Boise City Council sends back vacation-rental ordinance. Here is what they disliked
What could have been Boise’s first regulation of short-term rentals hit another snag when Boise City Council members cited what they said were flaws in an ordinance proposed by Mayor Lauren McLean. They told her staff Tuesday night to come back with a rewrite.
The unanimous vote followed a public hearing in which owners of vacation rentals, such as homes offered on Airbnb and Vrbo, mostly said the ordinance was too burdensome. Non-owners mostly said it was either a good idea or didn’t go far enough to protect neighborhoods.
“This is a very well-intentioned ordinance that takes steps in the right direction,” Council Member Jimmy Hallyburton said. “My issue is there is potentially an issue with just some basic language.”
The ordinance would have required operators of homes rented for less than 30 days to obtain an annual $80 license with the city, while providing the proof of insurance, the owner’s name and address, phone numbers and email addresses for the owner and a local agent if it’s not the owner’s primary residence.
Deputy City Clerk Jamie Heinzerling told the council it’s difficult to know the impact of short-term rentals on Boise or the safety of guests, because vacation rental services don’t list the addresses of the homes they use publicly.
“I don’t know where short-term rentals are,” Heinzerling said. “I think that’s part of the gap we’re seeing.”
Council members voiced concerns about multiple aspects of the ordinance, particularly the requirement that owners submit floor plans and a section making any violation of the ordinance punishable as a misdemeanor.
Council President Elaine Clegg told staff the city has other ordinances with progressive steps for punishment, and that implementing that approach would show short-term rental owners “we’re not just out to get them.”
The council’s decision followed hours of public testimony that went on late into the night. Opinion was sharply divided between those who opposed the ordinance, who were nearly always short-term rental owners, and those in favor of it, none of whom said they owned a short-term rental.
Both sides of the argument appeared to focus their concerns on the potential for limiting of short-term rentals in Boise in ways that go far beyond anything mentioned in the mayor’s ordinance. Some, like Boise resident Amy Goodrich, testified that it didn’t go nearly far enough to limit the presence of short-term rentals.
“What’s been drafted is a handful of mostly meaningless administrative blanket requirements that are focused on insurance,” Goodrich said. “To me, that is completely missing the mark.”
Among short-term rental operators who opposed the ordinance, many said they did not take issue with being licensed. But they worried that licensing would open the door to more severe restrictions in the future, such as a cap on the number of rentals they can own or restrictions on the number of rentals allowed in certain neighborhoods.
Dave Klinger of Boise Working Together, a local organization that favors more regulation of short-term rentals, said residents had a right to know more about where short-term rentals are and who is operating them.
“You as city government probably know more about how many licensed dogs exist in the city than you know what is going on with short-term rentals,” Klinger said.
Other organizations made their voices heard as well. Boise Regional Realtors, which heavily opposed the city’s last attempt at regulations in 2019, had a representative testify against the ordinance.
Erik Hagen of the North End Neighborhood Association said a survey among members found a majority favored the ordinance. He said the association’s board supported it with a 6-1 vote.
Boise remains one of the largest cities in the U.S. with no regulations of the short-term rental industry. It’s estimated the city has anywhere from 1,000 to 1,200 short-term rental units. Other cities in Idaho, such as Rexburg and Sandpoint, have ordinances in place that go far beyond what was proposed by McLean’s office.
The revised ordinance will be considered in a council work session before another vote, the second on short-term rental regulations. The last one in October ended with council members concerned about the necessity of licensing short-term rentals, a topic that came up again Tuesday night.
Council Member Patrick Bageant at multiple times discussed a possible ordinance that required units only to have insurance and to maintain safety requirements, with no license from the city. He has been one of the main critics of the proposed regulations since talks of an ordinance first began.
“The proposed ordinance that we saw is fairly onerous, and that benefits sophisticated operators, particularly out-of-state investors,” Bageant said.
Council Member Holli Woodings noted the division among those who testified and said not a single person who didn’t own a vacation rental testified against the ordinance. She said she’s observed those divisions in her own neighborhood.
“They don’t enhance our neighborhood — they haven’t done really anything besides cause general strife,” Woodings said.
This story was originally published January 12, 2022 at 8:41 AM.
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