware there have been in several parts of the town. But what if I told you that Perdue Eastbrook, their rental compliance officer, who I spoke with this week, there's 500 legal short-term rentals with a zero-night minimum. So here's a place that has 60 hotels, motels, and bed and breakfast, right? 60. And they have 500 legal short term rentals with a zero-night minimum. That's even more telling than the wrong information in Newport and I'm sorry, in West Dilly in Jamestown. By contrast, we have 66 rooms, 66 rooms in Narragansett. I get that number from the break, the Shore House, and Lindsay's adorable place on the avenue. I can't mention the anchor's clothes. I can't mention the Atlanta House. This college kids in half to have to hotel. And as far as the village in is concerned, I used to play ball for years. I traveled all over the country and I played in I stayed in some places. I wouldn't stay there with my family. And my simple question would be, would any of you? To recap, not Middletown, Port Smith, Tivitan, Restilly, Jamestown, the 500 legal ones in Newport have a minimum, zero. Even Lauren Carson, who's been behind a lot of the bills at the state house. It's all about registration and regulation. Certainly not restriction using false data. Let's talk about this affordable housing study in Mr. Crane. Okay? Some people might have got discouraged when they saw the seven-night minimum up on the screen his recommendation. Then he spoke and even his data and his pie charts contradict his own recommendations. We have to get back to the way summer's used to be where people rented by the week and used their house for part of a summer. I know mention of the offseason. I agree with Seven Nights. That's the travel trends in the summer. It stops the turnover issue, right? I'm 100% for it. People serve save all week, well, year I should say, for a week in Erragantin. I also believe that one in two nights are a recipe for disaster on holiday weekends. So I'm going to echo what I said at the first work session in 2022, seven nights in a summer and three in the off season. At seven and three, you still have and these regulations the most aggressive ordinance in the state, because what you're saying is wrong. Also, the pie in Mr. Krain's presentation has short term rentals as the smallest group only 5%. So why are we using a seven-night minimum year round when the bulk of the landlords are renting either summer or summer and academic combination. That number shrinks dramatically for the people that are just doing what I'm doing and renting short term. So it doesn't make sense. What is your goal? The goal or hope is that these properties will magically switch to year-round housing. For $1350 for a two-bedroom cottage from a slush fund that has $10 in it. He interviewed people at the piers and bars and he spoke to renters. No data from the Rhode Island Realtors Association, no algorithm, Madame President and Mr. Ferranti, you didn't buy those numbers. You can't tell me you bought those numbers. You questioned that the night of the presentation. And it furiates me that in the last year and a half we're even considering this. Maybe if we just block out everybody from coming, And it furiates me that in the last year and a half, we're even considering this. Maybe if we just block out everybody from coming, we're gonna get affordable housing. Take my house for example. The over generalization and the disdain makes people uncomfortable even coming up here. They're coming up here tonight because there's a hearing. Otherwise, typically they don't come up here. I have no problems. I invite you all to my house. I would invite you all to my house to see what I provide, speak to my neighbors, who wrote letters on my behalf in order to attain the properties that I got. I'm going to do one of four things. I'm going to fight this, right? That doesn't help affordable housing. And I think there's people that have a few more bucks than I do. I can leave an empty, right? I could just rent in the summer and leave an empty. That doesn't help. I can rent to college kids, like a few people said, and Mr. Ferrandi, 27,000 is a little light. It's close to the 30,000 is what I would get in the off season for three budgets. You said 27 last week. I think it's a little light. It's up to about 11 a.m. to beg for. Where I can sell it, I can sell it. And the data shows that at my price point, and this is without ego, I'd have to take a million dollars off the price of the house. And the data shows that the people that are buying it are from out of state. I'm almost done, Madam President. My last reason why the study was floored, actually I got a couple more pages. Singing now. Is it possible to have affordable housing study in Narrow Gantz with no mention of second homes? Councillor Lawler, I would never ask you to take off your town council hat, but I'm going to ask you to put on your real estate hat for a second, okay? Maybe you can help me with this second home thing. When it be unfair, if I said, we're going to look at second homes hard and fast, we need to discourage out of state investors from stealing homes from our young families. That be unfair if I was talking just about second homes and people that realtors are selling to out of state. That be unfair. Be ridiculous. Those people earn that right to have that second home, right? I can assure you I've earned mine. I broke my ass for what I have. I work second jobs. I put a lot of sweat equity into it. I parlayed it into developing year-round housing. My question would be which property, the out-of-state house or mine, brings more value to the community. If they can't stay here, they're going to go somewhere else. So my answer, and I know this is not just being biased, this is facts. Which brings more tax revenue to the town, which employs my linen service landscape, a cleaning service handyman, which fuels the local businesses? And this is the point where sometimes I lose you, right? This is the point where people think, like Mr. Zonfilo said, very eloquent speaker, by the way. It's all about the money, right? It's all about all I care about is the money. Our former president folded his hands, and he's not here, but it's part of the thought process, right? He folded his hands one night and he said, you come up here as if you care about the businesses. I try to be respectful when I come up here. I try to become. I joke that it's harder to come up here than go into a burning building last time, but I can tell you, I wish you would have pulled that with me, and it would have been the last time that you ever told somebody what they're thinking, because I do care about the businesses. I do care about my neighbors, and you're right. I care about my investment in the town that I've worked in for 30 years. Representative McIntee was at a work session with you and collaborated. The ocean fuels the engine in South County. She's out there encouraging outdoor dining, cleaning up the ocean, and we're shutting it down. It doesn't make sense to me. Not seven days year round. If you want balance, seven in the summer and three in the off season makes perfect sense. And the data shows it. Mr. Crane also thought it was unfair to limit the three viable hotels that we