At the Tuesday, Dec. 5 meeting, the Greensboro City Council is expected to vote to delay the implementation of the controversial short term rental ordinance it passed in May.
There is no plan to amend the ordinance itself, but staff is requesting that the implementation of the ordinance be delayed from Jan. 1, 2024 to April 1, 2024.
The city currently has no ordinance specifically regulating Airbnb and VRBO type rentals and this will delay the date the ordinance passed in May goes into effect by three months.
According to the agenda, “Due to the complexities of the final adopted ordinance, the time to solicit and select the necessary 3rd party vendor and the time needed to inventory all Short Term Rentals and create and implement the required permitting system, staff is requesting an extension of the effective date for these regulations to April 1, 2024.”
Because this constitutes a change in the ordinance, the City Council is required to hold a public hearing on the item before considering the requested extension of the effective date to April 1. It is the only public hearing scheduled for the Dec. 5 meeting.
Before the ordinance was passed in May the City Council made several amendments at the request of those who were opposed to the ordinance as written. One of those was to add a spacing requirement which would not allow a short term rental within 750 feet of an existing short-term rental. That amendment passed on an 8-1 vote with Councilmember Yvonne Johnson voting no because she said she didn’t think 750 feet was far enough.
Regulating short term rentals has been a hot button item across the state and nation.
There was a bill introduced in the North Carolina state Senate in April, Senate Bill 667, which placed numerous restrictions on how municipalities could regulate short term rentals. However, that bill never made it out of the Rules Committee.
The only thing they don’t delay is giving money to their friends.
Another SNAFU!
We check with three different rental services, including the two mentioned here, and booking.com. We find what we want at our price. For example, two popular B&B/hotels in the Asheville area have priced us out. We have found exactly what we want next year at a good price, in the Black Mountain area.
You can see how these rental ordinances restrict our choices, and interfere with competition.
That’s all we need, more regulation to favor a few people at the expense of a lot of people.
More revenue for Performance Arts Palace downtown.