Planning Commission hears complaints, offers amendments on new STR ordinance in marathon hearing

Over the course of more than three hours, the Planning Commission heard often rancorous public comments on a new ordinance that would regulate short-term rentals, then voted to recommend 11 of their own amendments to the ordinance at its regular meeting on Feb. 11.

The proposed ordinance would attempt to bring short-term rentals, or STRs, into compliance with the law by making it easier for property owners to get licenses and harder for them to operate without one, as the Austin Monitor has previously reported. Short-term rentals, or STRs, are temporary rentals distinct from regular leasing or subleasing, commonly organized through online platforms like Airbnb or Vrbo. In short-term rentals, tenants typically stay only for a few days or weeks, rather than the months or years typical of other leasing arrangements.

STRs have inspired controversy around the country and world, and no less in Austin. During the window for public comment on the ordinance, Austinites approached the dais to register complaints about the rentals, the individuals and corporations that operate them, and perceived shortcomings of the new ordinance – pleading almost unanimously for stricter regulation.

“There are around 300 homes in our neighborhood and by rough estimates, about 100 of them operate as STRs today,” said Hannah Lupico, who said she lives in the McKinley Heights/Clifford Sanchez neighborhood of East Austin.

She said those 100 properties have been the site of shootings, sex trafficking and other crimes, as well as lots of noise, and that when she and other neighbors have tried to call it in, they haven’t gotten much help.

Ryan Saunders, who spoke against the new ordinance, identified himself as a licensed STR owner and said that while he supports greater regulation, he has doubts about the details and feels like STRs are being singled out for criticism.

“There’s an overall issue in the city of the process with how noise ordinances work and how neighbors and businesses interact with each other, and I feel like everything that these people are saying happened happens in a lot of different circumstances,” Saunders said. “Businesses to residents, short-term rentals to residents, dog owners, all kinds of different instances. It’s the process of how the city handles these that are the issue.”

Following the public hearing, the commission went into the amendment process, in which commissioners had the opportunity to propose, debate and vote to recommend amendments to the ordinance for City Council’s consideration.

The commissioners ultimately approved more than 10 amendments, all unanimously, which as a whole seek to “add teeth” to the ordinance’s enforcement mechanisms and push for as much regulation as possible.

One amendment, originally proposed by Chair Claire Hempel and then reintroduced by Commissioners Grayson Cox and Nadia Barrera-Ramirez with changes, would add language banning owners from operating an STR in a unit if that unit is involved in three or more complaints of violent crime.

A string of four amendments proposed by Cox would add a requirement for platforms to provide addresses of listed properties to code enforcement upon request, fine them if they don’t delist problematic properties, direct city staff to investigate adding extra fees at licensing to be set aside for enforcement and add text about noise limits to the list of rules owners are obligated to post in a property.

“I don’t understand why we’re spending hours talking about regulations when it doesn’t seem like we’re actually addressing the core issue of enforcement,” Cox said.

Another amendment authored by Commissioner Casey Haney would direct code enforcement to report any unlicensed STRs to both the state comptroller’s Criminal Investigative Division and the city comptroller’s office for investigation of unpaid taxes.

“We heard several times that there are unlicensed operators out there,” Haney said. “And you know, when they went after the mob and Al Capone, they got them on tax fraud.”

Still another amendment by Commissioner Awais Azhar would replace a flat 25 percent limit on using multiple units within one property as STRs from the base ordinance with a progressively lower limit as the number of units increases, with the intention of making it more difficult to turn large numbers of unleased units within larger developments into STRs.

According to data assembled by a third party,  the Development Services Department believes a majority of STRs in Austin are operated without a license and as a result aren’t remitting hotel occupancy taxes, or HOTs, to the city as required by law.

City Council has tried to clamp down on STRs in the past, even attempting to ban many types outright in 2015. But a string of decisions in federal courts have stalled attempts at regulating the rentals and limited the city’s options.

The Austin Monitor’s work is made possible by donations from the community. Though our reporting covers donors from time to time, we are careful to keep business and editorial efforts separate while maintaining transparency. A complete list of donors is available here, and our code of ethics is explained here. This story has been changed since publication to correct the number of STRs believed to be operating without a license.