Ocean City to vote on proposed short-term rental ban

OCEAN CITY, Md. — Residents in Ocean City will vote Tuesday morning on a proposed short-term rental ban.

Terry Miller, president of Ocean City Maryland Property Rights Inc., said the ban would affect 24% of the town’s land mass — or about 3,800 properties — compared with the 377 properties Mayor Rick Meehan said would be affected.

“There’s not a lot of crime in these homes. It’s less than 1% of what’s going on in the city and less than 2% of the noise complaints,” she said. “So these homes have an impact on who comes to town. And it’s important to not lose these homes. We have a good, diverse rental pool, and we need to keep them.”

She added: “Let’s handle the bad guests and not take property rights. We need to work on making sure that we’re bringing people to town. The numbers are down a little bit this year, and we need to bring those numbers back up because we need these guests. They are our economy.”

Miller said continuing as a welcoming community will further help the economy.