STR Conversation: Approach for tomorrow and Thursday

[Colleen Pate]

Council Members:

This is to suggest an approach for tomorrow and Thursday relating to the short-term rental (STR) items.

As I’ve said publicly, including at the joint public hearing with the Planning Commission, we want to be thoughtful in our approach to STRs based upon the legal rulings that impact our efforts and due to the fact that the Texas Legislature is in session and considering bills related to the topic.

Additionally, the process of analyzing this issue has worked. We’ve gained information and knowledge about the functioning of our regulatory program (for example, the cost of licensing and what it will take to fix this issue). I’m sure things like this have influenced some of our thinking about how to navigate the path forward.

In my view, we are not ready to make some of the key decisions and won’t be by Thursday. For me, I want us to be in consistent dialogue with leaders at the Capitol regarding the best approaches to addressing regulation of STRs. Additionally, I would like to see the City moving on licensing improvements and making the cost more in line with peer cities before instituting a new regulatory scheme. And, there are legal concerns that I would like answered.

The option I recommend is that we move forward with Item 39 that removes STR regulations from our Land Development Code by asking staff to prepare for us a version of Item 40 that moves current regulations to Title 4. Changes to policy provisions of licensing improvements and regulations would wait until staff’s work is complete on those.

On both Items 39 and 40, we could include a delayed implementation date that allows us to continue our conversation with the Legislature and with our platform partners.

By doing things this way, our current regulations would remain in place while we address our licensing process and further identify changes needed within our STR regulations.

Item 41 is related to the collection of Hotel Occupancy Tax dollars. This item does not impact short term rental operation regulations. I am open to having a dialogue about whether to move forward with this item on Thursday or to delay it until a date consistent with the delayed implementation of Item 40.

I am looking forward to our conversation tomorrow.

Thanks,

Kirk

On behalf of Mayor Watson