Unincorporated Chatham County does not require a short-term rental to be the owner's primary residence, but only property owners (not renters) may hold a license. The City of Savannah, by contrast, caps non-owner-occupied rentals and requires owner-occupancy for its owner-occupied STVR category.
Section 16-1304(1)(d) limits licenses to applicants with an ownership interest; there is no owner-occupancy or primary-residence mandate for unincorporated county rentals. Savannah is stricter: in the Downtown and Victorian Historic Districts a 20% cap applies to non-owner-occupied parcels, and its owner-occupied STVR requires that the principal dwelling be the owner's primary and usual place of residence. Tybee Island bars new short-term rentals in its R-1, R-1-B and R-2 residential zones, treating existing ones as non-conforming uses. Check the specific city before assuming an investment rental is allowed.
Applying without an ownership interest, or misrepresenting eligibility, is grounds for denial or immediate revocation of the license (§16-1308).
Other ordinances people look up for this city. Green dot = verified primary-source excerpt.
Chatham County, GA
Chatham County has no standalone hoarding statute, but it curbs hoarding through hard numeric pet limits (8 cats, 6 dogs per acre) and its cruelty/neglect pr...
Chatham County, GA
Chatham County's animal-control chapter sets no specific wildlife-feeding ban. Wild, game, and protected species are handled by the Georgia Department of Nat...
Chatham County, GA
Chatham County and Savannah have no ordinance banning residential backyard composting. Home compost is allowed, but a pile that creates odor, attracts rodent...
Chatham County, GA
Neither Chatham County nor the City of Savannah bans artificial turf on private residential yards. There is no specific county ordinance regulating synthetic...
Chatham County, GA
Chatham County sits on Georgia's coast, where salt-marsh grasses and other native tidal vegetation are protected under the state Coastal Marshlands Protectio...
Chatham County, GA
Georgia encourages rainwater harvesting. Under the state Water Stewardship Act, capturing and reusing rainwater and stormwater is allowed any day at any time...
See how Chatham County's primary-residence-only rule rules stack up against other locations.
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