WINONA LAKE – Three items on the Winona Lake Plan Commission’s agenda Tuesday included short-term housing rentals, a funneling ordinance and the proposed Tuscany subdivision.

The bulk of the meeting was spent on short-term rentals, which the commission has discussed in recent months.

President Dave Turner asked the board if they had read (House Enrolled Act No. 1035) on short-term rentals. The city of Carmel is in litigation with the state over its rules involving short-term rentals and the state’s, which the commission also has been discussing.

“Yeah, I read it. Jill (Serbousek) and I were talking when we first came in. You guys have all read it. What I see is, you can’t treat them any differently than any other rentals. That’s what I see this act says,” Rick Swaim, commission member and town councilman, said.

Serbousek said there was an exception in the very first section of the state law. “It says this chapter does not apply to a unit that has adopted a zoning ordinance or any other ordinance before January 1, 2018, that prohibits, regulates or restricts short-term rentals in any manner,” she said.

She said the town of Winona Lake already has tourist home and boarding house in its ordinances “which is restricted to RB (single-family dwellings, two-family dwellings), RC (single-family dwellings, two-family dwellings, group house and garden apartments and apartment house) and commercial. It’s not allowed in RA (single-family dwellings)” districts. “So does this chapter apply to us or not? So does it apply to short-term rental or not? And that’s a legal question. I think that’s the question Carmel is asking.”

Turner said that paragraph is part of where the problem is between Carmel and the state because Carmel wasn’t permitting short-term rentals.

Serbousek said Carmel based its ordinance off a previous ordinance. Town Coordinator Craig Allebach asked, “So they’re saying that, not that they had a new ordinance but they had an ordinance even before that, too?” She said yes but that the state said after Jan. 1 a unit can’t amend an ordinance but the state law says otherwise. She read, “A unit may amend or delete any provision of an ordinance described in subsection 8 after Dec. 31, 2017, without complying with or becoming such with this chapter.”

She said, “I think that’s where the legal battle is, is do our current or previous ordinances apply or not?”

The definitions of tourist home and boarding house, she said, “is basically what Airbnb is doing. Airbnb is simply what they call a forum, a platform. A short-term rental platform. It’s basically a website. So I think that’s the legal question everyone is going to come back to: Does the chapter apply or not to communities’ previous ordinances?”

Allebach said the town already had an ordinance in place and it’s not been amended for 50 years. He said the town’s definitions should stand if there was a legal challenge to them.

Serbousek read the town’s definition on a boarding house. It’s a building not open to transients where lodging and/or meals are provided for compensation for three or more but not over 30 persons regularly; a lodging house.

A tourist home is defined by the town’s ordinances as “a dwelling in which overnight accommodations for not more than 10 transient guests is offered for compensation.”

“Which is your Airbnb,” Bruce Shaffner, commission member and council president, said.

Serbousek suggested the town should keep doing what it’s doing in regards to short-term rentals, but keep an eye on the issue as it develops.

Turner said the town may want to consider having such rental properties inspected on a regular basis. Swaim agreed and wanted to know how many rental properties there were in the town.

Building inspector Gene Seiman said an inspection takes about 15 minutes, depending on the property and what he was looking for during the inspection. He said he would be able to determine how many rental properties he had on file, but there may be some he wasn’t aware of.

Turner suggested forming a subcommittee to look deeper into short-term housing rentals.

One of the issues in the county affected by the rentals is the innkeepers tax, Allebach said. If a homeowner is granted an exception to have a short-term rental, he said they should be registered and have to pay the tax.

Shaffner, who owns Wyndham Gardens hotel, said the innkeepers tax is 5 percent but if someone stays 31 days in a lodging, they don’t have to be charged the innkeepers tax. “That’s considered long term. But anything less than that, I have to charge them,” he said.

Serbousek said the part the town of Winona Lake is missing in its ordinances is the periodic inspections of the short-term rentals.

Tuesday’s meeting started with further discussion on the Tuscany subdivision developers’ plans to provide wells for the 33 lots.

At the June meeting, the plan commission talked about requesting the subdivision developer, Oakmont Development, Fort Wayne, having water lines instead of wells and that the cost wouldn’t be much more than wells. The plan commission had approved the preliminary plat of the subdivision with wells at its May meeting.

The subdivision is on 12 acres on South CR 250E. Lots will be 65 to 75 feet with a depth of 140 feet, and homes will cost in the $180,000 to $280,000 range.

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The developer was unable to attend Tuesday’s meeting.

Aaron J. Carl, town engineer, said he talked to the developer on the phone.

“He is  very much set on putting in wells. I discussed some stuff. I talked to (Indiana) American Water. They’re requiring a pipe that’s $3.50 a foot more expensive than what the standard is, which is part of the problem, but that still only ends up being $7,000 or $8,000 more for the overall project,” Carl told the commission. “But he doesn’t want to put in a water main because of the cost.”

Carl said the developer has prices for wells and they average $4,200 per lot. “After I ran through some numbers, I was close to about $72 a lineal foot, which puts it around just over $6,000 a lot (for water lines). So it’s an additional $2,000 a lot that he doesn’t want to spend on the project.”

After discussing the pricing and safety of water lines versus wells, it was decided that Carl, Allebach and Commission President Dave Turner would try to meet with the developer on the water issue, though at this point it wasn’t certain what change could be made. The developer has already started to negotiate with potential homebuyers on the lots.

For several months, the plan commission has been discussing and reviewing a proposed ordinance on funneling. During Tuesday’s meeting, the ordinance was presented in a revised form by town attorney Jim Walmer. No action was taken, but corrections and changes were made to it. Once the plan commission approves the ordinance – potentially at its Aug. 14 meeting – it will go on to the town council for its consideration.

Funneling refers to the division of lots in thin strips, most frequently created and used to provide access to a waterway.