BY TED SHOCKLEY, Eastern Shore Post —
The concern about vacation rentals on Saxis Island intensified during a recent Thanksgiving holiday. Two elderly women booked a short-term rental. In all, 18 people showed up.
“They put the dining room table and chairs in the front yard and had Thanksgiving dinner,” said Saxis Mayor Denise Drewer.
There have been complaints of late-night parties, early-morning trespassing, and indiscreet public urination involving the occupants of Saxis’ short-term rentals.
But the process of regulating the rentals in the town of Saxis, a Chesapake Bay community with a working harbor and a population of 152, has been balky.
The town council enacted an ordinance restricting the rentals but never advertised the new law or advertised a public hearing.
After the town council hired an attorney to ask a judge to prohibit property owner Todd Ellison from running a short-term rental, Ellison sued the town. In Ellison’s counterclaim, he said the original ordinances were void, “arbitrary and capricious.”
On Monday, Oct. 5, the town council approved a new short-term rental ordinance after advertising the change and holding the public hearing, as required by the state code.
In all, about 40 people attended the meeting, which was held in council chambers at the town fire hall. One resident arrived by bicycle. Another arrived in a golf cart. One woman held what looked like a newborn baby. Another spoke and then left, saying she needed to get her children to bed. A man was washing his car in front of the fire house as attendees arrived.
“I think it’s the largest turnout we’ve ever had for a meeting,” said Lee Miles, the vice mayor.
The new ordinance caps at 10 the number of short-term rentals — commonly called Airbnbs or VRBOs — the town can have at one time.
The ordinance stipulates that non-resident owners of short-term rentals must live within a 50-mile radius of town. It prohibits large parties, weddings, or “commercial gatherings” at short-term rental properties.
Speakers at the public hearing feared Saxis’ closely knit fellowship and neighborly charm would be eroded with a plethora of short-term rentals.
“We don’t want to end up like a little Chincoteague, Ocean City, Cape Charles,” said Aubrey Justice. “Let’s keep Saxis, Saxis.”
Town council members said they tried to be fair to people’s property rights but also wanted to curtail problems.
“We had to come up with a solution,” said Denise Chance, a town councilwoman.
The room erupted in applause after the ordinance was passed.
Ellison, whose counterclaim against the town has yet to be heard in Accomack Circuit Court, wrote a letter to be included with public hearing comments.
The letter questioned why the town chose a maximum of 10 short-term rentals, how they will be selected, and the 50-mile residency requirement.
In Ellison’s counterclaim against the town, his Virginia Beach-based attorney, Joseph V. Sherman, said Saxis’ “ordinances operate to take and damage property rights without payment of just compensation.”
“Even if properly passed, the ordinances are unconstitutional,” Sherman wrote in the complaint. He wrote that “they do not serve a compelling government interest.”
During a pause after the ordinance passed, Drewer talked about the front-yard Thanksgiving — and the reason she owns a number of the town’s short-term rentals.
She said she has owned rental properties for more than 30 years — buying Saxis homes in poor repair and then renovating and renting them.
Within the last decade, she began renting the homes for short stays after Saxis natives who had moved away contacted her for availability so their families could enjoy some time back home.
Drewer abstained from the short-term rental discussion and even turned over the meeting to the vice mayor, acknowledging it would be “a conflict of interest” for her to participate.
As some attendees left the meeting, they complimented Drewer’s work rehabilitating homes and thanked her.