have, not limit them but to compete with them. He thought it was unfair. No legal recourse to this? No, you know, what was the legal, it's his opinion. A lot of that report was opinion. What I think is unfair is that there's 99 lots that we can build on. I think that's unfair. I think excluding visitors, people of lower incomes, because you have to stay a week, and there's no way to stay, I think that's unfair. We have a video on our town counts, on our town's website, visit our against it, come to our against it. The only problem is we have nowhere for you to stay. We have three hotels and you can stay in a room which is a completely different experience than a house. No grill, no yard, no barbecue, no fire pit, no mantle to take pictures on your Christmas cards. Lastly, what are we gonna do about Gracie, my daughter? She's grown up in a place that's gonna have crickets for nine months of the year. We don't have a downtown, we don't have Wakefield's main street, right? At least have some vibrant businesses, some shops, some restaurants. Affordable housing doesn't come from blocking it. It comes from building, planning, opening up some restrictions, ADUs. It comes from incentivizing developers. I'm not Jeff Sweeney. I'm not a big developer. Honestly, I decorate my house from watching HDTV. That's how I design most of my house. That's what I've got. Coastal Living Magazine and HDTV, if you want to honesty. All right? But next year, I'm going to have five and four will be year round. So we need to incentivize, I hope that's a word, people like me to do that, but what about these big guns? What about these big developers? I'm the lowest on the chain. If we do something with them, that's going to help. Lastly, someone very close to this who I respect very much, who I've spoken to a couple of times, said, you're never going to get the votes for 7-3. I don't care about the votes. What I care about is bringing the right information to the constituents and doing what's right. The chips are going to fall where they may and things have a way of working out for me. They always have. So I think if you're honest, that's what's gonna happen. My last recap, when misrepresenting ordinances, no local towns in the area are doing this. The planning boards own email, I have it, I have the copy of those ordinances to Madam President. The planning board's own ordinances, email, excuse me, email says college students and summer renters are adding noise and strain to the public services. Nothing about the short term shoulder season people. The affordable housing study sites the summer weekly recommendation more importantly shows only 5% of that pie is in the shoulder seasons. And Granicus, this was the most telling. Granicus is summary details that they had the first draft. I was happy. I was thrilled. I loved the first draft. I know you got to iron some kinks out, but the first draft didn't include the Seven Night Minimum. From September to May, they interviewed town council members and had phone calls with the town council members. And then there was a Seven Night Minimum. So if it's coming from you, I urge you to reconsider. Listen to my suggestion, and again, I'm all for regulation, not restriction, and I thank you for hearing me out this long. Thank you. So anyone else that wishes to speak at this public hearing? I think I saw the gentleman in the back of the first. Actually you know what, I'm sorry, I just noticed we were going to give our stenographer a break. It's kind of over the two-hour limit that I told her that we would stop. So we're going to take a short recess. It's 10 minutes okay for you or okay. So we'll come back in 10 minutes and we'll continue the public hearing. So 10, 10, 10, 10. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you I'm going to resume the public hearing. I saw some hands that were up. We called everyone up from the sign-in sheet. I saw last one was the gentleman in the back. And then I see, so we'll have that gentleman in the back. We'll have you next. I'm sorry. Sorry. I meant to. A rock. Yeah. Sorry. And then we'll have you next. Nope. I'm sorry. There's no sorry. I meant a rock. Yes. Sorry. And then we'll have you and then I think there's some hands to the right so wherever. Okay. Thank you. Yes. My name is John Hanley, J-O-H-N, H-A-N, L-E-Y, 10-Wildenest Drive, and there we are. So, I've listened to a lot of stuff tonight, and I'm certainly a proponent of the ordinance, so let's just get that out of the way. But I've also heard from some of these people that home owners do short-term rentals. And the story I hear is, well, we only rent to good people. We only do this. We only do that. Everything is just as happy to can be because we get good people in. We only do that. Everything is just as happy to can be because we get good people and the good people behave. We make our money and there's no adverse effect on the community. Well, that might be the case for these people. And believe me, if Walla Land owners acted like these people say they do, I don't think we need an ordinance, and I don't think we'd be here. You know, and we had another gentleman that came up and said, you have no facts. It comes up with all these economic facts. Maybe true may not. I don't know where they come from. But his theme is money, money, money. And really, this is what it's about. It's about money, and it's about quality of life and balance on the other side. I care only about quality of life in balance. Now, this ordinance has been a long time in the making. And people talk about bringing facts and talking about facts. I said, I live in a villager point, Judith. A little bit less than a year ago with spring coming on. I decided because there's a lot of talk about the short term ordinance even back then, because this has been around for a few years, far too long in my opinion. And I said to myself, well, what's really going on in the town? And I said, there would be better flavor would I get than to look at what's going on in my neighborhood, the Village at Point Judith. So I got online one morning in Airbnb and Vibio. I looked up every house that was for a short term in the summer in my neighborhood. There were 17 of them. Three houses advertised advertised, sleeping eight. Now these are mostly three and four bedroom houses in my neighborhood. A couple of them may have more, but that's somebody that took their closet or took their dining room like a lot of houses did. And now we have five, six, seven bedrooms. Three houses, sleep eight. One house, advertised, sleep 8. One house advertised sleeping 9. Six houses advertised sleeping 10. One house advertised sleeping 11. Two houses advertised sleeping 12. One house advertised sleeping 13. two houses advertised sleeping 14, and one house advertises sleeping 17. That's a three bedroom house. I said, this is outrageous. This is ridiculous. This is out of control. And you think about that and think of the negative effect that would have on any neighborhood. The garbage, the cars, the roadie behavior, the effect on the infrastructure. Think of this. And who would check and fact over here? They can check this one. They can Google this one too. One person uses between 60 and 100 gallons of water per day, one person average. If