Side Streets ~ Neighborhood people and issues

Archive for the 'vacation home rentals' Tag

DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS . . . BECAUSE TEXANS CAN’T TAKE A JOKE!

June 7th, 2011, 11:56 am by

I have been getting brutalized by Texans who got their feelings hurt by the headline on Sunday’s Side Streets column: 

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SIDE STREETS: Not only must we share our highways and trails with Texans, now our neighborhoods too

The headline was a riff on one of the oldest jokes in Colorado — how Texans flock to Colorado and you can always spot them by the way they drive.

(They swerve all over the road because they are used to dodging armadillos sleeping in the middle of all their highways!)

 The column was about the proliferation of vacation home rentals and how Colorado Springs has decided not to regulate them. The result is that your neighborhood rental could become a vacation home for tourists. Of course, that means Texans, right?

It was a harmless reference, so I thought. Wrong.

Some readers OUTRAGED!

One actually called City Hall demanding: “All y’ all butter dew sumpen ’bout that Gah-zette!”

OK, I made up the quote. But the call to City Hall actually happened.

So I did what anyone would do . . . I googled Texas to see if others make fun of the Lone Star State or if I was off base.  

Turns out the web is filled with Texas jokes. There’s an entire Facebook page devoted to slamming Texas! Who knew? (Actually, it’s way too harsh for my taste.)

Then a colleague suggested I should hold a little contest. Let readers offer their own Texas jokes.

A few folks posted their own Texas jokes in the comment section.

Here’s one from kmancos:

“Heh, reminds me of standing in a lift line at Breck. You could tell the Texans from the locals because us locals had 501′s with scotch guard, and the Texans had the latest ski suits. My friend said “What’s up with all of these Texans?” and I said “I don’t know, I just hope that they ski better than they drive.”

I like that one. Guess they just can’t stop dodging armadillos!

Anyway, I’m inviting everyone to offer their own Texas jokes.

I’ll get things started with this one:

Ever hear about the Olympic athlete from Texas who was so proud of the gold medal he won that he went and had it bronzed?

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NEIGHBORHOODS TO GET NO VACATION FROM RENTALS

June 5th, 2011, 11:00 am by

Neighborhoods in Colorado Springs will get no vacation from homes being used as short-term rental properties under new rules being proposed by city planning officials.

Since 2008, a few neighborhoods have complained about the growing trend of vacation home rentals. We’ve seen it for years in ski resort towns.

At the time, about 60 houses in the city were known vacation home rentals. Today, that number is 90 and growing.

Most vocal among the neighborhoods was the Organization of Westside Neighbors, the Cedar Heights Community Assocation and a group in the Broadmoor.

The took up the cause after chonic problems developed with vacation home rentals: neighbors upset having strangers around, coming and going late at night; loud and late parties; guests abusing wildlife; even a house in Cedar Heights being turned into an events center.

But three years of study — including two task forces to look into the problem —  has not changed the city planners’ opinion that sufficient codes exist to regulate the short-term rentals.

Welling Clark, OWN president, compiled extensive research on vacation home rentals and proposed a detailed code for regulating the properties.

But the city was not swayed and, on Friday, distributed this draft of its proposed short-term rental regulations.

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Essentially, the regulations make no changes to existing codes.

To read more, check out this July 2010 column and its blog on the subject.

And here’s a November 2009 column I wrote, as well as it’s accompanying blog.

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