Short-term rental permit applications have started rolling into Jim Thorpe Borough, but not as many municipal officials would like to see.

Council passed a short-term rental ordinance in March regulating where future short-term rentals can be located in the municipality, and listing requirements both current and future short-term rental owners need to meet.

Within 90 days of ordinance adoption, any current short-term rental owner was required to register their business via a change-of-use application with the borough.

“We’ve only had about 42 applications so far and there is well over 100 short-term rentals operating in the borough,” Council President Greg Strubinger said during Thursday night’s council meeting. “Starting on June 17, our zoning officer will begin issuing violation notices for those owners who have not submitted the required applications.”

Jim Thorpe worked on the ordinance for about three years, with many rounds of public comment, before passing it earlier this year.

According to an accompanying zoning amendment, existing short-term rentals will be grandfathered, in terms of location. New rentals will be restricted to the C1, C2, C3, R4 and special zoning districts and owners will need to go through the borough’s special exception process. Owners hoping to open a short-term rental outside of those zones would need to receive a variance.

One of the major issues over the years has been parking. The ordinance requires short-term rental owners to provide one parking space per bedroom in the unit they are renting.

A permit revocation for a first violation of the ordinance will be three months. A second violation within three years of the first conviction will result in a one-year permit suspension. A third violation within three years of the first violation is cause for a permanent revocation of the permit, according to the ordinance.

“We are disappointed that we haven’t received more cooperation from short-term rental owners at this point,” Strubinger said. “There are a few days left before violations start, but we tried to work really hard with our owners in trying to get these properties in compliance.

“We’re now asking them to follow through with what we all planned for everyone to do.”