Stone Mountain, GA — At its April 5 meeting, the Stone Mountain City Council voted to approve a special use permit (SUP) and a variance for a Short-term Rental property at 5275 West Mountain Street. 

The applicant, Tracee Randall, presented her case to the council and the public. Randall is an employee of an investing company, JFB Capital Services. JFB Capital Services specializes in acquiring single-family residential properties to flip or convert them to Short-term Rental properties. There is a Georgia branch, but the company invests in properties across the Southeast. The company is not based in Georgia.

JFB owns the property, and Randall was presented to the council on behalf of the company. Randall was applying for an SUP to use the 5275 West Mountain property’s refurbished structure as a short-term rental. 

Randall was also applying for a variance to allow for the primary property owner to live outside DeKalb County. Randall has been a resident of Alpharetta, Ga. for 28 years, roughly 30 mins from the property (without traffic). In her presentation to the council, she said she visits the property once a week 

There will be a dedicated maintenance person for the property who is on call 24/7 and lives about 15 minutes away, about three streets outside the boundary of Stone Mountain Village. The property would be limited to two adults for a maximum duration of 14 days, though Randall said most stay five-to-seven days. 

City Planner Richard Edwards recommended approval of both the SUP and the variance, with boilerplate conditions such as prominently displayed Emergency contact information, annual inspections, and smoke alarms in each bedroom. The city Planning Commission recommended approval of the SUP, but denial of the variance. 

“We run a tight ship,” said Randall to assuage council and community concerns, saying most requirements mentioned were already in place. 

No one spoke in favor of the property at the public hearing, though some did later during citizens’ comments. 

Two citizens spoke against the proposal, with resident Joan Monroe saying the city was fielding an overabundance of rentals. “The more rentals, you have a decline in quality of life.”

Council ultimately approved both the variance and the SUP, and discussed changing the city code to have an additional condition that allows for a radius rather than the county barrier.

In other news:

— Council heard a presentation on SeeClickFix. This would be a system that allows stakeholders to report general infrastructure issues that they see—like code violations or pothole and sidewalk repairs—and generally give feedback on city services. 

There would be a website and an app, where each report is timestamped and geolocated to where the problem is. The city then can see and through the same site update on the progress of addressing the concern. The site also tracks how long the city takes to respond to and resolve complaints. The site will be accessible through web and mobile, and City Manager Darnetta Tyus said that anyone who doesn’t feel comfortable accessing it through these means can call or come down to city hall, and they would enter it in for them.  

“This is just an addition,” Tyus said. “Nothing is going away. Anyone can engage with us the way they already were, we just now have one system linking it all together.” 

The contract with SeeClickFix is year to year, with the first year being a discounted $2,000 paid out of the general fund, and $5,000 for each year of renewal.  

Councilmembers asked questions about storage of complaints and maintenance and troubleshooting services, to which the representative presented all this was included in the yearly price, and storage would be on the company’s secure servers. The information could be stored for as long as the city wants it to be. 

City Manager Tyus recommended committing to the system for at least three to five years, so the city can take time to truly adapt to the system and see its strengths and weaknesses. For example, in discussion of the item, a skeptical Councilmember Bryant asked if the city was getting enough complaints to warrant this system. 

City Manager Tyus said, “That’s the thing, we don’t know how much more people would report if they had a more effective way of doing so.”

Councilmember Shawnette Bryant also asked why no one on staff “could do this”—code a two-sided system, accessible from desktop and mobile, that links to a server to store time and geolocation data—to which City Manager Tyus did not have a response. 

Councilmember Bryant and Mayor Beverly Jones vocalized their skepticism of the necessity of the system, given the city recently hired two administrators.  

However, the Council ultimately voted 4-2 to move forward with the first year of the system. 

Council also heard a report from the auditor on the recently completed 2022 audit. The auditor said things were generally in good shape. 

Councilmember Teresa Crowe asked about how to keep track of if the city is still in good financial standing, to which the auditor replied that it will be based on monthly financial reports, which can be a bit delayed. City Manager Tyus began presenting the up-to-date 2024 monthly financial reports at the last council meeting on March 19.

– Council also postponed a request for road closure for Front Porch Taqueria’s Cinco de Mayo celebration. This was due to an inability of council to gain clarity on what section of East Mountain road would be closed, presumably the section in front of the restaurant, but they wanted to hear more details before proceeding.      

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