Ronan: City shouldn’t wait on adopting STR reform

Tourism Commission Chair Daniel Ronan said the city has the analysis and data it needs to move forward with reforming its policies on short-term rentals to increase Hotel Occupancy Tax revenues and shouldn’t wait through the end of the year. After the commission approved 10 recommendations related to STR enforcement last week, Ronan told the Austin Monitor: “It should not take 10 months to a year for the city of Austin to enact commonsense recommendations that this commission has put forward to allow the city to begin collecting additional (hotel) tax revenues almost immediately. I don’t see the need to forestall the inevitable when it comes to offering a potential path forward for the two principal STR platforms, Airbnb and Vrbo, in trying to do the right thing and also bringing additional resources into the city coffers to fund additional cultural arts programming grants, historic preservation grants,” he said. “The city has the tools in its toolbox to implement some very needed reforms to bring in additional resources.”