you take the low end and you look at that one house sleeping 17, that's 1,000 gallons a day of water being used. So some would be fall-ass, the town would let me wash my car once a week with five gallons of water. That is absurd. I don't know what else to say. There needs to be some semblance of rationality for this 17, 14 people. You know what that would do to the neighborhood? And it's a revolving door. They can do this every night. Who would even want to live in a place that allows that and that would happen? So for these people in my neighborhood, it's obviously about the money. Thank you. Name is Dave Keagel. That's DAVID, K-A-G-E-L-S. I'm at 85 Kenyan Farms Road. So I'm glad actually that got one up to speak before me, because I can address some of those points. I oppose this ordinance, let me make that clear. But I also think that 17 people in a three-better house would be ridiculous. This ordinance is definitely not the way to try to address that problem. You can have specific ways of dealing with really problem mental houses. And an individual basis, not letting, I don't know, how that even got through, any kind of checks. But that's ridiculous. But this ordinance is an insane way to handle that. Also, it's not just about the money. It's certainly not for everybody. So a lot of good points have been made by other people coming up here and opposing this, but I'll just give you some background on my family's experience. So we own some property on Salt Pond. It's been in the family for over 100 years. You've been in the vacation rental business for almost that entire time. We have houses that are a hundred years old that were built as vacation rents. This town has been that way for ages. Those are mostly summer cottages, first of all, so we don't even have the option to rent for students if we wanted to for most of these houses. So, the rental business is what allows us to keep the land in the family. The only reason we're not wealthy people, it's just the rental income, and it would be way less if we had to rent it by the season or by the month or anything like that. It needs to be weekly rentals for it to work financially. And one of the biggest problems with this is the shrinking pool of permits. That's one of the biggest problems I see with it. I agree with a lot of the other problems people have brought up. But we've been doing this for a hundred years. And with some no rules around the shrinking pool of permits, how are we supposed to have any confidence that we aren't just going to lose our ability to bring in the income to pay the taxes and maintenance from one year to the next. It's insane. And it's not just about money. It's not just about money. If we just wanted money, we just sell the property and walk away. It's been in the family for ages and we want to keep it that way. And you're saying that you're,'re saying that everyone comes up and says, well, they just rent to good tenants and no bad ones. And I'll have to say that we've had great experience with tenants. They love it. They come there. We've had families that have gone on like others to buy places in town and raise their kids after renting in their dance at our property. I'm sure there are problem tenants in some places. I'm sure there are problem tendences in some places. I'm sure there are problem properties that have way too many people stuffed into too few bedrooms. Do something specific about those. It needs to be targeted with the actual problem is. Because what you're actually proposing will instead run people like us out of town. If we just can't keep the property, we can't keep the business going. And a lot of local businesses will suffer the same way. What's going to happen if we end up selling the property is exactly what's happening at Cedar Point. And it's not that I have a specific problem with what's happening there, but what is happening, if you're not familiar with that, it's other or distant family members sold off some property just in the last couple of years. They're being developed into multi-million dollar houses. The lots alone are going for over a million and there'll be multi-million dollar mansions on them. This isn't going to turn into affordable housing if you run us off with this kind of legislation. It's just not going to do what you're saying it's going to do. It's deeply unfair. The first guy's point was an attorney believe, who come up here and said, don't make any legislation. It's like they'd bring lawsuits. When you ruin people's lives and their businesses and what they've built for decades, you've got to know that they're going to put up a fight. There will be lawsuits over this. If it passes, especially the way it is now, you've got to do something more reasonable. There are specific problems if they would dress them in a reasonable way. But what you're doing now is going to just bring a lot of lawsuits and a lot of trouble. That's all I have to say. Thanks. Thank you. The gentleman in the back. Thank you. The gentleman in the back. I do. Robert Shields, SHIELDS, 37 Earl's Court in Narragansett. I'd like to see you first of all, I'm a year-round resident. I've been here 26 years and I've been very active in town government in the HGC and in the Narragansett other charitable activities. So I just like to pass that along. And I'm going to speak extemporaneously. I have no notes. But what I thought was in the introduction with the list of objectives of this ordinance, it's merely, it means nothing. It's just words. It doesn't let, it doesn't outline any specific obligations, such as rebuilding the number of year-round homeowners. So that's my first objection to what's there. And secondly, in the body of the ordinance, which I've read mostly and scanned thoroughly, is that you've defined a number of square feet in each bedroom that you need for one or two occupancy. I found that laughable because actually you can't live in such a small space. Maybe you can for a day or two, but not for a week, not for a longer period of time. And frankly, if you pass this, it's going to encourage people to renovate homes in smaller bedrooms and to build new houses with the small bedrooms. So you're going to end up with something that's akin to Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, which is Cheek-On-Jowl, filled with houses that are overoccupied and have lost all character of the original town. So I think that's a danger that you're getting yourself into by passing this ordinance. I agree completely with one of the early speakers who said, and I think he's still here, that there's ought to be passed by town referendum during an election. I think you're making a change here, which is so dramatic that it should be not left to five people on the council but should be done by the town as a whole at least an opinion which you could consider. One thing I noticed in the in the size of the rooms is that I have a bedroom which is exactly the right size for two people. It has a queen bed. It has one bureau. It has one chair. It has one night table. It has one table for luggage and it's available only to our relatives and friends and no charge. But I think the point is that that's a hundred and that's that's a hundred and forty square That's 140 square feet. For