["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 2"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 2"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 2"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 2"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 2"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 2"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 2"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 2"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 3"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 6"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 7"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 8"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 10"] ["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 11"] We'll go ahead and get started. I think they're going to try to work on it, but we don't have anything to do other than approve that. Okay, we'll go ahead and get started. I apologize for the late start. We're having some technical difficulties. I'm Councilmember James Brown, and I'll go ahead and call the meeting of the Planning and Public Safety Committee to order for February 18th, 2020. We'll start with an approval of the January 21st committee summary. Our motion has been made and seconded. Are there any discussions? Corrections? All those in favor, say aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Chair. I just want to make a note that on this next item I will be leaving the room. I'm going to recuse on the issue of short-term rentals since I am part owner of one. So I will adjourn to that. I'll watch on TV, but I won't be in the room, and I won't be discussing this with Councilmembers. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember. Thank you, Chair. I, too, own a short-term rental, and I will be recusing myself as well, but I plan on staying in the room. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. So what I'll do now is I'll turn it over to Councilmember Farmer, who has taken the lead on this issue. Councilmember. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that very much. Staff has done a great deal of really good work on this, and we've had this in committee for a little while, looked at it before at the previous version, and made some changes to go back just to get us started on the whole group of issues that surround short-term rentals in our city. The basis of the package today is really just to provide an evenness of playing field so that all that are involved are emitting the transient room tax, and then placing a little bit of the framework in place for regulatory opportunity here so that all those that visit visit safely and that we have the ability to follow folks. I mean, there's ‑‑ Well, I'll lean in. I'm sorry. Here we go. My voice will carry. So we're looking for the opportunity to begin a different kind of relationship in the short-term rental market because we're interested in the compatible natures neighborhood by neighborhood, and the easiest first thing to do seems to be to come in and make sure everybody plays on the same field, that they all pay the same taxes and all are referenced to the same fees, and then we have the apparatus within the government to make that regulation. So staff is here to make the presentation, but that really is the background for the conversation we've had over the last several months, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councilmember. And let me add before we get into the presentation, there were some elements during our last committee meeting where we talked about this item that were brought forward from the public. What we're presenting today is just a segment of part of the larger conversation that we have to have going forward. So if some of the points or some of the issues aren't addressed in this presentation, feel free to share them with us, but I think there are other items that we're going to take up at a later date. So thank you. Okay, good afternoon, Councilmembers. My name is Chad Edwards. I'm a member of your law department here. I've had the pleasure of working with Councilmember Farmer and several of our divisions to put together the draft short-term rental ordinance that you have in front of you today. I'll be happy to walk you through it very shortly, give you an overview of what it tries to accomplish, and I'll be happy to field any questions you may have. We can start off. Do you have a clicker or do you want to click for me? There we go. There we go. So today's draft short-term rental ordinance sets out to achieve two main goals. First, it seeks to provide a mechanism for tax accountability, a mechanism for making sure that the Division of Revenue is able to collect the taxes that are already owed under the existing law. Second, the draft ordinance sets out to establish a few minimum guest safety requirements. We'll go through those in order. As an overview, you can see that our current ordinance, we currently have a little short-term rental ordinance in place. It more or less just clarifies for everyone that occupational license fee and transient room taxes are owed on short-term rental income. The draft ordinance that you have in front of you today would maintain that language that emphasizes that those taxes are owed, but then adds a few additional requirements. First, it adds a requirement that short-term rental hosts register annually with the Division of Revenue to allow the Division of Revenue to track where these short-term rentals are happening and to make sure that they're paying taxes. To that same end, it includes a monthly reporting requirement of how many stays each short-term rental has had. It lays out a list of minimum guest safety requirements, things like fire extinguishers, fire alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, things like that, that we'll go through. And then it provides the Division of Revenue with some enforcement authority to issue citations for violation of the ordinance. So jumping into our tax accountability portion of the ordinance, this first slide is all things that are already the case. They're simply reemphasized and relayed out in the draft ordinance you have in front of you. The ordinance clarifies that operating a short-term rental is a business activity, which means in Lexington Fayette County, it's an activity for which you must have a business license, which you can get from the Division of Revenue. It is an activity on which you must pay an occupational license fee. There's some clarifying language in there to clarify that the rental income you earn from a short-term rental is not subject to this $50,000 carve out that applies to long-term rentals, which we can talk more about. And then it clarifies that short-term rental hosts are responsible for collecting transient room tax unless that's already being collected on their behalf. For example, as it currently is by Airbnb for those who choose to rent out through Airbnb. Next, under the tax accountability section, we have our registration requirement. Short-term rental hosts under this draft ordinance would be required to register annually with the Division of Revenue. They would be able to do this at the time they're getting their business license each year. The short-term rental registration would cost $300. That money would go directly to administering this program in the Division of Revenue. So hiring staff or hiring outside contractors to provide registration and enforcement. Once you register, each short-term host would be given a local registration number for each rental they have. All advertisements they would put out, whether that's on a website like HomeAway, Airbnb, or through a more informal method, would be required to include that local registration number. So the Division of Revenue can make sure that all of these short-term rentals operating have properly been registered and are up to date on taxes. The Director of Revenue would have the ability to deny registration or to revoke it for violations of law, failure to comply with the ordinance or other applicable laws such as zoning laws. And there would be a right of appeal to the Code Enforcement Board if an applicant believed that their application had been unfairly denied or revoked. And finally, there would be a monthly reporting requirement that would be very short. But each month, all registered short-term rental hosts would be required to submit a report to the Division of Revenue saying how many contracts they had for each of their residences and how many nights those covered. Looks like our guest safety one did not make it in there. That's okay. I'll give you a quick overview of that. The guest safety requirements, as I mentioned before, are largely things like fire extinguishers. There's also a requirement in there that all bedrooms have emergency and rescue openings, that emergency evacuation plans are posted in a prominent place in the short-term rental, and that emergency contact information is available. We know that some of our short-term rental hosts and owners do not live locally, so we're requiring that someone be available nearby to help in case of an emergency. And finally, we have our penalties, which, as we said, are issued by the Division of Revenue. Penalties range from $125 to $1,000 per offense, escalating the more offenses