City of Austin to tackle short-term rental regulations early next year
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- You're about to get another purple notification slip in the mail, just like you did for the HOME initiative. Starting next month, the city of Austin will start notifying you about changes they could be making to short-term rental (STR) rules, according to several city council members.
Council Member Ryan Alter said there are a couple of areas city council seems to be focused so far: setting up rules that are "actually workable and usable" and enforcement.
"We want to make sure that if we're having limitations on the number of licenses or number of short-term rentals, is that an appropriate number? Because right now, we have caps that are just not even enforced," Alter said. "Second is then on that enforcement piece, we have to make sure that we have the tools necessary so that we can go out and enforce unlicensed short-term rentals."
The exact details of what will be on your purple slip and what changes city staff will bring back to council are still being worked out behind the scenes. You're expected to get those slips in the mail mid-January and the issue could be discussed at meetings in February if all goes as planned.
"Right now, our regulations are in a number of places. Some of them are in the zoning code, some of them are in other portions of the city code. What I think you're going to see based on these court decisions is a move away from the zoning element and more into like the business regulations that we see for other types of entities," Alter said.
The background
This is something KXAN has been reporting on for years.
Though data from sites like AirDNA show Austin has more than 15,000 short term rentals, which swells during large events like Formula 1 and Austin City Limits Music Festival, less than 15% have the city-required STR license.
When we did this report last, in October, the city’s Development Services Department (DSD) told KXAN there were 2,278 properties with an active license.
It means the city is missing out on millions of dollars -- and city staff have said it makes cracking down on nuisance properties more difficult.
Part of the issue, as KXAN has previously told you and as Alter eluded to, has been legal challenges to STR ordinances nationwide. In December 2022, Austin City Council passed a resolution aimed at cracking down on those STRs, but legal challenges in other cities forced staff to shift gears.
A federal judge also ruled against the City of Austin last year after a Houston couple filed a lawsuit aimed at the city’s STR ordinance prohibiting people from operating one without living at the property. That has further complicated the city’s efforts.
Other possible solutions?
Matt Curtis, the founder of Smart City Policy Group, travels the world helping cities address the intersection of local government and emerging technology -- with an emphasis on short-term rentals. He just so happens to be in our backyard, headquartered in Austin.
"I was working on short-term rental regulations and compliance beginning about 12 years ago when I was in the industry but seven years ago I started my own company where we help cities around the world to work on this issue," Curtis said.
Curtis says the city of Austin's current rules may not be entirely the issue -- but compliance is. And there is now technology that helps with just that.
"Now there's actually a lot of opportunity for outsourcing for better compliance. So there are software compliance tools that can almost take care of everything the city needs so that any operator who is able to operate legally is doing so and they're doing a great job but that anybody who might be doing something inappropriately, they're addressed quickly and effectively," Curtis said.
An online search produces tech companies that offer services for local governments like online portals for both registering and filing complaints more easily, streamlining licensing and better data collection for code enforcement officers.
For example, Deckard Technologies calls itself a "short-term rental identification platform for local government tax & compliance teams." Accela claims to help achieve "high registration compliance through simple, online registration for short-term rental hosts."
"They're companies that actually work as an outsourced vendor for a lot of these cities, and they take care of everything from all the registration, but also all the compliance and tax portal information so that cities can achieve their goals," Curtis said.