you to say that you can fit two people in a bedroom, which is 120 square feet is nonsense. And the same goes for the 70 square feet for a single person. You can't fit more than a single bed in there. And you have to remember that there has to be a closet door and an entry door and at least one window in the room. They all take up wall space, which is not available for anything else. So I think you're kind of blindsided and everybody into thinking that these are adequate numbers in the ordinance. I don't think they are at all valid in this case from my own experience. Thank you very much. Mr. Haynes. I do. Winters of the INT ERSB, Haymes HAMES, E.S. The Third, Dirty Wood Avenue, Narragansson. I guess I should preface everybody wants to say how long they've been in town. I think I'm almost 70 years in town now. Before anybody up here was born with the exception of Deb. I think she was too. I am extremely opposed to this ordinance and what it does to this town. I go back to many, many years ago when my father was the Navy, we came into town. My two brothers, my mother, and we had to stay. We stayed at a B&B for three days while we looked around to find some place to live. This ordinance was an effect I might be living in any stretch now. I have no clue. But it doesn't, it tends to make there against it even more of an unfriendly place or an exclusive place which I don't think we want. The seven day ordinance or seven day period, I do disagree with this as well. People come in for the weekend. We've all gone away with our significant other for a weekend here, a weekend there. Narragansk, you shouldn't be shutting those people out. Those people come in and they spend money. If you look at the overall economic impact when the people coming in, take a local restaurant like Bikes top. I'll use Bikes top because I know the owners They get very very good food if nobody's ever been there. But if you make it something so even they sell one less pizza a week, $15 a week, 52 weeks, that's $780 out of their income. That's enough to pay somebody an employee for three weeks. Everything you do has an economic impact on the businesses, the people who own the businesses that live in town, the people that work in those businesses that live in town. It's, if you need to do something, I think you should look at this, revise it. The gentleman back here has some great ideas. I just don't agree with his seven-day approach to it in this summer. Three days I wouldn't have ejected three days. I look at the weddings in the towers, people come in for the weekend. My son runs a huge soccer tournament. Fills up every single room from Norwich, Dinaria, and Gansett. They're here for three days. We don't want those people, of course we want those people. We want those people in town to spend money and to support us. There's just so much wrong with this whole thing. You've got to go back to the drawing board basically and start over. We don't want to make the town and area against that exclusive town. Let everybody come, let everybody enjoy. That's basically what I need to say. Thank you. Thank you. APPLAUSE Is there anyone else that there? Sir. I do. Michael Mita, M-I-T-A. I want to start by thanking the people in front of me on the stage right now. I've run for public office. That alone was enough of a nightmare for my hard to go out to at the time that all of you put into the work that you're doing here in this town. That I think everyone in this room cares about. I am opposed to this ordinance. I am a property owner, a housing provider here in town and a business person here in town. And someone who spends a lot of time here with my family, my four children and hopes to make this my residence one day. I look at the process and like I said you're all volunteers you put a tremendous amount of time into this but I think there needs to be more engagement with stakeholders and when we've heard some of it tonight a lot of these points are being fleshed out on both sides. I think you hear a lot of housing providers, a lot of owners landlords coming up and saying, yes, some of this makes a lot of sense. I hear from residents and, you know, overwhelmingly the people have spoken tonight who are residents are opposed to the ordinance as written and I think we can bring stakeholders together and come up with a solution come up with several solutions that will do a better job of working toward the stated goals You know one of the speakers talked about money and it's all about money and money is a big piece of that of this. We have some of the lowest taxes in the state here in Narragansett. Thank the rentals. We have a fire department. Thank the rentals. We have wonderful schools that are affordable, tax-wise. Thank the renters. We have restaurants and shops. Thank the renters for that. So a lot of what we love about this town could change dramatically. And I don't know if it will. I don't know if, you know, as a real estate agent, one thing I do know is that if every September first for the next three years, a hundred homes come on the market that were previously rentals in a market that now sustains about 150 sales a year, that's going to have overwhelming repercussions. I don't know what those are specifically, but I don't think any of us do. And there have been a lot of opinions about who's going to move in, what's going to happen, as we try to change the character fundamentally of this town. And I don't think we know. And I applaud the time that you all are putting into trying to make the town the best place it can be, but this ordinance is big. And it will have heavy ramifications. And I don't think we know what those are. I know there are towns, seaside towns, maybe in the US that with no real economic drivers, no real job, large job providers that are able to attract and bring in a lot of young families without serious repercussions to the ability to school them all, maybe they do, and maybe those are case studies. But maybe that's not what will happen. Maybe like many folks have said, those homes will just go to people who are going to be here four, five, six, eight weeks a year. And the lights are out. We haven't heard from, I've heard many times that this is what the residents want, but the residents here overwhelmingly have said this is not what they want as written. So I'm wondering where those residents are, and if maybe those are, maybe they're in Florida, I don't know. But, you know, if maybe that's more of who we're going to have buying homes if they're, if we're flooding the market. So, excuse me. So I, again, I'm all for trying to regulate this. We've seen other towns work toward that, but I think we need to have a grass. We need to have a study of what the ramifications of every piece of this could be. So I appreciate the work, I appreciate the time. And I urge and you know, beg of you to take the time to hear what the folks have said tonight and hear the heart of it. And think about what the goals of this ordinance are and how sure we are that the outcomes of this action won't diverge from those aims and see if we can find a better way to achieve those aims. Thank you. I will go. Um. Sir. Dr. Alba, is it required that I say I'm doctor or I can just give my name? No, just on. Yes. But it's not