you commit with the exception of advertising without a local registration number, which is capped at a simple $125. Appeals of this one also go to the Code Enforcement Board. I'll be happy to answer any questions, and we have our Division of Revenue and Division of Planning here to answer questions as well for questions that relate to them. Thank you, Counselor. Before we go into questions, I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Farmer, and if I can ask security to bring the sign-in sheet forward for folks that are signed in to speak. Councilmember? Mr. Chair, thank you. So the draft ordinance starts on page 10 of our packet, and really the beginning of the changes starts on page 11, where we're changing the style of the way the payments currently are handled. Then beginning in section 2, we begin the new wording for the registration part of this that runs on the length of page 12 and to the top of page 13. And then this is the center of it. This is section 1378 or section 3. It has to do with the collecting of the taxes involved here, which is really the rubber-meeting-the-road part of this, and the collection of the information of the business activity, because we're still trying to define how large this industry- Hey! I'm so sorry. Usually my voice carries, but obviously I'm not leaning in far enough. So, as I was saying, the middle of page 13 is about the derivation of the taxes, so that all are playing on a level playing field. Then at the bottom of page 13 are the duties of the hosts that run on through the middle of page 14. And then kind of the stuff about advertising on platforms, because as we've looked at other jurisdictions, this is an important part of this in terms of trying to register who is renting what property. And then you begin to see enforcement in 13-81 at the bottom of page 15, which cycles all this through to revenue. And revenue would be the ones that would be following up on this, in an inside or an outside way. It would be up to them, because I think this is all brand new for them. And those are all really- I mean, is there anything I left out of that, that the reporting requirement says monthly unless you're part of the database, and it just gets done automatically, I believe? Yes, that's correct. That's a good summary. Thank you. So the words on the paper are live. This is an open draft. You could change anything about it. We could not change anything about it. I think it would be my hope and wise for us to pass this forward to the full council for consideration and potential changes there, too, noting that there's opportunity here and we need to know more information and that Chairwoman Mazzotti keeps a very tight agenda here, and she has a lot of things lined up through the rest of the year. This could remain in committee, but today it would take six votes to move it forward to the council to consider next month, and I would ask you all to consider it in that capacity. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Lamb, let me go ahead and recognize you. Go ahead. My thought was, and I guess I'll ask councilmembers, I was going to open it up for public comment and then we ask questions afterwards, but okay. Are you fine with that? Okay. All right. Thank you, Councilmember. So with that, I think we have about 11 people signed up to speak, so we'll start with Leslie Rozier. My apologies. All right. Is it Chris Hyatt? I'm here for this. It says Airbnb. I didn't put Airbnb on what I'm here for, but that's fine. Okay. Well, if you guys have comments, you're more than welcome to come to the microphone. Mark Street, he's after Nancy. It says cold enforcement. I'm sorry, Ms. Nancy, but you're here for cold enforcement? No, I'm here for Airbnb. Okay. All right. Thank you. It's all cold enforcement in my mind, so. Can everyone hear me okay? Okay. My husband and I operate an Airbnb bedroom suite in our home. We've had the opportunity to be excellent ambassadors for Lexington through hosting. I'm sorry. I hate to cut you off. Can you give us your name and address for the record? Yes. Nancy Cristiano, 298 Lafayette Parkway. Thank you. Guests are vetted by us. They enter and exit our bedroom suite through a common entrance in our home. We provide safety, fire extinguishers, security system, carbon monoxide, et cetera. The economic impact of Airbnb is realized through several avenues including restaurants and tourist attractions that we recommend. Guests seek our advice often on dining and things to do. We provide a vast collection of print and material on Lexington's tourist attractions and local restaurants. We're in the Southland area, by the way. Many of our guests are medical professionals and are physicians conducting residency interviews at the University of Kentucky. Airbnb experience provides an excellent opportunity for us to provide them hospitality and they are in the decision making process of deciding if they will come to Lexington or not. These professionals will buy homes if they do come to Lexington. They'll have children in school. They'll attend local events. They'll dine out. They will become part of Lexington. The passive income that Airbnb provides to us has enabled us to make improvements to our home, such as a new metal roof and solar panels. These two improvements have increased our home value. But not just our home values, that of our neighbors as well. Without Airbnb, we would have not been able to make those improvements. The secondary and tertiary effect of those improvements are that local businesses and their employees, the contractors we hired, have work and jobs because of our improvements. The social impact of Airbnb is social. In this world where people are isolated and by themselves, it gives us an opportunity to be engaging and hospitable, which there seems to be a lack of. It reflects positively upon Lexington and our neighborhood, and we are really proud to be ambassadors for our town. There are negative reports. I've heard two, I think, in the time that we've been doing this, and it was parties that had gone wrong. One in California, I don't know where the other one was. But it's easy to bring negative light to something. And if you consider the millions, I'm sure literally millions of hosting experiences around the globe of Airbnb, a couple of incidences are, sadly, they're probably going to happen. But they've not happened in Lexington. We are very conscious and conscientious. We make sure that we vet our guests. And if we aren't comfortable with somebody because of their reviews, we decline them. Airbnb collects and pays taxes for us, and we appreciate that. We have no issue paying taxes. I do ask, I have a question on the monthly reporting. Is this something that will be imposed upon us that is maybe not imposed upon hotels? Are they required to report this type of data? And if so, then okay. But if not, then I think it's unfair. Okay, thank you. Would it be appropriate for Chad to answer that question about the- Excuse me. Yeah, I'd be happy to step in and speak to what I know of that. So hotels are regulated by the state. They're required to receive an annual permit through the health department. I'm not aware of a monthly reporting requirement that the state health department puts on them. But I can't speak definitively to that because it is the state. But they are required to register annually and to undergo annual inspections by the health department. Okay. All right. And I think for this ordinance, I think it pertains to platforms that don't have an agreement with the city that the property owner would be required to do monthly reporting. But the platforms that have an agreement with the city already report on a regular basis. That's correct. So, for example, we currently have an agreement in place with Airbnb for Airbnb to collect transient room tax on behalf of guests. If a short-term rental hosts only advertised with Airbnb, they would not be required to file a monthly report. And I believe the administration would like to get agreements in place with as many posting platforms as possible. Okay. All right, thank you. Next on the list, we have Chris Hustis. And if I could ask everyone to state their name and their address before their comments. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Chris Hustis. I live at 709 Lynn Road in Lexington, Kentucky. I've been doing Airbnb for a couple years. I just found out about this meeting about a half an hour ago, so I'm not very well prepared to speak. But I would like to thank all those present who do Airbnb. Kudos. Thank you for being here. I think there's a lot of issues that I would like to address. And the woman who just spoke, I agree strongly with everything she said. I don't want to repeat everything that she just said. But Airbnb reaches out to people worldwide and helps them come to Lexington. We host and we try to provide a decent, fair price to those people visiting Lexington. But there's also another element that happens. It's those people who come to work in Lexington, the horse people who stay at my house, working with the horse industry, from grooms to horse buyers. There's also the element of it being a fair housing issue for low-income people. Because I do not have a luxury resort house, but I have a very fair price. And for people of very moderate income who need a place to stay, they don't have to pay a rent deposit at my house. And it works out, I think, very well for them. And that's also a consideration that you should think about. Some of these elements in this proposal I agree with. I agree with the safety issues. And I agree with paying taxes and license and business and all that. If you take out the restriction of the 52 times per year, we could help those moderate income people, low-income people. And some of the other restrictions. I also think, since I just found out about this meeting, notice and development of plans for short-term rentals. It would be really helpful to have several meetings discussing this with the people involved before you really decide any new restrictions. We're helping contributing to this local income for the city in many, many ways. But also to really develop a plan that works for everybody. And by asking to have more time to discuss this before you vote on anything. