ZELIENOPLE — Residents expressed some objections to an ordinance to regulate short-term rentals Monday night.

The ordinance would limit short-term rentals, such as Airbnbs, to two specific areas in the borough — one along Main Street and the other between East and West Grandview Avenue, up to Clay Street.

It also would require short-term rental hosts to undergo a licensing process, which includes safety inspections and application fees. Each license would require a payment fee of $100 per property.

Residents felt that these regulations, which the council introduced at an Oct. 31 meeting, could limit economic growth and investment in the community. Some favored the idea of local oversight to promote public safety and peace, but they felt council leaders should consider modifying the ordinance to make it more lenient.

“I’m asking that the council revisit the geographic restriction,” said Kelley Perry, a real estate and property manager, at the meeting.

“Overall, everything in the ordinance I’m highly in favor of,” she said. “I do believe there needs to be a licensing cap on the number of licenses provided and oversight on this because it’s not something I want to become an issue.”

Perry, who cited a background in law enforcement, said she’d invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on property renovations. These properties often serve as short-term rentals for contractors and other visitors, who return business to the community and thus help it thrive.

“If I had even just two contractors, over 24 months of renovations, if it was consecutive, purchase a $15 lunch even 75% of the time they were in town — and they go every day — that’s $11,700 in revenue for local businesses, purely based on one property at a time,” she said.

She added that all contractors who worked with her lived within a 15-mile radius of the borough and that she, a resident, was raising a family with three children in the borough, too. All her business returns to the community as well, because she also shops and dines in Zelienople, she said.

The comments gave borough leaders a chance to illustrate their goals behind the ordinance after the meeting.

“Airbnbs are extremely popular,” said borough manager Don Pepe. “They have both good points and bad points to them. And in some places — I’m not saying it will be here — they can cause issues with neighbors, noise issues, safety issues, etc.”

“We know they’re going to happen,” he said. “The question is how do we best structure it for both the people who provide the Airbnbs and also for the neighborhood in general.”

Jason Sarver, the Zelienople borough code enforcement and zoning officer, developed the ordinance, which he said could change as the council decides how to move forward.

Skeptics of the ordinance feel it’s important to have access to Airbnbs, Sarver said. He noted that many short-term rental sites like Airbnb and Zillow already have procedures in place with which hosts and renters can monitor themselves.

"But on the other side, there are some people who don’t use these processes,“ he said. “They don’t use them and they operate them themselves.”

“The biggest fears are if you have one in a residential area, bringing people in, and it becomes either a vacation house — or there’s a lot of transitional people coming and going there — a lot of the communities don’t want that in their neighborhood.”

“So that’s a tough decision that the council is going to have to make,” he added.

Perry said the average consumer from one short-term rental service, Vacation Rentals By Consumer, or VRBO, is a 50-year-old woman with four children.

“So I don’t think they’re going to be causing too many issues,” she said.

She said the uncertainty about the future, which initially had been on track to move forward by December, is already affecting her investments.

The ordinance remains in an early stage of consideration by borough leaders, known as “authorization to advertise,” and it has yet to reach a vote for their approval.

Property owner Jim Clarke also spoke in favor of some adjustment to the ordinance, saying he’s had nothing but positive experiences with visitors. He said there was a shortage of places for visitors from out of town to stay when enjoying the borough.