necessary required. It's Armand Everaim for 72 King's down road. Spe, except for two of you. And by the body language on two of you, I'm sure you're not impressed by anybody speaking here tonight because the body language itself is rather, is respectful. I am opposed to this just like everybody except for Mr. Zamferello and the other older gentleman at Yanjit his name. But this is a very old case. I remember I just moved to this town seven years ago, but it was two councils ago. And they were talking about the same case. I wish you would decide one beer another on what you want to do because capital finds a way to make itself work. I'm personally not really a landlord. I never saw myself as one, but my parents and my sister's family lived in Kingstown since 84. So when I retired, I moved here. And as a venture capitalist, I can live wherever. So I like this place, I chose this place. And I bought a house, so it's large enough that my wife and I can live there and then my family and children visit, they have a place to stay. Well, unfortunately, they only like to come during summertime. Rest of the year, I beg in Kajol, they come a weekend two days. I can't even get my family to stay here more than two days. And you guys want me to get a renter come here for seven days in off season. I don't know what else is substance. Anybody who drew this is on, but I say that because two of you guys have been sitting there with your hands crossed and with very disrespectful body language. It is not becoming on elected officials. And I must have you that. Now, to the matter of time, if you pass this or not pass this, do one thing or another. This has been going on enough for, I know, at least six years. If you decide to pass it, people like me have a choice. I can move to bar and stable. Or I can stay here. At the same time, you're going to make it so attractive for a venture capitalist. Not to take advantage of this. And with this rule that if you pass, it becomes so attractive to start a fund or a group that builds cookie cutter houses with three bedrooms or if the state succeeds, if the limit is five, with five bedrooms, and rent to students, and raise in the money. Now, I love this place. I don't like to do that. But if you really force people's hand, capital will find a way. This is not Russia. This is a capitalist country. Money works. You can make judgment calls, whatever, or it's money, money, money, it's this, this, this. While other people live in Florida half the year, they claim residency here. Their car license plate is Florida. I don't know how that happens. But at the end of the day, life's too short to deal with this kind of nonsense. I don't know where you guys think you come from. Well, excluding two of you, which I have a lot of respect for. Do you think you're dealing with a bunch of children in this town? You just pull numbers out of your hat. You give money to a company to doctor up your prescribed formula on what works for town. Thank you for the gentleman, the fireman, to give you data. Most of us know this stuff. So, I don't care which way you go, go one way or another, but do something. Money will find a way to work within that. And if you pass this, I guarantee you this will not be a better town, but it'd be a better place to make money. That's all I have to say. Anyone else wishing to speak? Is there anyone else? Council President, let's have the our town sergeant walk through and just make sure that everyone here who came tonight would like to speak had an option to speak tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, saying no one. They're wishing to speak from the public. I will go back to the council for any comments or thoughts. I'll start with Councillor Covex. I know I was good on my left. Councillor Foreandy would you like to start off? You don't want to go? We'll go right to left. Okay. Thank you and thank you everyone for participating. My point on this ordinance is this isn't really a new situation that just popped up. This isn't something that somebody is trying to be mean to someone about. These are points that have been happening to this town for quite a while. It's been accelerated a little bit with the, quite a bit, with the short-term rental ordinances, or non-ordinances. So the key points are the previous councils have worked on this in the past. Two, three, four, five years. We, you know, people have been thinking about this. The councils continued with a consultant who had helped other towns and has given other information to other towns and helped them out with their work and on their short term ordinances, rental ordinances. The town has vetted these ordinances through a very highly regarded law firm, desisto law firm, to help down the legal aspects. So this just isn't something the town has been looking at and just wants to get even of anything like that. This is just something that a lot of other towns have been limiting or not limiting the other of other towns have been ordaining some of these short term rentals. A lot of other cities and towns have it. If I believe Providence, it's not allowed in a, it has to be only on a rocket part. Other things like that. So these are reasonable measures to help the balance for our town. And with all of our residents to peaceful of coexist, including renters, students, and vacation is that come here. And you know, some of the comments about things can't be turned back. This isn't about trying to turn back anything. This is just about some balance, to bring some balance measures. And you know, a lot of this town is defined by a lot of people that don't necessarily put roots down here and live here. That's what we really like to see. That's what personally I'd like to see is people have roots here and live here. You know, many times people have said, yes, I have to buy the house because I can't retire here unless, but it's all about an investment a lot of it. It's a big part of this, real big part of it. So, you know, we wish everybody that said they were going to retire here comes tomorrow. You'd never be another house for sale again in arrogance. So these are just some balanced measures and that's my point about it. Thank you. So I want to say thank you to everybody for sharing your opinion. And I want you to take a good look at this council. I'm finished in November. This is a council that is full of restrictions, parking, housing, beach access. I voted no for the three students, no for the student unrelated. I want regulation. This is nowhere near being ready. This has a lot of questions. You all targeted them tonight. Lots of unanswered questions. We need to get more people involved so we can hear the voice of the people. I don't want to pass this tonight. I want to step back. I want to do the right thing and get it done the right way. We moved on time parking. I don't know if you read about that. It's a disaster. So we need to step back, take your input, take your feedback and redirect and rethink. It's not about passing it for a November election. This is going to impact this town for years to come. The longstanding council person, I've lived here 50 years, this town is wonderful. We accept residents and visitors and we welcome that. I grew up 8 years old looking at the same