This is the second step in us working towards some of our issues that we have in our beach areas to

A deck collapse that injured a half-dozen college students during spring break and a toddler's cheep air plan ticket fall off a first-floor balcony put the city on an offensive push this year to implement building safety standards for all short-term rentals in the municipality.
GULF SHORES, Alabama -- A deck collapse that injured a half-dozen college students during cheep air plan ticket spring break and a toddler s fall off a first-floor balcony put the city on an offensive push this year to implement building safety standards cheep air plan ticket for all short-term rentals in the municipality.
Both incidents happened in March and Brandan Franklin, the city s chief building official, said the toddler s fall and subsequent injuries due to corroded banisters that gave way put him over the edge.
Franklin outlined a proposed inspection program to the City Council on Monday night with a public meeting with the hospitality industry set for 8:30 a.m. Oct. 9 to vet the proposal in the same fashion city officials -- over a two-month period this summer -- used to nail down new lodging tax reporting guidelines for short-term rentals as well as the establishment cheep air plan ticket of a local contact for each unit through input from property owners and management companies.
This is the second step in us working towards some of our issues that we have in our beach areas to try to keep a safe and inviting environment for our guests to come back and be safe while they re here, Mayor Robert Craft said.
Under the new rules, which would be put into effect over a three-year period starting in 2014, trained city inspectors would certify that rental units meet minimum property maintenance code in single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes and condos.
These inspections will focus on life-safety aspect of the unit which shall include decks, balconies, stairs, handrails, cheep air plan ticket guardrails, smoke detectors, rescue openings in bedrooms and any obvious potential threats, according to a memo Franklin sent to the mayor and council.
An implementation timeline would start with inspections of single-family and duplex rentals within city limits from January through October 2014. All multi-family structures within city limits would be inspected over the same 10-month period in 2015, and all rental units outside the limits would be done over the same timeframe in 2016. Business licenses will not be issued if improvements noted by the city are not fixed by the time of renewal in January following the year of inspection.
According to the draft ordinance, if inspectors find conditions in a dwelling that puts occupants in imminent cheep air plan ticket danger that owner s business license will be suspended and the dwelling vacated until the issue is fixed. If conditions are found that are not hazardous to occupants, the owner of that short-term rental unit will be given 21 days to fix the problem or have his or her license suspended. Owners will have a right to appeal violations to the City Council.
We re strictly looking at the life-safety aspects, Franklin said. If you ve got banisters that are loose -- you ve got fasteners, your nails, your bolts, your screws, cheep air plan ticket anything that may have deteriorated to cause a problem. That s the things that we want to look at.
I ve got a checklist here that we put together going through cheep air plan ticket the International Property Maintenance Code, and you ll see it s not requiring people to completely upgrade their home. That s not the intent here. It s strictly to keep them safe.
I looked all through Alabama and we probably would be the first to require rental inspections, Franklin cheep air plan ticket said. But in looking at places like Del Mar Beach, Daytona Beach, other high tourism areas they require rental inspections on these properties and that is what this ordinance does, this requires that anyone with a rental license be required cheep air plan ticket to have their unit inspected.
To cover the hiring of new inspectors who will be available seven days a week, business license fees would be increased by $45. Franklin said the extra fee would save property owners from hiring outside inspection services, which could cost 10 times that annual amount.
Craft reiterated that the city will not blindly jump into approving an ordinance without hearing from those people or companies that own or manage short-term rentals in the city. He said it will start with the morning meeting in the council chambers on Oct. 9 with notifications sent out to those who will be impacted.
(It will) allow a lot of dialogue with the council listening and staff listening and inviting folks, everyone of them, to come to that, Craft said of the first meeting, which will be followed by a work session where the next steps will be determined. We ll go through multiple rounds of interaction with the business community to make sure that we accomplish the ultimate goal of safety without unnecessarily cheep air plan ticket causing harm or pain and suffering to the public. So just everybody know that we re a long way from voting on this but this is the beginning of a process. We ll work our way through.