To address concerns about short-term rentals, city of Wilmington staff members planned to start the process of potentially amending city code, following a discussion on the issue with elected officials Monday morning.

That process would start with asking the public what they would want to see in an amendment. Public input could be gathered as early as next month, said Christine Hughes, senior planner with the city of Wilmington.

“If we gather enough information at that time, we can come back in April with something for people to react to,” Hughes said Monday.

At the city council’s agenda briefing Monday morning, posted on the city’s website, councilman Kevin O’Grady likened the issue to past conflicts over how residential properties can be used in the city, including for weddings and other events and for law firm locations.

In April 2010, the city filed a lawsuit against the previous owners of the Dudley Mansion, arguing that weddings at the mansion violated city code. The city and owners settled the matter later that year in an agreement that allowed seven previously booked weddings to be held there but prohibiting any more after that, according to a previous Greater Wilmington Business Journal article.

Similar to past issues, the short-term rental question is a matter of running a business in a residential area, O’Grady said.

“We have to stop it and keep the residential districts protected,” he said during the agenda briefing.

Short-term rentals are not directly addressed in the city of Wilmington's Land Development Code (LDC), according to the city staff’s report on the matter.

“Rather, the city must apply the current code language as written some time ago, when short-term rentals were not as prevalent. Because there is no specific definition of short-term rental in the LDC, the two existing LDC definitions applied to this issue are housing unit and family," the report says. "Whether the entire house or only a single room is rented, the required rental period must be at least seven days and the total number of occupants, including the primary tenant, if applicable, must meet the definition of family, namely, not more than three unrelated persons.”

The city’s current policy of complaint-based enforcement of the LDC with regard to rentals makes it hard to identify which properties don’t comply with the seven-day limit, O'Grady said, because by the time a neighbor alerts the city to the problem, a weekend visitor is gone.

He said he believes a possible 30-day definition for housing would help take care of the enforcement problem.

If the public input process does start in March, Hughes said, that could put a potential amendment on track, depending on subsequent meetings and hearings, to be considered by the city council by August.