BAR HARBOR – Town officials hope finally to settle the thorny issue of whether homeowners can rent their houses on a weekly basis.

The planning board, at the behest of the Town Council, will hold a special meeting Aug. 11 to discuss the issue and frame the debate, Town Planner Anne Krieg said last week.

The public will be allowed to address the planning board once members have finished their own discussion, she said. The meeting will be held at 4 p.m. in the council chambers at the municipal building.

The weekly rentals issue has bedeviled the resort town for years. In recent years, efforts to confront the issue were postponed because of staffing or other reasons, according to Town Manager Dana Reed.

Historically, people began renting out their homes when they moved to their camps for the summer, Reed said, “and it expanded from that.”

Residents essentially are split on the issue, according to a 2001 survey.

Supporters either have weekly rentals or believe the town should not tell people what to do with their single-family homes.

Opponents worry that their neighborhoods will deteriorate, or property values will increase because weekly rentals can be so lucrative – some families make enough money renting their home during the summer to pay the mortgage for the year.

Another concern is that people are buying or building single-family homes for the sole or primary purpose of renting them by the week to visitors during the summer or year-round.

Some people have argued that those dwellings are really businesses that should be treated as such, including to ensure they meet public safety and health standards.

Meanwhile, two of the town’s attorneys disagree on whether the town’s land use ordinance prohibits weekly rentals, further complicating a resolution.

The board of appeals has ruled that the practice is illegal, according to its attorney, Philip Worden of Mount Desert, while the town’s general counsel has concluded the ordinance does not prohibit weekly rentals.

While the legal disagreement continues, the town will not cite homeowners for renting to visitors.

“If we were to proceed with enforcement it is unlikely the town would prevail in court because there is no clear prohibition against rental properties of the nature,” Augusta attorney Lee Bragg, the town’s general counsel, wrote in a July 31, 2001, letter to then-code enforcement officer Kimberly Keene.

In a e-mail to Reed on July 27, 2001, Bragg wrote, “Various provisions in the ordinance can be used to argue for or against this position [that weekly rentals are legal] without a clear answer, but I am satisfied that the better view is that this activity is not prohibited or subject to a permit requirement.”

Reed said town staff believe weekly rentals are only illegal in the cases that were decided by the appeals board and therefore the town is not shirking its obligation to enforce the ordinance.

But in a June 28 memo to the appeals board, Worden argued that the appeals board is the highest authority within the town to decide what the ordinance means. He said the town should live by the appeals board’s decision just as applicants must.

“Board decisions should be respected even when controversial,” Worden said. “… Those who disagree with an appeals board decision must either appeal it, change the ordinance or follow the appeals board decision.”