Please clarify your understanding of the difference between an STVR and a homestay? 
In Asheville, a homestay is a room or rooms within a permanent residence that are permitted for short-term rentals for less than a month, while a short-term vacation rental encompasses any dwelling units, including whole-home, accessory units, apartments, condos, etc. New STVRs as a permit by right were eliminated in 2018 and homestays are currently the only permitted use Asheville city limits.

Are you a homestay host or plan to be one in the future?
No,  but I do support homestays. As a small-business owner who operates a studio in the 2nd room of our home, I can empathize. My family relies on stagnant, unreliable wages in a tourist economy by working multiple jobs. If something happened to one of us, the 2nd room in our small home, which I currently use as my piano studio, could be rented as a legal, permitted homestay as needed. This would allow one of us to maintain the roof over our head, offset the rising cost of living within the city limits, and commute to work without a car or work from home.

Are you familiar with the kitchen definition the City has been using for the past couple of years, including the restrictions on sinks, power sources and the size of the refrigerator? Please discuss.
I’m thankful that multiple members of this community who have engaged in conversation with me to help me better understand this issue. We are getting closer to a permitting process that works for locals, and need to consider stoves as the binary so units can be more easily converted from homestays to long-term housing. The efforts to ensure investors aren’t benefiting from our local homestay regulations seem to create additional costs and barriers to participation for legal permits while adding layers of costs to taxpayers for regulation that isn’t realistic. There is a better way to ensure compliance, which includes fining major platforms for listings that don’t meet our regulations while removing non-compliant listings. 

Would you accept a sink and a normal-sized fridge in a homestay unit? Yes.

Any additional restrictions on homestays are you considering? None at this time, so long as it’s one-per person or address.

In your view of “affordable housing” does it include people in Asheville that own their primary residences but are struggling to keep them, especially because of the increase in property taxes? 
Yes, homestays are being used to offset the increase in cost of living as part of our local business economy. Abuse of the “sharing economy” impacted affordability for our community, and if even if we’re close to a situation that prioritizes locals, many renters are still suffering from being pushed out. I call on the Homestay community to join in support of a Green New Deal for Asheville, transit expansion, and deeply-affordable housing through creative solutions like the Asheville-Buncombe Community Land Trust, transit-corridor density, cooperative housing, and tiny-home villages to ensure our mutual community benefit.

Do you believe renters should be allowed to operate Homestays as long as they have the permission of their landlord/ property owner? Yes.

Do you do support absentee owner, whole-house STRs? No.

How do you plan on improving enforcement of illegal, whole-house STRs in Asheville?  We should join other cities fining major platforms for listings that don’t meet our regulations to ensure removal of non-compliant listings, which would save taxpayer on enforcement costs.

Do you believe there are any circumstances that a Homestay Host should be allowed to be away from their home while hosting guests, including a family emergency or bereavement? A 2-week family vacation? A school teacher away for the summer? 
I am open to community engagement on a conditional use zoning process I outlined in 2017, but there are many issues to consider along with legal barriers. Monthly and extended rentals/sublets are already an option.

Should Homestay Hosts be allowed to have a co-host who does not live in the home but helps out with the operation of the Homestay? 
This is a tricky situation that allows landlords and investors to rent units in homes with a rental host. I’m not in support at this time as proposed.

Do you think ADUs should be allowed as Homestays? Are you aware of the Portland, Oregon ADU study? Not yet. I am still digging into the Portland study. It could be a good way to incentivize our local density needs where we have transportation infrastructure, helping incentivize partnership with neighbors developing our “missing middle” housing. There’s so much at stake as we consider who benefits from expanding the tourism industry in our neighborhoods. I hope our homestay permittees will organize to gain a seat on the Tourism Development Authority (TDA) to address infrastructure needs in our neighborhoods as a “heads in beds” issue. Our neighborhood multimodal infrastructure is serving our visitors yet suffering from lack of support.