thing some of you looking at. And regulation is something we need, but we need to do it in a collaborative way, not just by, you know, passing it tonight because there's a lot of things in there that need to be corrected, who's going to get the permits. How are those people going to apply? The days, they've had 30, they moved it down to seven. That's great for some people, but it's not for the people that want to come in and have a place to stay. We do have to spend some time in it it and I'm going to urge this council as they share with you tonight. They need to step back. They need to get it right and they need to hold it up before they pass an ordinance that is going to impact this town for years to come. I agree with so much what Wood's do you said and you said it quite well. This weekend we received an awful lot of emails and I received an awful lot of phone calls. They were very different types of things. The phone calls were because people went to their mailbox over the weekend and they found their re-evaluation. What the property is worth for now. And the emails were from landlords. And the majority of them were from landlords not in this room, but landlords who are out-of-state landlords who have no connection to this community whatsoever. And the ironic thing about it is that there's direct correlation because of the properties that have been purchased, especially over the last few years, overmarket value, the evaluations for this town have skyrocketed, 30, 40, 50%, higher. I also find it really ironic that two of the people that spoke tonight who are involved with the 2100 group are at the state house talking about affordable housing trying to make sure that the state house has rules on zoning that can force towns and communities to change their zoning our walls for affordable housing and it's the same folks here tonight that are talking about the fact that they want to be able to have the property rights to make income. It is about the money for you. Not the folks here tonight that are from Narragansett. I see that, and I wish there was a way that we can carve out so that you could have an owner-occupier you could have someone who's in town. It's the out of state landlords who have bought out this town, who have made the evaluations go up so high that the people in town are upset about it. And I agree with everything that Steve said, and I also want to point out that the town council president was called out tonight, and I just thought that was really disrespectful. Councilor Copaic. So, answer co-pike. That's better. Can you hear me now? Yes. Great. So, first I want to thank you all for being here and all the folks who aren't here anymore. I'd like to thank them for having come as well. I think we learned to some interesting points. I absolutely believe that we need short-term rental in ordinance. I think that the problem goes back many years because we had never, we had not addressed the issue. I mean, short-term rentals, I always say they sort of creeped up on us. And I mean, I've only been on the town council for three and a half years, but this has been, you know, been coming for a long time. And I think that, you know, when there's an opportunity to utilize, you know, a new technology to utilize anything, people are going to do that. I have respect for that, but I also think that in a town like Narragansett, we have some issues. Somebody raised some of the issues that are associated, I think it was Mr. Handley raised the issues about the use of our infrastructure, which I think is, which is really important to me as anybody who ever hears me hear, knows. I think that's a really important piece to consider. And I think one of the problems that happens with short term rentals is there are a lot of people. They come for a lot of reasons. Many of them come for reasons that are celebratory. Celebratory. I can'tatory, celebratory. And they're not thinking, and I don't blame them because I think when I go someplace else, I don't really think about what's the environmental impact of what I'm doing in this place that isn't the place that I live in. And so we need to look at all of these things and make decisions. Have some concerns with the ordinance as it's written. And I had actually a whole list of things that I wanted to talk about. And I don't quite know how to make that happen. I read the planning boards document to us and they had some recommendations and ideas that I think also could be incorporated into this document as well. Listen carefully to what everybody said tonight. I was particularly impressed by what Mr. Volby had to say. And I think it's worth taking a look at the notion of offseason, some kind of short-term rental that works for offseason because I agree that, you know, weekly won't work. And if that means that people are going to begin to rent their houses, particularly to students, we do have a balance issue and I have no problem with students. I have absolutely no problem with tourists. I see many, many, many of them because I live right on point you to throw it. And but there is an inappropriate balance in terms of all of these things. So I also do accept the idea that a seven-day minimum for, or not a maximum, seven-day minimum, during the summer, it makes a great deal of sense. It's a traditional thing here in this town. I've rented houses when I wasn't living in there against it for seven days in the summer to bring my children here and to also visit with my family because I am from Rhode Island. So I'm glad about that. I think that's a very good thing to do. Certainly it makes more sense than the 30 days. So I'm not going to go through all the things that I wrote after reading through all the things that I read. But I do think we need to look at this and make some changes. And I know that it's possible that we could go with this ordinance and make changes as we learn more and more about how this works. But I think in some cases we need to fix some things that are already here. I have some concerns about issues related to enforcement, particularly the idea of the building inspector's office and the fire department and the work that they would have to do to inspect what could be as many as 1100 or more houses on an annual basis. I think that's something I need to understand better and I don't, so that's a problem that I have. I'd actually feel better if we could work out some of those details. And I mean, that's kind of how I feel about it. I do appreciate what we've heard tonight, but I will tell you that there are a lot of people who are not here tonight who, for whatever reason couldn't make it, and who have concerns about their neighborhoods and the idea of having a multitude of people coming through on a regular basis. It's a little bit unsettling for many, many people in this town, and I have heard from them even though not as many as I'd hope would be here today were. So that's where I stand. It's an amazing thing to get 25 people come up to that podium and speak, it's not an easy thing to do. So I truly appreciate you having done that. And we'll see what happens. Thank you. So some of my thoughts. Well, we do, there are, I know, a majority, pretty much all the individuals that showed up today to speak on this ordinance are