Where these numbers come from
These are not estimates, and they are not rumors. They come from the Gilmer County Short-Term Rental Department, in a written Open Records Act response dated July 9, 2026. The county's exact words:
Total number of active STR Host Licenses in Gilmer County as of 7/9/2026 (source: Neumo filter for active licenses): 1,777
Total number of active STR Host Licenses in Coosawattee River Resort as of 7/10/2026 (source: CRR STR list):
33 CRR owned Villas
363 Individually owed short-term rentals
396 Total active short-term rental licenses in CRR
Any owner can request the same record from the county's Open Records Officer. The county has also stated that no year-end figures exist for 2023 or 2024, because the STR Host License Ordinance was not approved until the end of 2024 — so these are the first hard counts that have ever existed.
What the numbers mean
Coosawattee is 22% of the county's entire rental inventory
One community — ours — holds 396 of the county's 1,777 licenses. More than one in five. When Gilmer County writes and enforces its rental ordinance, Coosawattee is the largest single piece of what it's regulating.
More than 9 out of 10 owners here don't rent
There are roughly 3,900 eligible votes in the Association. 363 individually-owned licenses means about 9% of owners hold a rental license. The other 91% of us just live here — full-time or part-time — and rent to no one.
The Association itself is the biggest rental operator in the resort
Of the 396 licenses inside our gates, 33 belong to CRRA — the Villas, rented nightly by the Association, with the revenue flowing to the Association. No individual owner comes close to 33 licenses. The organization that administers rental policy for every owner in Coosawattee is also, by license count, the largest short-term rental business inside it.
The boardroom doesn't look like the community
On the ten-member Board of Directors, by our count, three directors own short-term rentals and a fourth does business with the rental trade — four of ten seats, 40%, with a financial connection to rentals, in a community where about 9% of owners rent. Good people, serving voluntarily — that's not in question. But on this one subject, the room is not shaped like the membership it represents. Owners deserve to know that when rental policy is discussed, they are watching a board that is 40% rental-connected govern a community that is 91% rental-free — inside an Association that runs 33 rentals of its own.
Why this page exists
None of these numbers had ever been published where owners could see them — not in a newsletter, not on the portal, not at a meeting. The county compiled them only because an owner asked under the Open Records Act. Whatever your view on short-term rentals — for, against, or somewhere in between — decisions about this community are better made by owners who know the numbers than by owners who don't.
Now you know them.
Questions, corrections, or the underlying records: svhawk@ellijay.com