SAVANNAH, GA –
Visitors to Savannah or Chatham county spent more than $2.5 billion here in 2014. Nearly a third of that was spent on hotel lodgings alone.

The new $5 hotel motel tax is expected to ring in between $150-200 million in transportation revenue. that said, the tax of course has it’s opponents, but city leaders say now is the time to let your voice be heard before the tax is in place.

“right now there is an open comment on the regulation of how the five dollar hotel motel tax will be implemented,” says Savannah Tourism and Ambassadorship director Bridget Lidy.

More than 13 million people visited Savannah last year. Most of them spending on average one to two nights in hotels. Now visitors don’t have a chance to speak up about the incoming state tax on hotels, but locals can here.

The revenue from it will go to priority road projects most likely in and around the Atlanta area. Local state legislators like Lester Jackson have fought back the tax as have tourism leadership groups in Savannah. Lidy with the city’s tourism department though is not worried.

“From Savannah’s perspective in the marketplace for tourism, we’re a very popular destination, and it doesn’t look as though we are going to be losing our popularity anytime soon,” Lidy says.

So would five bucks added on each night really hurt the average tourist? We took that question to visitors.

“No probably not, ” says Justin Thompson who is visiting from Asheville, NC.

“No, I mean hotels are reasonable the way it is so five dollars more wouldn’t make a difference,” says Anita Thompson who is coming from Florida.

“No it wouldn’t it just it doesn’t make that much difference,” says Richard Barstow who’s from Connecticut and in town for a funeral but also touring around.

Now is the period where the department of revenue has questions that need answering. Would they wave the tax on large bookings for state conventions? Should the tax remain universal, hitting both high end and discount hotel chains? As much as now is the time to ask questions it’s also the time every tourist destination in the state is holding their breath and waiting to see how the state plans to regulate the tax.

“We don’t know what the final regulations are going to be because of the open comment period but we’re following it very very closely,” says Lidy.

The state revenue department’s list of regulations hotels will have to follow is listed on their site where you can also provide comments on them until June 26th.

You can weigh in on the tax and learn more about how the state plans to implement it by going to the DOR website here.

Asheville’s City Council may come down hard on short-term rentals with increased policing and fines as high as $500 per day. I believe that’s a serious mistake.

Presently it is illegal to rent independent residential units in most of the city for less than 30 days. The law is complaint-driven, with no enforcement unless the short-term situation bothers neighbors: noisy parties and parking problems being the leading triggers.

Meanwhile, City Council seems comfortable with permitting “home stays” — renting of no more than 25 percent of a residence, overseen by a permanent resident under the same roof.

The effort by the city to stanch a global tide of STR use is misguided. It will create an enforcement nightmare. Here’s a short list of reasons why STRs should be legal (technically a “use by right”) city-wide, with no special treatment of “home stays.”

1. Compliance with the “home stay” rules is impossible to police. What if a landlord rents a home-stayer more than 25 percent? Or rents the house and leaves for the weekend? Does an officer knock on the door every hour?

2. On the flip side, how do we prove that a landlord didn’t rent an alleged STR for 30 days but the tenant only stayed for a weekend?

3. Will the city assign an employee to monitor online short-term rental systems? Would the city then stake out each property to see if such rentals were actually inhabited? Since dealings between an STR landlord and a renter are conducted via e-mail or phone, how would we keep track?

4. Many local residents have spent considerable money fixing up their STR facilities. There is huge incentive for STR owners to keep up their properties because they are rated by renters – essentially an ongoing inspection system. The General Assembly has banned cities from inspection of “regular” rentals, so many rental homes are a blight on neighborhoods. One can often pick them out simply driving by.

5. Short-term renters are governed by similar rating systems. If they are bad tenants, other STR owners will not rent to them. There is no such control on long-term tenants.

6. The argument is made that legal STRs will lead to repurposing of current long-term rentals (exacerbating the affordable housing shortage.) Evidence from other cities is unconvincing on this score. The market for STRs is limited. We aren’t going to see a doubling of tourism in Asheville based simply on their availability. Low-end rentals are not the primary market for STR users — they’re generally looking for a nice place to stay. It can be argued that the incentive for STR landlords to improve their properties is beneficial for our housing stock.

