The fees imposed on the owners of vacation rental properties in Coeur d’Alene are not going up. They are, however, being ushered in.

The fee schedule adopted at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, which will charge property owners of short-term rentals $285 for the first year and $96 for each subsequent year, was adopted by the City Council after a public testimony session that offered a dearth of public input.

No one signed up to address council members to voice their opinion, but city planner Sean Holm said since the public hearing a month ago, he had heard from eight people who had mixed sentiments.

“Most of it was, ‘that’s pretty reasonable,’” Holm said. “Although we did get some that were, ‘well, I own three of these and that’s $1,000 and that’s a little outrageous.’”

Holm said the eight responses were a result of an email he sent out asking for the opinion of, and inviting to Tuesday’s session, more than 300 stakeholders.

To arrive at the fee schedule, planners used an approximation of the time it would take city workers to meet with property owners, inspect properties and enforce code violations at the rental units.

“We applied the fully loaded wage rate to that and came up with these fees and that’s how they were generated,” Holm said.

The fee schedule comes at the heels of an ordinance passed by the council a month ago allowing vacation rentals in Coeur d’Alene.

After years of outlawing short-term, vacation rentals in the city’s residential areas — often used for overnight stays of a day or two — council members followed a state mandate that prohibited the city’s ban.

Allowing the vacation rentals means the properties must be inspected, deemed safe and fall in line with city codes, however, and that translates into fees.

Council members Dan Gookin and Ron Edinger voted against the fee schedule.

Gookin said Coeur d’Alene residents who live on site and rent out a cottage in their backyard, or a room in their attic, should not be subject to the $285 fee. Residents managing their vacation rentals on site, Gookin said, should pay a $25 fee like other home businesses.

Council member Woody McEvers, who approved the fees, said despite being apprehensive about the pricing, the city needed to take a first step.

“For all we’ve been through on this thing, we need to start somewhere,” McEvers said. “I’m not happy with the pricing but if it’s what it costs, I guess it’s a beginning ... I think we need this.”

Gookin said the on-site residents are not the problem, and will likely not require undue regulating. Itinerant landowners who do not manage the rentals first-hand should pay a higher fee.

“I think we should cut a break to people who live in their vacation rentals as home occupant permits,” Gookin said. “The non-owner occupied deserve a higher level of inspection, which would justify a higher fee.”