A month ago I wrote that Oxford and Cambridge were over-engineering small problems. Oxford has a real short-term-rental compliance problem.
Commissioner David Donovan’s review found roughly 35 to 44 short-term rentals in town, with only five licensed. That deserves attention. Nobody disputes it. But a compliance problem does not justify an ordinance that can impose consequences well beyond the person who committed the violation.
Tonight, Tuesday, August 11, at 6:00 p.m., the Oxford Commissioners will hold a public hearing on Ordinance 2605 in the Commissioners’ Meeting Room at the Community Services Building, 101 Market Street. The ordinance is presented as an effort to close loopholes in the town’s short-term-rental enforcement system.
Instead, it risks extending penalties to family members, separate property owners, brokerages, and coworkers who did not commit the underlying violation. Oxford already has meaningful tools to enforce its STR rules: fines, licensing restrictions, and other enforcement procedures. The town does not need to give up enforcement. It needs to direct enforcement at the people responsible for the violation and the property involved.
Ordinance 2605 does something broader. Its expanded definition of “property owner” reaches well beyond the person who owns the rental property. It includes an owner’s spouse, children, stepchildren, parents, stepparents, siblings, grandchildren, grandparents, in-laws, domestic partner, and certain related trusts.
That matters because the ordinance would bar a covered “property owner” who rents or advertises an unlicensed STR after notice from obtaining or renewing an STR license for any property in Oxford for three years. As the Mid-Shore Board of REALTORS® has warned, that language can extend to separate Oxford properties owned by people within that enlarged definition — properties that had nothing to do with the original violation.
And it does not stop with families.
Under the proposal, a Resident Agent who lists or advertises an unlicensed STR after notice may be barred from acting as an agent for three years. The penalty may also extend for one year to that agent’s company and its employees. In a small town with only a handful of real-estate offices, one agent’s conduct can become a business and livelihood issue for colleagues who played no part in it.
That is the central problem. Ordinance 2605 does target violations. But it does not reliably stop with the violator.
The rationale seems to be that a noncompliant owner might transfer a property to a relative, an affiliated person, or a related trust to avoid a penalty. That is a legitimate concern.
But the solution should be tailored to the violating property and to a transfer intended to evade enforcement — not written so broadly that relatives or owners of other properties can be caught in the same licensing ban.
The Mid-Shore Board of REALTORS® has offered the commissioners a practical, narrower alternative. An easy fix:
1) Limit the expanded definition of owner to the violating property.
2) Put licensing, renewal, and advertising penalties on the party who controls those obligations.
3) Require notice to go first to the property owner, with a copy to the Resident Agent.
4) Preserve enforcement, but do not convert a single violation into a penalty for uninvolved people or businesses.
None of that means Oxford should tolerate unlicensed rentals. Not at all. It means Oxford should enforce its rules proportionately.
The commissioners have a choice tonight. They can adopt an ordinance whose consequences may follow family and workplace relationships. Or they can take their time to carefully craft one that holds actual violators accountable without sweeping in people who did nothing wrong whatsoever.
Residents, business owners and concerned citizens who share that concern should attend the public hearing tonight, Tuesday, August 11, at 6:00 p.m., in the Commissioners’ Meeting Room at the Community Services Building, 101 Market Street, Oxford.
Those unable to attend can email Town Manager Holly Wahl at oxfordmanager@oxfordmd.gov and ask that their message be distributed to all commissioners and included in the public record.
Keith Watts is a lawyer and serves on the Talbot County Short-Term Rental Review Board, previously serving as Chair. His views are his own and do not represent those of the STRRB or any other organization.
2 Responses
Mr. Watts comments are perfectly stated and right on point. As someone with experience with contract management and str, I can tell you that agreements need to state what they mean and mean what they state without the need of a lawyer’s interpretation. The Oxford ordinance does neither. And, it contains punitive language that is not appropriate for such violations. The new ordinance is poorly written and needs to be abandoned. There are dozens of towns with str ordinances that function effectively at protecting citizens and property rights at the same time. I’m guessing Mr. Watts can proved Oxford with several.
When I read the piece by Keith Watts and his suggestions regarding the proposed changes to Oxford’s short term rental (STR) regulations, the first thing that came to mind was the adage “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”.
I have not followed the STR issues in Oxford in detail. But Mr. Watts is an unabashed proponent of STRs. He has never seen an STR he didn’t like. In his years on the Talbot Country STR Review Board, he has never voted against an STR license, and has always voted against any sort of restriction on an STR. He has consistently glossed over differences in neighborhoods such as housing density or road conditions, and has ignored public testimony, even that given by adjacent property owners. In short, Mr. Watts is not providing some nonobjective advice on STR regulations.
The comments attributed to the Mid Shore Board of Realtors have a similar problem. Going back to re-write of the Talbot County Zoning Regulation (Step-190) back in 2017, the MSBR has opposed any reasonable regulation on STRs. Why? Because some of their members are associated with the STR industry. Again, this is hardly a neutral position.
In short, neither Mr. Watts nor the MSBR has the interests of Oxford or its residents at heart. Both are pro-STR. I urge the Town Commissioners of Oxford to keep these points in mind as they consider changes to their STR regulations.