7. Some “neighborhood advocates” argue that the introduction of STR strangers to their midst is a problem. But no one vets who can buy or rent long term in our neighborhoods now. As mentioned above, STR users are far more accountable. Their home addresses, contact info, credit card numbers and rental histories are known quantities. If they cause trouble, they won’t be back. In the same vein, there is no reason that STRs automatically increase traffic or parking problems. Any occupied house will host associated vehicles.

There are already many hundreds of STRs operating here. Complaints have been few and far between and the city has more important issues to address. Let’s join the rest of the planet, legalize STRs, implement a permit system, and then sit back and see what happens.

Hotel owners hate STRs, but honestly, out-of-state hotel owners are not my constituents.

Bothwell is a member of Asheville City Council.

ASHEVILLE – Area home prices are rising, and competition for houses at some price points is fierce. While that is frustrating to buyers, it may actually be good news.

“Part of the reason why people in Asheville are being priced out of the housing market is because the economy is doing so well,” said Rick Kaglic, senior regional economist at the Charlotte Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Virginia.

“Rising home prices are a function of a rapidly expanding economy,” Kaglic said.

Inventory is so low for houses listed at $300,000 and below that buyers’ first bids often are higher than the asking price. And even then, many lose out to others willing to accept the cost of necessary repairs without negotiation or to some who pay in cash.

That’s a tough nugget to swallow for many area residents.

Months’ worth of Bureau of Labor Statistics data and economists’ prognostications point to unprecedented job numbers and an ever healthier regional economy.

But many Asheville people simply don’t believe it. They don’t know anyone whose lives are becoming easier due to a robust economy, they say.

Their experiences are filled with more work, or no work, and less play, just to make ends meet — the exact opposite of the whole point of living in Asheville, they argue.

“We’re too busy working to enjoy the Asheville boom; we’d much rather be on the (French Broad) River,” said Matt Christie, 35, a custom woodworker who lives in the West Asheville house he owns with his wife and two toddlers. He said he’s worked seven days a week for at least six months.

“There seems to be a discrepancy in who it’s booming for,” said Christie, who also is one of the moderators of the popular local Facebook forum Asheville Politics.

“And we’re some of the lucky ones in that we both have jobs, though sometimes, we still have to live month-to-month,” he said. Christie and his wife, Stephanie Hellert, 37, a private tutor and translator, say they typically pull in between $50,000 and $60,000 a year.

“There’s a concern for our ability to stay here — the situation’s precarious for many right now,” Christie said.

TJ Amos, 54, a West Asheville resident, echoed another observation that Christie made: If Asheville’s doing so well, where is the evidence of reinvestment into the city?

Greenways and bike lanes are amenities important to people who live here, Amos said. What’s taking so long to provide them?

On the job front, Amos is without one. A marriage counseling therapist by training, the mental health organizations she was working for part time during the last year lost too many clients. That meant they lost the ability to pay her, so they let her go.

But she counts herself fortunate — even though she rents an apartment in public housing — because she has a bachelor’s degree and is scheduled to earn a licensed professional counselor certificate on July 1. She has a network that will enable her to find a position.

“I don’t see Asheville’s economy as an either/or situation; it’s more complex,” Amos said of the opposing realities some described in interviews for this story. Either the economy is strong and everyone benefits, or the economy’s strength rests on false premises and that’s why no one they know is benefiting.

Hoteliers certainly are doing well, Amos said.

“And tourism is being catered to, which makes sense because the city has grown with that (industry),” she said. “But tourism shouldn’t be the focus at the exclusion of everything else. I feel like it’s leaning toward that.”

Amos has noted the increase in construction projects — be they hotels or apartment buildings — that are signs of a healthy economy.

“But I see healthy growth in a city measured by how well things like sidewalks and the potholes in the streets are being taken care of,” she said.

“I don’t have a clear image of where the City Council is spending its funds.”