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Houston. Next on the list is Mark Streety. Can I ask a clarifying question? Are you signed up to speak? Do you want to sign up to speak? No, I'm too early. Let me ask y'all to sign up to speak. And then that way we can get your questions answered. Mr. Streety. I have a one-page copy to pass around to the committee, please. Mr. Vice Chair and Council Committee Members, thank you. My name is Mark Streety. I live at 1020 Fincastle Road. I'm here today representing Lexington Urban Neighborhoods Alliance, a.k.a. LUNA. What's being passed around is a one-page letter from LUNA for this consideration. Thank you again for your follow-up on this chronic problem of short-term rentals. Let me differentiate LUNA from the first two and I'm sure other speakers to come. We support owner-occupied short-term rentals. If you want to rent your couch or your bedroom or your attic or half of your duplex, we're for you. Just play by the rules and these discussions will elucidate what those rules are. I recall a neighbor, a great Lexingtonian, speaking in the fall when we were last in this room. I think I was 9-1 outnumbered that day. We'll see how the day goes. He said, we don't want special rules, we just want to play by the same rules. Special rules don't exempt us from hotels and bed and breakfasts but don't make it harder on us. That was Fran Farmer and I concurred then with her and I still do. With this draft, I would say to you on behalf of LUNA that we believe it does a really good job adequately addressing and improving the current weaknesses. Lax regulation, feckless enforcement, missing tax revenues and the hidden economy, frankly. It's silent on one critical aspect. I want to just lift that up today. I know the vice chair said there's more discussion and consideration to follow. And that is non-owner occupied short-term rentals. So the folks that own a second or more than two and don't live in those units, we are opposed to that at LUNA. We hope that you would consider banning them from Lexington for the following reasons. It's one less housing unit for our housing shortage. It's higher rent for the folks that need to rent here in town. There's no on-site owner, neighbor for us to deal with our issues of parking noise in the moment. Those occur at night usually and in convenient times, not during the day office hours. The most important concern is we lose our neighbor. It's already happening not in Clarinda, California with that horrific story, but here in Gratz Park. A third or more of their homes are now non-owner occupied short-term rentals. I believe Mr. Hackworth spoke to that in the fall in front of a work group. The Treme District in New Orleans, I've mentioned this to you before. I'll just one more time take a shot to ask everyone, please, to listen to the four-minute Planet Money radio cast called New Orleans versus Airbnb. It's related to non-owner occupied short-term rentals, not owner occupied short-term rentals. It is profound insight into this very issue, and thank you for considering that. And finally, many, many non-owner occupied short-term renters are successful entrepreneurs, or they're aiming to be, and I suspect they will be. They're scaling up. They have a broad number of these units. When they seek to cash out, they will cash out to even larger corporations. We don't want in our neighborhoods Marriott as our neighbor. We're a residential neighborhood. We're not a transient or a motel zone for non-owner occupied short-term rentals. There's other concerns. I don't lift them up today. I just say we support the draft that's in front of you because a good start is better than a perfect waiting for perfection. And so we encourage the continuing conversation. Many of these other questions I'm sure will be addressed by the committee and the council. What private economic activities permitted in residential zones, for example? What's the use of the new tax dollars? Hopefully it won't just go to convention center and tourism, but also to possibly some neighborhood infrastructure matters and certainly enforcement. And finally, that I can't quantify, but I have had neighbors ask me about stranger danger. So it's too late after the fact to rate a visitor in your home if something on the front end can be prevented. So again, for non-owner occupied short-term rentals, we oppose and ask for these concerns to be considered in your deliberation. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Streety. Next on the list is R.J. You don't want to speak? All right. Thank you. Mr. Hackworth. John Hackworth. I'm John Hackworth, 220 Market Street. First of all, the information of one-third of Grants Park is Airbnbs is not true. We have about, out of the Grants Park Neighborhood Association, there probably, well, there are five Airbnb VRBOs within the 30 homes that are in the Grants Park Neighborhood Association. But that in itself is a bit alarming. I have a question, though. What is the 52 times, 52 times a year restriction? What is that restriction? What does that mean? Just to give some clarity, Chad, if you could come and help me. But from my understanding, the way the current ordinance is written is a short-term rental is defined as a property that has 50, no more than 52 rentals a year or at least 52 rentals. Does that mean that the property can only have 52 per year? Currently, that's how the ordinance is written. Does that mean, is it, can you have two in one week and not have them in another week? Or how does that work? Let me ask the Director of Planning to give us some clarification on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The weekly rental comes from the definition of dwelling unit in the zoning ordinance, which describes a unit that can be occupied, either as an owner occupied or leased, weekly, monthly or annually. So the weekly rental is then translated into 52 unique rentals per year. So the idea is that a dwelling unit in a residential zone should not be booked for rental, whether it's through the short-term rental or for just regular rental, for any less than one week at a time. Hopefully that gave you some clarity. Does that clarify your question, Mr. Hackworth? Well, it seems a little strange to me. I'll let you finish your comments and then I'll add some commentary to it. It seems a little strange to me. In my experience, I'm a VRBO, Airbnb traveler. I use it a lot and enjoy it a lot. Sometimes we were in Nashville recently and we were there for two nights and moved on and I'm sure somebody else was. It's a desirable place and somebody was there the next night. I don't have any problem with that. And then the Airbnbs that we are short-term rentals that we have around Grants Park, I don't have any problem. We have not had, I'll be quick to add, we have not had any problems in the five properties that I'm aware of, any problems with guests that have stayed there. It's all been handled very, very well. But I think that seems a little arbitrary to limit it to, I mean, if somebody can rent their Airbnb for two nights, three times during a week, and that all is well. As far as I'm concerned, that seems a little like an arbitrary restriction to me placed on the owners of these Airbnbs. Mr. Hackworth, I hate to cut you off, but your three minutes is up. Well, wait a minute. We've had somebody else come up and talk. Okay. If we can give, I think it took about another minute 30 to answer the question. Okay. Very quickly. I wonder if anybody has, as I mentioned once before, checked with the people in Louisville. Has the Planning Commission talked to the people in Louisville? I was on the phone this morning with Brandon Cone's office, who is a council member in Louisville, and they've done an Airbnb restriction. The thing that I really like about what Louisville's done is they've done a 600-foot restriction where another Airbnb or short-term rental can't be within 600 feet of another one. I'm sure that everything that's in Lexington would be grandfathered in, but that would keep Airbnb or short-term rental, short-term rental, short-term rental. And that's what we're worried at in our little neighborhood, and I think other neighborhoods should be concerned with this as well. I have no problem with a non-owner, I mean, when the owner is not occupying. In fact, all the Airbnbs in our neighborhood, there's no owner that's living in the place, and