That is absolutely not the case. I believe all owners experience the 'job' of unit ownership on the basis of risk. All owners are risking their savings, income for mortgage payments, etc. in return for the benefits of having a home at Long Neck. In that regard, I suggest that all owners have identical interests - the physical integrity of unit and common property, the safe and civil behavior of all who are present within the community, etc.
Owners who rent out their units are taking an additional risk, that of essentially trying to run a successful business - one based on renting out their condo. Where success means that they come out ahead, if possible, and what goes into that equation includes mortgage, utility and other payments, repairs and rental costs on the one hand and rental income on the other. Indirectly what also goes into the equation are functional tenants: ones who stay (avoiding the agent costs of finding new ones), pay their rent, don't cause problems, and don't create more costs than what they pay.
And in my opinion that's what the whole issue hinges on: if a rental owner has functional tenants, more power to you. You win, and the community wins as well, because the tenants are valued members just like owners. If tenants are dysfunctional in one way or another, we all lose. The owner because sooner or later bad tenants will become a financial burden. The community because such tenants are members who detract from our shared quality of life.
There is an issue of property rights here (and I am not a lawyer but I'll take a shot at a nonlawyer view of it). Yes, our real property is ours. Our right to do whatever we want with it is limited though. If this were a regular neighborhood of single family homes with no community association and no shared property, we still couldn't have beer blasts with rock bands in the back yard at 4am, shoot guns, sell drugs, or keep chickens and ponies (
yeah yeah, depending on zoning, I know). Our neighbors would complain to the representatives of the community in this case - the police. And we would curb our behavior. As would any tenants we rented such a property to.And that's the right thing to have happen. We do not live in a vacuum, we live in homes with neighbors next door. Our rights to do what we want on/in/with our property start to be limited when our exercise of them starts to interfere with our neighbors' rights to do what they want with their adjoining property, like sleep, not have their children endangered, not have drug deals going on, etc. The fact that someone has chosen to assume the risk of running their property as a rental business does not give them the right to spread that risk around among their neighbors.
I suggest one more thing, that in a condo community, our rights to do what we want with "our" property are even more limited. A lot of people seem to approach the idea of condo ownership as "oh great, I don't have to mow the lawn, maintain structure, etc. I'm free free free". Nice idea, except for that issue of the HOA as a corporation. There's no one "else" to take care of the common property - it's us. We all, form the corporation who owns the development. Lock stock and barrel. Maintenance ? We just choose to outsource it to the management company and contractors they hire, and pay our HOA fee for that freedom. It's still our collective property. So when some resident, detracts from the value of our community, that's not just an inconvenience, it's hitting us all (including an owner who rents to such a person) directly in our pocketbooks. Every one of us.
So no. No one "hates" rental owners, or tenants. If there's 'virtriol' regarrding rentals - another word used in the meeting - it's a response to bad tenant behavior. And shall we all admit that we would have the same response if we were on the receiving end of excessive noise, illegal or uncivil behavior, damage to common property (including temporary kinds like dogs being allowed to sow land mines) on a repeated basis ? The answer's 'yes', right ? I knew it...
I hope that as this issue evolves we all retain sight on what are our own interests in our unit ownership at Long Neck - the risk we've taken making an investment here, whether to live here or to rent out, the fact that we share that risk with our fellow owners and that our interests are negatively affected when anyone at Long Neck behaves nonfunctionally, and that if one owner's tangible and legitimate interests are damaged, the rest of us lose as well. (And yes, if you're noticing that that suggests that we want our rental owner neighbors to be successful in their business, that's right, we do. Success, or failure, is equivalent for us and them.)
There's a separate discussion which to me seems more cut and dried about limiting rentals to a percentage (cut and dried because I expect there are legalities and best practices which we'll learn about, about which there won't be that much room for argument.) I won't broach that; this question of community relations seems more fundamental and like it needs to be cleared up first if we're to successfully move on to dealing with the rest of the issue.