Many sectors booming

Just examine the numbers, many residents said. The leading growth sectors are retail and tourism — low-wage industries that can’t possibly account for the Asheville boom economists insist has been occurring for about nine months.

They’re right.

But the explosion in retail and tourism jobs is only part of Asheville’s story.

What’s being neglected in the telling of the tale is that the higher-paying sectors of health and education and professional services — like legal or engineering — also are boosting the region’s growth.

Retail led the pack with a 6.8 percent increase from April 2014 to April 2015. Total jobs during that time period jumped to 25,300 from 23,700.

Tourism also was strong, with a 6.6 percent increase. Total jobs leapt to 27,300 from 25,600.

Education and health services mushroomed by 5.4 percent. Total jobs grew to 34,900 from 33,100.

Professional and business services rose a relative fraction at 1.8 percent. Total jobs hit 16,800 from 16,500. But those numbers belie the impact that sector is having on the local economy. Total jobs in the industry have remained at or above 16,500 for 13 consecutive months.

April marked the ninth consecutive month with the highest level of nonfarm payroll employment ever for that month in the Asheville metro area, said Jim Smith, chief economist for Asheville-based Parsec Financial Inc., a wealth management advising company.

Those totals are not seasonally adjusted, which means federal officials did not alter them to account for fluctuations such as seasonal hiring during the holidays.

The Asheville metro area comprises Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson and Madison counties.

In terms of total employment — which includes the self-employed, agricultural and certain family workers — “then April 2015 was indeed a barnburner month, the likes of which we’ve rarely seen in the history of employment in Asheville,” Smith said.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent in April from 4.4 percent in March.

“That ties April with November 2014 for the lowest unemployment rate here since the 3.8 percent of April 2008,” Smith said. “Our unemployment rate peaked at 10.3 percent in both January and February 2010.”

Jobs for the taking

Mission Health, the area’s largest employer with about 10,700 employees, has more than 900 openings, according to its website.

Sheila Meadows, Mission Health vice president for human resources and system talent management, said those jobs include: certified medical assistant, with a salary up to roughly $44,200; registered nurse, with a salary up to about $81,000; network engineer, with a salary up to roughly $91,000; and corporate safety officer, with a salary up to about $137,000.

Business at the Asheville law firm of McGuire, Wood Bissette has been growing enough that its partners have hired two new attorneys during the last month to handle the extra work, said Rick Jackson, a partner.

Law firms fall under the category of professional services.

McGuire, Wood Bissette employs 40 people, said Chief Operating Officer Lisa Hendricks — another new hire, who started in March. As of July 1, the firm will boast 21 lawyers, she said. Hendricks declined to provide a salary range for those who work at the firm.

And because all of the firm’s clients are entrepreneurs and executives representing companies, the firm’s growth could not happen unless the Asheville business community was doing the same thing, Jackson said.

He ticked off an array of industries supplying the firm with billable hours: craft brewers, manufacturers, restaurants, commercial real estate, hospitality, tech and startups (tech and non-tech).

“We’re now finding companies looking for an Asheville counsel after having an L.A. counsel and a Chicago counsel,” Jackson said.

One could use the word “dramatic” to describe that phenomenon, particularly when comparing today to 2008, when Jackson joined the law firm.

“Things were sideways back then,” Jackson said. “Companies were going out of business. No one was starting a business.”

Now, “businesses contacting us have increasingly sophisticated needs,” he said. Examples include funding consulting, securities work, employment law and intellectual property representation.

Jackson said he notices his clients share a trait that pervades Asheville — one that those like Christie also possess.

“These guys are competitors in their fields, but they also have a collaborative spirit,” he said. “We have a business environment, a natural environment, a built environment that we know we could lose. We have to grow in a way that fits the vibrancy of special communities like ours.”

Christie puts it into the context of the type of Asheville future his children and newcomers might experience.

“We want this to remain a place that supports all these new families who are building independent businesses from the ground up,” he said. “We were very lucky to pay only $300 a month each for a place in Montford and to have a network of people who helped us out when we arrived here 10 years ago. It’s impossible to overstate how important that was. We had advantages that people don’t have now.”