FAYETTEVILLE -- City planners want to catch up with the growing number of homeowners who rent short-term housing to visitors.
To that end, the City Council on Tuesday will consider allowing the planning staff to study and develop regulations that address short-term rentals in the city.
The Planning Department estimates that Fayetteville has 500 to 600 such properties, mostly with Airbnb. Other popular websites that provide services for hosts and renters include Vacation Rentals By Owner and HomeAway. With the service, homeowners rent a room or entire property to tenants, most often travelers, for a few days. The arrangement is similar to a hotel or motel, but it's on private property rather than part of a formal business.
The city has an agreement with Airbnb to collect and remit its 2% hotel, motel and restaurant sales tax. Half of the revenue from the tax goes to tourism; the other half to parks.
However, most short-term rentals violate city code. The city classifies them the same as it does hotels and motels, which are allowed only in commercial and mixed-use zoning districts.
The majority of short-term rentals are in neighborhoods and under residential zoning districts, said Garner Stoll, development services director.
"On the one hand, they have to pay taxes. On the other hand, they're not legal," Stoll said. "So I think the issue really needs to be addressed. We need to reconcile those."
People renting their homes to visitors for Razorback games or the Bikes, Blues & BBQ motorcycle rally is nothing new, and city planners don't want to outlaw short-term rentals, Stoll said. Instead, the city wants to find a way to fit them into the city code.
The more places there are in town for visitors to stay, the more people will stay, which equates to sales tax dollars going into the city's coffers, he said.
Such places "provide accommodations for visitors that allow us to be more elastic to accommodate peak visitor times," Stoll said.
The proposal that the council will consider Tuesday would allow planners to flesh out that policy. Considerations include ensuring that sales taxes are collected, that short-term rental properties don't clash with neighborhoods or become party houses, that buildings are safe and that the city is responsive to neighborhood complaints.
Matt Dickhut, a real estate professional who operates an Airbnb listing on Oaks Manor Drive, said he's OK with some degree of regulation. The market is getting flooded, and having a system in place to keep track of any bad actors would be beneficial to the city and neighborhoods, he said.
Dickhut is a Superhost on Airbnb and runs his rental, an accessory dwelling next to his home, like a business, he said. Superhosts maintain a high customer rating, regularly respond to messages and have at least 10 stays a year.
Problems typically arise when hosts don't take the service seriously and rent out their spaces without taking responsibility, Dickhut said. Having a registry of some kind, for instance, could help the city know who owns what if complaints come in.
"I feel like it is a little bit cowboy, and it could be arranged to be tightened up a little bit on some things," he said. "But I don't think they should put the good hosts out of business."
Stoll said one option could be requiring short-term rental hosts to get business licenses. An inspection examining minimum safety standards and parking could be part of the process to get such a license, he said.
Many cities classify the rentals under two types. Type I is when the homeowner rents out a room, or leaves the house and lets tenants stay there while they're gone. Type II is an otherwise unoccupied property that has a rotating cast of tenants.
Most problems arise with Type II properties, Stoll said. That type of rental can open the door to party houses, a problem cities across the country have grappled with. In Austin, Texas, for instance, the city adopted a regulation in 2016 banning all Type II rentals by 2022 because of unchecked partying.
Fayetteville has received surprisingly few complaints about short-term rental properties, Stoll said. A possible way to deal with partying and nuisance issues is a three-strikes rule in which the property owner could lose the business license, he said.
Planners envision an enforceable, complaint-driven system, Stoll said.
The companies also want the rental units to exist in harmony with the cities. Airbnb, for instance, has worked with more than 500 municipalities to collect and remit taxes, promote tourism and enable home sharing, according to the company.
Airbnb also allows residents to earn extra money for paying bills, or saving for retirement or vacations, said Laura Spanjian, the company's public policy director for Arkansas.
"We are committed to working with the city of Fayetteville on clear, fair regulations that preserve this economic opportunity, just like we've worked with hundreds of local governments around the world," Spanjian said.
The city plans to hold a series of public input sessions to develop the plan. After getting some feedback, planners will likely return to the City Council with some initial findings and policy goals, Stoll said.
The planning staff then will write a proposed ordinance, he said.
BY THE BOOK
In Fayetteville's Unified Development Code on short-term rentals (of fewer than seven days) are classified similar to those of a hotel. That makes renting a house for fewer than seven days illegal in all zoning districts, except in commercial and mixed-use districts that allow hotels by right.
Springdale, like Fayetteville, has an agreement with Airbnb to collect and remit the city's 2% hotel, motel and restaurant sales tax. Springdale doesn't have any regulatory framework for short-term rentals.
Rogers doesn't either. Rogers classifies bed and breakfasts as a secondary use defined as lodging for fewer than seven days. Such properties are allowed in four zoning districts, but most of the time are allowed with only a conditional-use permit from the Planning Commission.
Bentonville has no regulation specific to short-term rentals. The city regulates them under its existing codes for property maintenance and noise.
SundayMonday on 07/15/2019