A James City County homeowner is seeking a permit to continue renting a Winston Drive home to tourists.
The James City County Planning Commission on Wednesday will consider an application from Joanne Arnall, who has been using her mother’s home – at 131 Winston Drive behind the Colony Square shopping center on Jamestown Road – as a rental for tourists visiting the area. Arnall has been operating the tourist rental without a permit, which she would require to continue the business.
County staff received a complaint in October about the rental home, which brought attention to the fact Arnall did not have the necessary permit.
The commission will hold a public hearing on Arnall’s request for a permit before making a recommendation to the county’s Board of Supervisors, which will also hold a public hearing and make the final call.
County zoning regulations would allow a tourist home by permit on Winston Drive, but the street has its own set of legal restrictions which have been in place since 1960 that prohibit the plan.
The county’s staff will not issue support for the tourist home unless Arnall changes the neighborhood restrictions – with support of a majority of the neighborhood’s homeowners – and files the changes with the Williamsburg-James City County Courthouse.
Arnall sent letters to 63 nearby homeowners to gain support for the tourist rental and received responses from 38 percent — 24 homeowners — reads a staff memo to the commission. Of those who responded, 12 were “positive;” nine had no opinion; and two were against the plan. Many of the neighboring homeowners do not live in their properties, a staff memo to the commission reads.
The Board of Supervisors last year granted a homeowner in another area of the county a permit to operate an in-home daycare, despite neighborhood restrictions preventing the use. The supervisors gave the daycare owner a year to change the restrictions and approach the county for an extended permit.
The 2013 case was not the first when the supervisors looked past legal restrictions. The board voted to issue a permit for another in-home daycare operating against neighborhood restrictions in 2009, which prompted the county attorney to issue guidance.
Though neighborhood restrictions are established outside of county governance, County Attorney Leo Rogers advised the board in 2009 that voting in favor of a plan that goes against recorded neighborhood restrictions “makes no practical sense and runs afoul of public policy.”
If the commission does recommend Arnall be issued a permit, county staff has suggested a few restrictions:
- No more than seven people may occupy the home at one time;
- No more than two cars can be in the driveway at one time, and no campers, trailers, buses or commercial trucks should be allowed;
- The home should only be rented for weekly or weekend stays and not for single nights;
- No signs indicating the property is a tourist rental should be allowed; and
- No additional outdoor lighting should be added to the property.
The commission will consider the plan at its meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The commission meets in Building F at 101 Mounts Bay Road. The meeting agenda and associated documents are available online.