they're kept very well. But that restriction is only for the non-owner-occupied Airbnbs or short-term rentals. It does not apply to the owner-occupied short-term rental places. But that 600-foot restriction is really something that needs to be considered in this ordinance. And I wish I could get somebody to get a little traction on that, to at least talk to the people in Louisville. I have a question. Has the Planning Commission talked to the people in Louisville? Okay. Mr. Hackworth, I don't mean to cut you off, but let me speak to your questions. We have, our Department of Revenue and our Law Department have talked to the folks in Louisville about what they're doing. I think the issue about the frequency and the density of the short-term rentals has to be or needs to be addressed in our zoning. So this ordinance that we have today is more targeted at reporting and accountability of the units as opposed to the density and the frequency of the rentals. So I think it's the next step in the progression of addressing, talking about this issue. What I'll ask is if you have questions, because I was going to try to answer them as you had them, just so it kind of makes sense. But if you can ask your questions at the end of your comments, then we'll try to get them answered before we go to the next person. Next on the list is Joellen Hayden. Thank you, Ms. Hayden. Hi, good afternoon. I'm Joellen Hayden, 350 New Street. So I'm actually one of John's neighbors. And I want to give you a personal experience with this. First of all, I want to say that the ordinance that I've heard today, I support. That seems like a great start from that angle of the registration and also the tax consequences. I am much more concerned about the implementation of how this plays out in various neighborhoods. And I also believe there is a distinction between the owner-occupied Airbnbs or short-term rentals, which have been, that's been a tradition around the world, really, for many years. The other aspect of not having an owner on site, which I do believe is important, is the fact that the neighbors can't take care of a parking issue, which occurs at 9 o'clock at night. It just is impractical. So let me tell you about something that's happened on my street in the last year. One of our neighbors, elderly lady, sold her house, moved to Florida. It was purchased by a gentleman who already has one Airbnb a few blocks away. His intention, although he didn't quite tell her this, was to make it into an Airbnb, and he has done so. It took him quite a long time to get the conversion complete. But when the house was sold, it was three bedrooms, two and a half baths. It's a townhome. Now it is five bedrooms, four and a half baths. It sleeps ten. It has a two-car garage. And by the way, I don't know if this was done with a permit or without a permit. I didn't see a permit posted, but I'm not, I just want to bring that up, that that is quite possible to have happen, especially if you're using sort of your own folks to do the work. In the meantime, the house has a two-car garage. However, on his Airbnb site, he points out that he will give you a parking pass, a residential parking pass, we're under the residential parking pass system, to park on the street. He shouldn't have those passes because he doesn't actually live in that house. So there's another issue. This would take a lot of tracking down to figure out how often this is actually going on in various properties. We, in the meantime, looked forward to a new neighbor in our neighborhood. And this speaks to the aspect that this ordinance has yet to address. And that is what I would call neighborhood integrity, neighborhood preservation. But the primary word is neighborhood. We wanted a new neighbor, but we don't have a new neighbor. Very likely won't have a new neighbor because the way the house is configured now, it has two wet bars that have a refrigerator and a sink and a microwave. So it has two sort of kitchenettes. It's got the two extra bathrooms. It's configured for hotel use. So selling it to a family probably isn't going to happen. There's a house right next door to it that probably will come vacant in the next year. We're very afraid the same man will buy that house and do exactly the same thing. So thank you for listening and thank you for your time. Thank you. Counselor. Pardon me. Thank you for recognizing me, Chair. I just wanted to offer a slight clarification. Under our current zoning ordinance, the 52 rentals per year does not require that each rental be a minimum of one week long. It simply requires that you have no more than one unique rental per week. So if you want to have a one-night rental or a six-night rental, that's up to you. But once you've had your rental for that week, under the ordinance, you have to wait until the following week before you can rent out again. So the rentals don't have to be a full week-long rental, but you can only have one rental per week under the current zoning ordinance. Thank you. All right. Thank you for the clarification. Mr. Gaffield, Walt Gaffield. I'm Walt Gaffield, 2001 Bamboo Drive. I'm President of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council. I'm only going to speak briefly. I admit I haven't studied this as well as I should have. I mean, I'm not against regulation or registration or safety. I mean, that's something we all need to be concerned about. And I'm also glad and didn't really understand that until this meeting that the registration fee is going to go for the administration, and I guess the enforcement of whatever rules are set for doing something. I do think there's some potential issues with the ordinance as we understand it. For one thing, I think Airbnb just gives you a block of money, but doesn't tell you when a property was rented, how long or how many people or anything like that. And I think you probably are going to need that, or zoning enforcement isn't going to be able to, they're not going to have data to use to enforce anything. And you can set rules, but you have to figure out a way to make sure that they actually work. I think in addition, I'd say when you get to a zoning ordinance, if that's separate from what you're working on now, which seems mostly to be a revenue piece, it probably needs its own section or own chapter in the zoning ordinance, because it appears there's a lot of different issues associated with this. And I think it would be probably wise to try to reach some kind of consensus, because it seems to be there's some wide levels of disagreement on the issue, really, before you take it to the entire council. I mean, right now, I can't say that we're rock solid. We agree in principle, I think, with Mark from Luna, but maybe not entirely, I don't know. But it seems to me that this needs to be worked out better before it can move on. Thank you very much. Thank you. Rachel Johnson. Yes, ma'am. Hello. I'm Rachel Johnson, 861 Honeysuckle Road. I, too, I do have an owner-occupied Airbnb in my home. Moved into my home about a year ago. Spent probably about $20,000 for the renovations, which went towards work with other construction companies. I currently am on disability and very limited of what I can do with my health issues. And what Airbnb is really doing is creating an opportunity where I can supplement my income and then hopefully, with a plan, maybe even come off disability. And one of the things with my particular property is I'm appealing to the long-term, short-term rental people, like engineers that come in or consultants. And they want a residence that is more a home-like feeling. Or maybe they have a pet and they can't get that from a hotel or one of the long-term hotel places. So that has been, I'm feeling I'm meeting that niche as other Airbnbs are. They're just given this unique experience that they're not finding with the hotels. But one of the other things that I keep hearing here is a fair playing field, which is, of course, just common sense. And I didn't have a chance to read the thing before I came here. But now that I am, one of my questions is, how is that monthly reporting going to be done? Is it going to be done electronically? Is there going to be a form that we have to send in via the mail? I mean, how convenient is that going to be? And then also with the implementing this new infrastructure and violations and nuisances, isn't that really already kind of set up? If you are a homeowner, aren't you still responsible if there's problems with your sidewalk, whether you live there or not? Some of these things with these communities like Gratz Park, well, if the woman, whoever did buy that property, if they wanted to make that a long, regular tenant-landlord arrangement, once again, they may not know that person. Or the owner's not there to represent those problems. The person would still have to contact the owner of the property. So once again, just a fair playing field. And a lot of these things that we really seem to need to address before some of these bigger items is addressing how many times we can have a guest at our home. The 52 stays, that would very much limit my income and a lot of the other people potentially out there, because there is so much opportunity. But anytime that there is something introduced, like Airbnb, some people feel, well, it's taken away from the properties that