in opposition of it, but as Councillor Copec has mentioned, we did receive a lot of emails and calls and in support of this ordinance. I know that sometimes individuals can't come out or actually some of them are just a little bit scared to come out and there's a lot of reasons. But we have heard from a lot of the residents as well who support, who wanted this ordinance. I was on the last council as well and I have actually changed my stance on the fort when I was saying it should be four students and I came to the three students. So I, by listening to everybody, I changed my thought process. So this council term, when I was running for office, when I left the last council term, I wanted to implement a short term ordinance. So there should be no surprise that, you know, we were going to be working on a short term ordinance. It's part of the three things that were a focus for affordable housing. And that included the bulk zoning, which is the floor area ratio, which was passed by the council. There was also the three student ordinance that passed this year, and we had the three unrelated. So that was the second piece of it, and the third piece of it is the short term rental ordinance. Again, this town is not unique to having a short term, you know, issues with short term rentals. There's really a lot of towns within this state, as well as nationwide. We see it all the time. I see a lot of communications. I'm forwarded information. And last term, we did. We took a step back and we said, OK, let's try to get help on this ordinance. We started off with a 30 day and that was just more of a work session and we heard from the community and that was also when we hired Granicus, we sent the work session, we showed like what the community was concerned about. So that was taking into account, so it's not like we weren't, obviously we know what landlords and property owners are gonna be concerned about. So that's not something that, you know, a third party vendor would not take into consideration. Again, when we looked into hiring an outside party, it was for best practices. And so that's what was implemented. We actually took the second step, which was we hired an outside council. We didn't have to do that. We could have just done Granicus, but we wanted to make sure it was vetted appropriately. It was legally sound. We worked tirelessly on this. And with our solicitor, there's a lot of work and effort that went into it. And again, we're not prohibiting short-term rentals. We're not. That's not the intent of this ordinance. It's regulating it. It's having that balance. And everybody comes up and says, oh, the nuisances have gone down or there's no nuisances and all that. That's not what I talk about. When I talk about like these ordinances, I want to see balance in the town. And that's my motivation and seeing year-round families. And just, you know, having community, like a sense of community. You know, I'm blessed to live in the neighborhood that I live in. We don't have that many short-term rentals, and we have a great community. Mr. Providence, part of that neighborhood as well. I love living there. And I bought my house back when shortly after I graduated and I moved away, and I rented it year-round. I didn't want to do short-term rental because I am considerate of my community. And so I rented year round. And when I moved back in 2008, we've been there. We've been part of that community. And we absolutely love it. And, you know, I want to see more of that. So, again, you know, it's been a long process. We've had different iterations of it, I think last time time when we were going to put it on before it went to planning, it was going to be no days limits. So it wasn't going to be a seven-day limit. It was just going to be based on regulation. And we do have, again, we're going to have a process for regulation, and we're going to address that. We've had these conversations with our building official, fire safety, so it's not like we're blind sighting anyone with an ordinance like this because those individuals have been part of the process. So I know there were some questions with who gets the permit and who gets all that. What I do want to do is ask our town solicitor if, you know, this is, it's not part of the ordinance right now, but that's a procedural thing and I just wanted your comments on that if I'm not. Right. Obviously it's an important part of administering the ordinance, but it doesn't need to be in the ordinance. So the administrative operational issues absolutely need to be identified, written and communicated, but they certainly do not need to be in the ordinance itself. Okay. I can't get that. Sorry, just have a couple more points and then I'll go back to the council. So again, as I mentioned, I think it should be an increased quality life for everyone by letting everybody in the community, when the planning board addressed this, it was about trans-incy. It was about, you know, people coming in and out of your neighborhood. So if you're living in a house and you have strangers coming in and out of your house constantly, and that's in line with our comprehensive plan. And again, finally, I want to see an increase of full time in your residence. And is this going to increase housing affordability? And when we went to the seven days it was based on the study like we we've actually gets information we get studies and we have the housing studies we have the parking studies then we get these reports back and it has information it's it and you have to act on this you don't just continually get the same go out and get reports and studies and just kick the can down the road and not do anything about it. So again, ordinances can be tweaked, they can be changed. There just needs to be a starting point somewhere. I think we've put a lot of time and effort into it and a lot has gone into this and thought, like again, it's been thought about a lot has gone into this and thought, like again, it's been thought about a lot. So I think it's a good ordinance. I know there's a lot of individuals out there that are opposing it, but we've come a long way and it's been a process. And I think the process of in sound is, it is a legally sound ordinance. Of course, not everyone's going to like it. With any issue, as we all know, there's two sides. There's going to be those who support it and there's going to be those who oppose it. And I'm going to support this because I think it's important. 