Fredericksburg ZBA approves special exception for short‑term rental at 209 North Elk with 10‑person cap

The Fredericksburg Zoning Board of Adjustment approved a special exception to allow an unoccupied short‑term rental at 209 North Elk Street, setting the property’s maximum occupancy at 10. The board voted to grant the exception after staff outlined neighborhood STR counts and site specifics and after the applicant described her 23‑year residency and plans to sell the home.

The decision matters because staff documented a large concentration of short‑term rentals in the immediate 200‑foot notification radius and provided an occupancy analysis for the applicant’s five‑bedroom house. Staff said the lot is about 10,890 square feet, the dwelling roughly 3,417 square feet, and that the site appears to accommodate about six on‑site parking spaces including two in the garage. The staff report identified as many as 11 properties operating as STRs within the radius and calculated an average occupancy of roughly 7.5 across those properties.

Applicant Christina Sarason told the board she has lived in Fredericksburg for 23 years and intends to allow a future buyer to operate the house as an STR. “I feel like I’m inundated by STRs,” Sarason said, noting nearby examples and special events at the Nimitz Museum that increase noise and traffic. Staff and board members discussed whether nearby units are ADUs, corporate guest housing, or unoccupied STR facilities and noted some legacy records in the city’s permitting system are inconsistent.

Board members debated occupancy methodology and enforcement. Staff explained that occupancy is typically determined by property maintenance standards (square footage per bedroom and egress) and that the current application process sometimes records inflated bedroom or occupancy counts; staff recommended improving application fields to capture bedroom square footage to make annual inspection verification clearer. One board member urged tying occupancy to bedroom square footage rather than a blanket “plus two guests” allowance.

During discussion the board confirmed the packet contained inconsistent references to the number of unoccupied STRs (a discrepancy between nine and 11 in different pages). The board asked staff to correct those inconsistencies for the official record. No public commenters spoke at the open public hearing.

A motion to approve the special exception with a maximum occupancy of 10 received the required support and passed on a roll call. Chair Clay Sears announced the motion carried, and the board congratulated the applicant.

The board directed staff to clean up packet inconsistencies and to work on application and inspection changes to better document bedroom sizes and parking calculations; staff also noted that annual inspections remain the enforcement mechanism for occupancy limits. The board then moved to the director’s report to discuss broader code updates and administrative matters.

The Zoning Board of Adjustment’s approval is recorded as a special exception under section 5.5 of the Board of Adjustment provisions of the Fredericksburg code; the permit and occupancy conditions will be reflected in the forthcoming licensing/inspection record.