The Greensboro City Council is expected to pass a short term rental housing ordinance at the Tuesday, May 2 meeting.

First, the City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed short term rental housing ordinance.  After closing the public hearing, the City Council is expected to discuss the proposed ordinance amongst themselves and with city staff and make amendments to the proposed ordinance.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan said that from the multitude of comments and suggestions city councilmembers have received, it appeared that a majority of the City Council was in favor of amending the proposed ordinance, but that legally the public hearing had to held on the ordinance as proposed.

The proposed ordinance defines and regulates “short term rentals,” which are the Airbnb and VBRO type rentals that are not currently regulated.

Vaughan said that she was told that the ordinance could not be amended until after the public hearing and didn’t like the fact that people will be asking for changes to the ordinance that the City Council already planned to make.  But it appeared that would have to be the procedure.

Vaughan said that the City Council also had to consider a bill in the state legislature that would establish state law governing short term rentals that would override any municipal ordinance.  She said, “We want to pass something we can enforce.”

Vaughan said that councilmembers had received comments from people who were opposed to an ordinance allowing short term rentals.  Vaughan said, “Short term rentals are here.  The ordinance is not to allow short term rentals but to regulate short term rentals.”

Another issue according to Vaughan is that people have stated they don’t want outside investors to be able to purchase property and turn them into short term rentals. Vaughan said, “We can’t regulate that because of private property rights.”

According to Vaughan, one of the goals of the proposed ordinance is to “Ensure that short term rentals are paying the occupancy tax.”

She said, “The ordinance will give us a way to revoke a permit.”