10.30. Yeah, we should have extended. Make a motion to extend it. Okay sorry we're at the 1045. In the glasses. So we just need to make a motion to extend it. So moved. Second. All in favour? Aye. All opposed. Motion to extend. Motion by Councillor Lawyer. Second by Councillor Cop Aye. All opposed. Motion to extend. Motion by Council Law, seconded by Councillor Copec. Motion passes 5-0. I will, if any of them, my council colleagues have any other final thoughts? I just wanted to ask a solicitor a question. If the Affordable Housing Trust Collaborative wanted a percentage of the money on the fines. Would that have to be in the ordinance or would that be separate? That could be separate. Okay, thank you. So I just have one more concern. And that is, you know, although we can do administrative changes, you know, whatever that doesn't have to be in the ordinance, the problem is in my mind is that the ordinance takes place upon if effective upon its final passage, which if it passes tonight, it would pass two weeks from now and we don't have all those details in place. And I think there's a time factor here because I assume that what we would be doing this is as of September 1. And I believe that if I'm not mistaken, it's also exclusive of anything that's already been booked by anybody. Is that right? Yes, correct. So I'm not sure people understood that. So for any of the realtors who have booked stuff into next year or whatever, those would be honored. So I just want to make that point. But the important point to me is that for me, the devil is always in the details, and we have to figure out a way to make sure that we get the details done. I think that was a little bit of a mistake that we made with the parking ordinance, and thus there was confusion. And I'd like to, if we're going to do this, if we're going to do this, we should eliminate the confusion to the best of our ability and I don't feel like we've done that. So again, the second, like we could have this figured out by the time of the second reading, the second reading doesn't have to happen in two weeks, it's just more of, you know, again, it's a procedural process issue to have the details lying ironed out. And that would be good, except that in past history, most recent history, we have not modified anything in a second reading, including no discussion. So that's also a problem. So there's not, it's not the, it's I'm talking about the process like of the questions that were asked procedurally, not the main bones of the ordinance, but basically, you know, there were questions asked like, how are we gonna delineate who gets those, those. So we have a list. It's pretty lengthy list. So then we would kind of, yeah. Sorry, Councillor Ferrandi. Just my comment is I think the solicitor has stated that, it's an administrative process within the staff that carries it out. We had the same issue with the three student, the three unrelated, the three unrelated, the four unrelated, the staff has been carrying things like that. They've been, you know, violations sometimes they go to court so it's been going to the zoning board. So I think the staff is completely competent in this plenty of time to, you know, for the staff to get ready for September. That's just my comment. I don't think we have to, not that every little detail, but I think you have a confident staff that can follow it out. You have a tall manager that will manage the staff and I think it can be laid out correctly without having, you know, any more delay. Thank you. Final comments from the council. Again, I support housing regulations when the ordinance is fully ready and I'm administrative or not, this ordinance in my opinion is not ready to be passed and enacted right after we vote for it. It's just not ready. So I'm going to either abstain or go now. All set. Okay. So do I have a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Second second all in favor I All opposed motion by council lawler second by councilor Copic motion passes five zero So getting back to the agenda of new business from the building and zoning department since this is the motion to introduce, so since we've already had the public hearing and we've heard from everyone that wanted to speak on this ordinance, this is the first reading. So we're just going to read the motion and take a vote on it. So this is a motion to introduce, read, pass, and accept as a first reading, an ordinance, an amendment of chapter 14 of the Code of Ordinances of the Town of Narragansett, entitled, businesses, specifically Article 16, entitled rental dwellings, reordering Article 17 solicitations and adding a new Article 17 entitled short term rentals. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Nay, I'm going to abstain. Okay. So motion by Councillor Lawler, second by Councillor Copec. Three in favor, one opposed and one abstention. The motion passes. Next up from the town clerk's office, we have a motion to approve the petition from John V. McGreen Esquire on behalf of his clients. Christoth L. Vahammerlick and Lisa M. Horricks for the abandonment of a portion of Conch Road adjacent to 22 Conch Road. Assessors Platt R2, Lot 216 with two, a lot to 16 with the stipulations recommended by the planning board. So moved. Second. Okay, so just for discussion points here, we discussed earlier that there is no ordinance in place right now in progress for being able to, Salah Lansso, would somebody like to make a motion to continue? So moved. Second. Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Okay. Going back to the main motion. Ms. Tarrell. So do I have to go back to the main motion as amended? Or just continue, continue, you don't have to, right? Okay. We're good with the continue. Okay. So the motion is continued by zero and then we have a motion to introduce, read, pass and accept as a first reading for an ordinance and amendment of chapter 70 of the code of ordinances of the town of Narragansett, Rhode Island entitled taxation and finance specifically section 70-4 entitled compliance with state law. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed. Motion by Council Law, our second by Councilor Copic. Motion passes five zero. by Council Law, our second by Councilor Copic, motion passes 5-0. Lastly, we have a motion to retire to executive session of the town council in accordance with Rhode Island General laws 42-46-4 and 42-46-5A2 for the purpose of discussing litigation, specifically, Nair Gansett, Pierre Brayroll Company, incorporated versus the town of Nair Gansett, 124 CV0094 MSNPAS. So I have a motion. So moved. Second. Roll call, please. Deb Copic. I. Jill Lawler. I. Evaculonski. I. Susan Sicily, a banana Jill Lawler, aye. Ava Trishinski, aye. Susan Tussillion, banana, aye. Steve Ferrandi, aye. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Second by Councillor Copic. Motion passes 5-0. We will be back for the disclosure of executive session votes and adjournment after- Councillor Prèskent, do we need to extend its five-o? We're going to be an executive session, do we need to extend the meeting Janet? Not for executive session. Okay. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Okay. Okay. We're back from executive session. First, I need a motion to extend. So moved. Second. All in favour? Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Second by Councillor Copec. Motion passes. By the zero. Okay. So we as a town were served with Lossi from the Narrow against Peer Railroad Company. So we had a motion to have our solicitor engage with the system law firm to provide defense not covered by the trust. The motion that was motion by Council Lawler, second by Councillor Copic, motion passed for one. And lastly, we had a motion to exit and return to regular session, motion by Councillor Lawler, second by Councillor Copic, motion passes, passes, past five zero. And lastly, do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion by Councillor Lawler. Second by Councillor Copec. Councillor Sussley. Bonanno. Did you vote? I didn't hear you. Motion passes.