Council OKs Changes to Short-Term Rental Rules; Lowers Notification Fee to $50

City Council waded back into the choppy waters of short-term rental regulation earlier today – and emerged largely unscathed.

By a vote of five to two, council decided to lower the fee for notifying neighbors about a rental property, and directed the city manager to re-evaluate other issues surrounding the rentals.

Owners who want to register their rentals with the city need to pay $476 for licensing and the notification fees. But over half of that – $241 – was just for the city to notify owners of properties within 100 feet about the existence of a rental. Today, council voted to lower that fee to $50.

Many short-term rentals are already rented for the opening weekend of Formula 1 in November – but only a handful are registered with the city.

The vote wasn’t without disagreement. Council members Laura Morrison and Kathie Tovo voted against both measures; Tovo said “this is without precedent to lower a fee or make a fee change without data to support it and without an extensive process to analyze it.”