DALLAS — All of Dallas City Council will now weigh-in on the future of short-term rental properties in the city.
City leaders have debated how to manage STRs, like Airbnb and Vrbo for nearly three years.
Tuesday, the Quality of Life, Art and Culture Committee spent nearly three hours debating how to move forward.
“We’re at a pretty good stalemate,” Councilman Adam Bazaldua said in the meeting Tuesday.
Bazaldua leads the committee trying to sift through the recommendations. A task force suggested requiring the estimated 5,000 STR properties in the city to register and pay a licensing fee, set an occupancy limit of three people per bedroom and require parking in non-single-family areas.
“We have to get something in place to provide some accountability,” Bazaldua said.
Community groups opposing SRTs aren’t on board with the recommendations, which they say were written by industry lobbyists and investors.
“They are wholly inadequate,” Tom Forsyth, president of the Oak Park Estates Neighborhood Association said. “They are a very minimal set of regulations.”
Forsyth said the neighborhood has a problem with an absent property owner and constant parties.
“They’re being kept up all night,” he said. “They wake up in the morning and there’s trash everywhere.”
Three of the seven committee members pushed back as well, arguing the recommendations don’t go far enough and lack enforcement measure.
Councilman Paul Ridley advocated for safety inspections, parking requirements in residential neighborhoods and that repeat violations be grounds to revoke a permit to operate.
The group also pushed for a planning commission and zoning solution to the problem, but that could take time.
The issue is STRs that continue to pay hotel occupancy taxes could argue they be allowed to remain in operation even after a change is passed. Ridley feared many of the STRs would begin paying that tax immediately to be grandfathered into operating, because they fear regulation is coming soon that could prevent them from registering in the future.
“There’s a reason that we do not allow you to have a hotel in the middle of a single-family neighborhood,” Councilman Omar Narvaez said.
Bazaldua said there have been 79 complaints against properties since October 2020.
“What we don’t want to do is penalize the good actors,” he said. “That problem is a minority of the entire model.”
After nearly three hours, the decision was to send the recommendations to full city council to discuss but not make a vote one way or another on the rules.
Nearly three years later, the debate continues.