are available to be rented. Lexington is not New York City. It is not New Orleans. We still have plenty of place to spread out into. And other homes can be converted. This is creating an opportunity for everybody. For those who do want to do a room in their home, or those who do want to buy a building and put Airbnbs. But then it also creates other opportunities for those that are more comfortable with a long-term rental arrangement. But before all that is said and done, we do need to address some of the bigger issues. The 52 weeks, how the reporting is going to be done. Yes, ma'am. I don't want to cut you off, but your time's up. But I'm going to try to get some clarity for your question. Chad, if you don't mind. Airbnb is currently in cooperation with the city, so they do the reporting themselves. If somebody has another platform that's not in cooperation with the city, what does the reporting in theory look like? I'll ask the Division of Revenue to come up here and join me for that. Division of Revenue would be the parties responsible for actually collecting and processing that information. The ordinance, as it's drafted, gives the Director of Revenue a little bit of leeway to decide exactly what that looks like to make sure they get the information they need as quickly and painlessly as possible. Currently, those with Airbnb, they send in the payments for those that are signed up with them. Any other platform, they are responsible for remitting it through a transit room tax that's sent in monthly. Okay. So is that by paper? Is that online? It's by paper. By paper. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next on the list is, I apologize if I butcher your last name, is Wayne. You don't want to speak? Okay. Thank you. All right. Next up is James Matthews. Thank you. Thank you. My name is James Matthews. I live at 298 Lafayette Parkway here in town. We rent a bedroom and a bathroom in our home where we live full time, 45 bucks a night thereabout. We're not getting rich off of it. It is, we do it for income, although meeting all these interesting people is a bonus. We made about $9,000 last year. You got about $1,100 from occupational taxes and then the 2.5% for profits. A couple of things. That 52 rentals would seriously hurt our income because of the way it's structured. Most of our rentals are one or two nights. They're either medical professionals or tourists. A lot of times blue-collar workers coming in and we don't do the long-term rental thing. Be careful that you don't create something that's really hard to enforce. You don't want to drive people underground or anything like that. I appreciate very much the council being proactive. I don't think the problem is that bad, but I agree it's a good thing to address it now rather than later. I do have an issue for Chad or the revenue people that when I was doing taxes I found some dissonance. Fayette County Regulation 13-4 on license fee regulations says that individual owners located in urban county are rebuttably pursued to be engaged in a business activity, which requires a license fee to be paid unless the individual's gross receipts derived from the rental or ownership are less than $50,000. Tax law can be confusing, and I'm certainly not a tax lawyer, but my reading, if you're not providing services in a short-term rental, that's passive income, passive rental income. And by the way it's written now, if you don't have passive rental income over $50,000, it doesn't require a license. So that's obviously in conflict with most people that I see come up here and say, I have a license. So if that could be identified and clarified, I think that would be a good thing. Thank you again. $300 is a lot out of my pocket for a small-term rental, and again, the 52 rentals per year would be really hard. Thank you for your time. All right, thank you. I'm going to ask Chad to come up at the end of public comment to answer that question. If you don't mind, I'll give you some time to get that answer. Next on the list is Amy Clark. Amy Clark at 628 Castle Road. Thank you for hearing me. I want to emphasize that hotels, and that to me largely includes transient lodging, is a commercial land use. It's not a residential land use. So what we've got here is something that's betwixt and between. I think what is happening, I would urge you not to condone the practice of short-term rentals with arrangements for taxing and registration and so on, without defining and regulating the land use as such. We have all kinds of land uses. There's already a B&B. You're allowed one room, two people in the urban area. In farms and in our 345, you're allowed five rooms. We have group houses, which is just to say we have dwelling units with up to four unrelated people. People can rent rooms. We have extended stay hotels, which require that not more than half your stays be less than a week or once a week. So we have a lot of different land uses. I don't see that the short-term rental we're talking about and trying to handle is any one of these. And I think we need more clarity on that. We need to establish a land use for it, get some ground rules, get a definition, and then it needs to be enforced. I would ask that the transient room taxes not go to the convention center and visit Lex, which I believe is the current arrangement. I don't truly know whether the state authorizes us to direct the revenues here or there. I think it's a special privilege to tax. But I don't like to see that money anywhere but put into enforcement and oversight of the use itself. I would ask that registration include a requirement that you show insurance, insurance specific to the use. I have no idea how many of these are just they have homeowner's insurance. It's good risk management for the city. It's good protection for everyone to require proof of insurance proper to the use. And finally, I just want to say the one person we haven't much heard from is Jim Marks, who's in charge of zoning enforcement. Please distinguish between code enforcement, which has to do with nuisance and building code, and zoning enforcement, which does not go before the administrative review board. It has s very different rules it' s very hard to regulate a short term use. The issues we have and these are key to nearly everyone who has spoken on both sides are how many people, how long is the term of the stay? Please define the use so you can regulate and enforce it before us. next on the list is NEDA Frederick. Evan mcgill. Mr. Chair I have a clarification question about I appreciate the safety concerns and the taxation and all of that. The question has to do with the $300 registration fee and also the way of counting the 52 uses. In other words if I'm paying $300 for the two rooms that I rent out so am I paying would I be paying two is it per property or per rental unit that you' re trying to determine both the $300 registration fee and also the 52 times per year? I' m sorry I didn' t hear you Mr. Chair. Do you have any comments? No. Is there anybody that wants to speak that hasn' t signed up to speak? All right. Before we go into council comment if we can get those two questions addressed and I don' t know if it' s revenue or the law department that is best to address. Then the other question is the 52 times a year does that apply to the unit of the room and the 52 times a year does that apply to the unit of the room. Mr. Chair if I could step in I can answer the second question if you would like. The 52 times per year that's per dwelling unit. Okay. So it's not the room. It's the house or the dwelling unit itself. Okay. All right. Thank you, director. And the other question. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. That's for long-term rentals. Short-term rentals is considered a business activity because in long-term you're only providing the land and the housing. As far as short-term rentals you're providing like toiletries and other small items like that so it's somewhat of a service and is considered business activity. I disagree. Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Now I'm going to open it up to councilmember comments and questions. Thank you for your patience, councilmembers. Councilmember Lamb. Thank you, chair. I have several questions at first and then I'll wait and save my comments until later. The first question I have is regarding when we had this back in October, the registration fee was $100 and now it's $300. I would like to find out clarification as to why that number was changed. I would like to know why that number was changed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I can confirm that the number that was changed. In order for me to be able to exhaust my full five minutes, I will ask my questions and then if we can appropriate the right person to answer, I would appreciate it. The other question is, I know there is a greater Lexington apartment association who represents all the apartment owners and I'm not sure if there is an organization or association that short-term rental owners have to kind of work with. I'm not sure that they have those types of rights. I just want to make that point. It's a great question. I know there is a greater Lexington apartment association who represents all the apartment owners and I'm not sure if there is an organization or association that short-term rental owners have to kind of work in conjunction. If they do so, did the work group that worked on this ordinance draft, did they meet with that group? The other question under the page 13 in our packet under the duties of the host, who is responsible for seeing that these duties are being served? And the other question is, who is responsible for understanding that these duties are being served? And the other question is, who is responsible for understanding that these duties are being served? I'm not sure that there is a group that is responsible for understanding that these duties are met. Is it complaint-driven or is there going to be someone actually from local government to go out and inspect these properties? It was interesting. I was glad to know that the health department actually oversees the hotels, which I did not know that part and I appreciate knowing that. The other, the last question I have has to do with the administrative hearing board. I know that over the last couple of years, the administrative hearing board has been involved in a number of things. I know that the administrative hearing board has been involved in a number of things. I know that the administrative hearing board has been involved in a number of things. I know that the administrative hearing board has been involved in a number of things. I know that over the last several years, there has been some concern with subpoena power and I'm just curious if the administrative hearing board currently has subpoena power or is that something that would have to be added? Those are my questions. I don't know if Mr. Farmer wants to answer or if he wants to have law department or revenue. I'm not sure the administrative hearing board has subpoena power. I'm not sure the administrative hearing board has subpoena power. I don't think I wrote down all the questions. I'll take a stab and we'll let staff come in, too. I think when you ask your first question about amount, amount goes to usage and how much time it takes for us to do these things. And that's what the discussion centered around. And it really follows right into your comment about page 13 about who is responsible. That responsibility is paid for by us and our folks going out to see what's going on. That's why we arbitrated to $300 away from $100 because all of those things have costs. Because I still think one of the most important things here is the information that we're trying to derive. Because I think it really is important to know how many are out there per unit volume. And I need to come back to your questions. I'm sorry. The legislation is just about the taxation and setting up an apparatus. There are tremendous planning and zoning issues within this universe. And I think we can get to all of them. And I think we can get to accessory dwelling units, too. I don't know if we can do it all at the same time and solve the quadratic. I think we can get a really good start here on this with this legislation. I think you had another question I didn't address. The part about an association or organization for short-term rental owners, I don't know if there is such an organization or association that even exists. I'm not familiar with it. There may be one by 5 o'clock today. You never know. Well, I will say that is something that I will say to the public as a whole. You talk about representation. It's nice when you can be called to the table by having an organization or association that does represent a group of people like the greater Lexington apartment association. They can come to the table when there is discussion about that and this I think is unfortunate because there has not been representation per se. I do not know that factually because I'm not assuming there wasn't discussions beforehand. The other question is, so would the duties of the host, are they complaint driven or is this something you mentioned that the increase in the $300 was to cover that cost. Is that going to fall under division of revenue? Okay. Mr. Cook. I mean do you even have the personnel not to put you on the spot but I think if I'm remembering correctly there is less than five in your office that deal with certain issues as it relates to businesses and homes now. That is correct. We have two people who are business license inspectors so the $300 would go to helping fund either external resources or other additional staffing to do the work. Okay. I appreciate that. And I will comment on that as well. In addition to being partly complaint driven the other enforcement mechanism for the minimum safety requirements is that when hosts register annually or renew the registration they are required to submit an affidavit swearing under oath that they are required to submit an affidavit swearing under oath. That helps me better understand that. Sir, Chad, I believe. I'm not trying to be disrespectful. Does the administrative hearing board currently have subpoena power? It does. That is granted to it by state statute. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Williams. I appreciate the farmers' work on this. I do think getting taxes from all the short-term rentals is important. I appreciate the work on it. I have concerns that it's a little burdensome. I think that short-term rentals contribute greatly to our economy and fill in the gaps. I'm not trying to voice that and say I'm not in agreement with that. I think from a safety standpoint, if people want to do that and rent a room in someone else's house or multiple rooms, that should be allowed. Another question I have about the 30-day limit. I'm concerned about the 30-day limit. I don't know if it's a state regulation or one we set in place in terms of short-term rental. If someone wants to come to UK for a residency or a practicum and they're here for six to eight weeks, where are they going to stay? How would that be addressed? I'm going to invite director Duncan to speak to that. The limit is really no more than one unique rental per week. Otherwise you can be rented for as long as according to a dwelling unit definition in the zoning ordinance. There's no top line definition. I believe what director Duncan is saying is the 30 days you're seeing in the ordinance is a definition. If you had a stay that was longer than 30 days it would not qualify as a short-term rental. It would be treated as a normal long-term rental. If you're not giving the transient tax they would have to do a monthly report. Does that have to include the names and addresses of the guests that are staying or is it just a number? It's the number of contracts and the number of nights your short-term rental was rented out. If you're not giving the transient tax it could have a potential of having trouble enforcing this from what I just heard from revenue, correct? Because it wouldn't be code enforcement that's going out and making sure that the rentals are following the ordinance, correct? Yes, that's correct. Thank you for recognizing me since I'm not on the committee, but I would ask that those who are on the committee to keep this in the committee because clearly I think there are a lot of questions and a lot of concerns. Mine are really based on constitutional issues. Beginning with the gentleman's comment about the passive income, I think we're treating this business very differently than other businesses, and I have a lot of concern about that. We're even treating it differently than regular rentals. So I'm really concerned that someone who has their home who just wants to rent it out for a month or two months, whatever, is not going to be under the same business license for short-term rentals and not requiring that with these other types of businesses that are considered passive income. So I would really ask the law department to go back and research that and make sure that that is an argument that they're ready for that argument because I think we have to be ready for that argument. There's a revocation. My experience being at the AG's office working with licensing boards, if you want to revoke someone's license, they're entitled to a hearing. So automatically just revoking someone's license doesn't happen. They're entitled to it's not required for that person to be revoked. So it constitutes really a constitutional taking. So again, I need you all to go back and research that because that's requiring the licensee to make an appeal for a revocation. I think we have some constitutional issues with that. And then let's see. Those were my two biggest issues. I have concerns about the increase in the fee because it was originally 100. The purpose of this, again, appreciating this was a concern and we do need to make sure we're getting the taxes the city is entitled to, this seems to be an amount that we're trying to preclude people from doing this. So I would ask that you all reconsider that. That fee as well. But those are my two main concerns about the ordinance as it is. I still think we have some constitutional issues before we even get to do we include the non-owner renter occupied versus anything else that was said. So those are my main comments. I will keep it in committee to hash out those. There are some other vague or questionable things throughout it. But, again, those are my two biggest concerns. I ask the committee and the law department to go back and research. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. I don't have answers to all of those. I will go off my own thoughts. Several years ago before Council Member Farmer picked this up I tried and it is really complicated. We are walking a very delicate balance between the preservation of our neighborhoods and the feel and the culture that those have and the rights of private property owners to exercise those rights. That is not something that we can control. I don't want you to think we are doing this to make our own money. That wouldn't be our intent. Secondarily, as Council Member Farmer said, there is the actual taxing side of this and the registration. When someone calls our office and says there is something going on it is concerning to me. Are they in air B&B? I have no idea. We can look and if they happen to be registered we can say yes they are. There is assurance knowing that location is registered. There is activity there that we know what is going on. That is a safety in that knowledge and understanding. Our goal was to make sure what people are doing in their homes that makes sense for this issue. That is different than the zoning issue. I think the 52 unique stays, the duration of those things, land use in general is a whole different conversation than maybe what we' re trying to do with this. Which is level the playing field between those who are registered and those who are not. If someone is paying that tax and being accountable that' s not okay. I think the legislation as proposed was meant to do that piece of it. It was meant to have that land use and zoning piece of it which is a secondary conversation to the first piece. It' s my understanding of how this makes sense to me. In that sense I would say we move this piece forward so we can have that but I think the secondary piece of it. I don' t want to lose the unequitableness of the first one for the second. That' s my personal take on it currently. Thank you. Thank you councilmember. Councilmember Worley. Thank you chair. To all of you who have come and shared your comments with us today I want to make a point. I don' t know what several of you are addressing but what I hear today are questions potentially and concerns about things that are not being addressed with this particular ordinance change. These are issues that are happening within our own zoning ordinances and I agree with councilmember Evans that we need to continue to study this issue. As councilmember Bledsoe says it gives us the appropriate platform to continue these discussions. It addresses a direct problem that we currently have and that is bad actors who are not paying the transient room taxes are not registering and are not using and complying with the ordinances that we currently have. This gives our department the opportunity to address the issues that we hear about. We don't like how people are operating their short-term rental. Those are people who are not going to want to pay that tax. Some of those actors may move out of the industry and out of the market just because we take this seriously. I think one of the ways that we can get the taxes to be collected and paid is you get folks onto platforms that are more cooperative to the city. We heard folks say they work with air B&B and they're a great partner to the city in this world. If we get more folks to move into the industry, I think that's the issue it was meant to address. I'll support moving this forward to the full council because I believe it adequately addresses this problem. There will certainly be more problems we need to talk about. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Gibbs. I want to go back to the business license. This one is about the licenses. A regular business license is $100. Is that still the case? I got a business license a few years ago. Business license is $100. This would be more of a regulated fee. The $300 would be applied to the business license. It seems kind of steep to me. Rusty, what are we getting for that again? Is it in the budget to hire more people for this? The budgets haven't been submitted yet. It would be to help run the program. Currently we have two analysts on our registration number so it's hard to reconcile. Chad, do you have something to contribute? Yes. I want to clarify as well that for short-term rentals as well as all businesses that $100 business license fee you pay is credited towards your occupational license fee. Is that correct? Don't answer this if you don't want to. That provision for when people have multiple rooms in their house that they're renting out, one provision we have is B page 5, the top B. There are several Bs on page 5. No short-term rental is credited towards your occupational license fee. I think I'd like to maybe take that out here and put it into the discussion about zoning. Would you want to go out on a limb and take a shot at that? Councilmember Gibbs, that is similar language as what is in the bed and breakfast definition as well. I think it would be helpful to have a zoning ordinance once we start working on that. Chad can speak to why you think it's a good idea to keep it on the revenue side. I don't see how it has to do with the revenue. It seems to be a restriction on how many beds are available. I think it's important to make sure that strangers to one another are not being booked in the same residence at the same time over the same nights, things like that, so strangers aren't being roomed with one another. As with any of this, the council would like to make sure that that happens. Point of order. Have we had that problem? I just wonder, it seems to be restrictive if somebody has two different bedrooms. I don't see how that' s. I don't know if we've received any complaints about that. I don't believe we have received complaints but I can't speak to whether or not that's happening. I'm going to make a motion to delete that line. I would like to see that included in our discussion on the zoning portion of this. So moved. Second. Motion has been made to remove section 13-79 duties of the host. If you would like to state the portion you want to remove. Page 14 or page 5 as you read it. It' s in section 13-79 duties of the host. And it' s b, no short-term rental is subject to more than one contract at a time. That' s all I have. Thank you. Any other questions on this item? Councilmember Kern, do you have any questions about that? No, sir. That' s on the actual ordinance. Councilmember Worley. Chad, if you have a question there. This is in underline so it seems to be new language. Is this already a restriction in another one of our ordinances? I apologize. I was trying to answer another question. That' s all right. Talking about this restriction on no short-term rental is subject to more than one contract at a time. Is this found somewhere else? I was under the impression this was always the way it was. Even though it is an underline language. Is this found somewhere else? I was under the impression this was always the way it was. Can I have one moment? Yes. Thanks for your patience Councilmember. No, that language is not required by the statute. I would like to hear more of the reasoning as to why this piece is in here. If you would like, Councilmember, if not. Thank you. I was trying to think if there was a specific reason that this was part of the conversation. I can' t remember one right now that was the reason this is in here. I think it is a good motion if the committee likes it. It doesn't change the tenor of the whole package. Thank you. Councilmember gill. I'm not advocating hard to get rid of this entirely but I think it ought to be included in the discussion elsewhere. I don't think it should be included. Let me blurt that out. I think it' s a good discussion. Councilmember Lamb. I wanted to add my interpretation of this having been someone who rents from short-term rentals in other places. It' s saying no short-term rental is subject to more than one contract at a time. If there are two separate rooms that you had two separate listings for, this means to me you can't have more than one contract on that one room instead of saying you can't have a contract for both rooms at the same time if there are separate listings on a short-term rental. That' s the way it is. I would not be able to support Councilmember Gibbs' motion strictly because I don't even know you can have more than one contract on one room. If that' s what the legal interpretation is, I think removing it is not necessary. I would like to weigh in if I can. I think it' s a protection clause to make sure folks don' t get into a situation where the host has rented the space to two different families and you have to deal with it so to speak. If it' s not a material change to the ordinance I would not support it. Council. I would like to move to section one of the ordinance. There' s a definition of short-term rental. It has the 30 day time limit. It states a short-term rental is a dwelling unit that is rented, leased or otherwise assigned. The interpretation would be that it applies to a short-term rental. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Is there any more discussion? Council member mccarn. Can you clarify that one more time. Yes. The draft ordinance defines a short-term rental as a dwelling unit. By saying a short-term rental shall not be subject to more than one contract. Each individual building may not be subject to more than one contract at a time. If there were four units in that building that' s it? Just the one at that time, correct? I should clarify. We say building. If you' re talking about a duplex for example each of those distinct units each of those at most could be subject to one contract. I would support removing this then also. Okay. Council member reynolds, did you want to speak? I' m good. All right. Council member worley. To the amendment. Again I think this is something that can be ferreted out as time goes by. I' m not going to support the amendment. I understand where you' re saying it probably is best served somewhere else. This seems to avoid a boarding house situation. I' m not saying I wouldn' t in the future after a later study take that out. I think you' re well informed. I' m fine with it. Council member lamb. Now that I have the interpretation correctly or understanding it, what if we change the wording into it to address council member worley' s concerns that we actually is there any way to change the wording to where it addresses the number of listings within that dwelling unit versus the entire dwelling unit? Because my spouse just went up to Chicago this past week and they had a house and they had four different rooms and they had it listed each individual room was listed separately and then the entire house was listed. However, that someone wanted to rent that house. It could have been the whole house or it could have been each individual room. The way I'm understanding this from the law department right now is this prohibits if you rent one room and you have three other rooms in your dwelling unit you can't rent them and I don't think that' s fair. So . Just to move us forward, I think we have a motion and a second as it goes forward to the full council. So all those in favor of the motion say aye. Those that oppose? Roll vote. Okay. Give us a screen. And that motion passes. Thank you. That is an  to the ordinance.  any more discussion on that item? All right, seeing no one else has signed up to speak, I'm going to chime in and give my opinion on the discussion that we are having. We have moved past that portion of the meeting. If any council members would like to make a motion for additional public comment. I would like to make a motion to allow, and I'm sorry I didn't see who, if it was somebody that has not signed up to speak, I would like to make a motion to allow that person to speak for three minutes. So move. The motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? If you give your name and address, you have three minutes. I would like to make a motion on item 52 that doesn't seem to be under current ordinance. If anyone is renting more than 52 times a year are we in current violation of the code? It was my understanding that was a proposal only brought forth in october and now we're in violation. We did not know that. May I? I was going to ask law to give clarification. I think law needs clarification on two things. That's always been the case. Three years ago when I investigated this on behalf of council that was the conversation. Furthermore, you can't have one at the same time if you're only allowed to have one a week. I don't know how the removal of this makes any difference to the 52 one unique visitor a week. Unless they're both running out the same night I suppose. Maybe that's okay. The 52 unique visitor a week is based on the definition of dwelling unit which says a unit can be rented on a weekly, monthly or longer basis. That's not talking about necessarily short term rentals. It's just talking about people living in a place. The best we have in the zoning ordinance is to apply that same standard to people. If enforcement is able to do so, we have been trying to enforce that. As Ms. Clark said and I appreciate her bringing that from her standpoint, it is a big challenge because we have limited ability to go into people's homes and find out more information. Certainly the information we'll be receiving is limited. I'm curious about how much unrelated can stay in a residential dwelling. This rule has been in place for a number of years also. A home can be occupied by up to four unrelated people. It can be occupied by as many people as are in a family. Until we change the rules that would also apply in dwelling units used for short-term rentals. Thank you for the clarification. On the discussion on the committee item I still have council member Josh McKern signed up to speak. I appreciate that clarification, director. I know it's not necessarily an easy thing to put forth here. Director Duncan, can I ask you a question on a few more things to touch up and then move on here. Going back in circles on different things. The platforms that report the different rentals that each person is renting out every month, correct? They report to us monthly? I cannot speak to what that report looks like. It would be revenue collecting that information. My apologies, director. Airbnb files a transient tax form showing the amount they owe each person. They file a tax return monthly that states the amount of revenue that came in and against the 8.5% of tax that was collected on behalf of each of the hosts. What about the companies that don't currently operate in that sense? If we know who they are, we get a tax return. If the host would be the one who would be imposed on the fine, correct? That's okay. Just nod your head. Okay. Thank you. That's all for me. Thank you, chair. Thank you, council member. Council member lamb. He's going to go last. Thank you. I want to say this last time in October when we had this discussion, one of the questions I wanted to ask, and I don't know if this is good, bad or ugly, obviously we all know there are several different short-term rental organizations or associations or businesses. One of those is a complying organization. They pay their taxes, and so all of the other units or the other agencies, they're the ones that we're really trying to pull to the table so that we can find out where these are and to collect the proper taxes, which I do agree with. I'd love to know how many in this room are not with Airbnb and with another agency, but I don't know if anybody would be willing to hold their hand up because I feel like everybody that is here is most likely with Airbnb because they are a complying organization. I agree with the dwelling unit and the 52 bookings a year. I think that we have some things that we need to address before we move forward with this. I totally agree that we need to understand and know where all of the short-term rentals are located in our city, and I really appreciate that. I do think that there is place for us to understand where they are, but I do not agree with moving forward with this before we really look into this dwelling unit and the 52 bookings a year. I think that is something that needs to be properly vetted beforehand because the short-term rentals are going to affect our neighbors and our community and all of the good ambassadors that own short-term rentals and do such good work for our community, for visitors that come here. I will just say that and we'll see if a motion comes forward, but I will not support moving forward with this. Thank you. First, let me thank you, Councilmember Farmer, for leading the initiative and the work group on this issue. I think it's been a lot of work from our law department, from our code enforcement, from our finance folks and our team in planning. There's been a lot of people at the table and there's been a lot of discussion. We're not going to address these issues until we know what we're dealing with. We don't know how many short-term rentals are out there. One of the things and the reason it's before us is because I've heard from my neighborhood, Councilmember Farmer has heard from his neighborhood and I think other councilmembers have about the impact that short-term rentals have on our community. I think it helps us get started to create accountability and compliance for short-term rentals. I think we definitely don't want to do anything to hurt the industry. We see and understand the benefits of it but we don't want to do anything and let things go unchecked and impact our neighborhoods. If we don't do anything to address the issues that we're facing. I will support the motion if it's made to move this to the full council so we can have a broader discussion about the issues in front of us. Thank you. Councilmember Worley. I agree with you and appreciate that you don't want to cause unintended consequences. However, those unintended consequences already exist in the zoning ordinance. They have nothing to do with this ordinance. I believe this ordinance is appropriate at this time and gives us the proper work we need to do. I would move that this draft ordinance be put forward to the full council as amended by Councilmember Gibbs. So moved. Second. The motion has been made and seconded to move this forward to the full council. Any discussion? Councilmember Farmer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to say that this is a good start. What we do down here isn't easy some days. Sometimes it's monotonous but sometimes it's hard. This issue has a lot of sides to it. I think one of the best comments was a good start is better than waiting for perfection. I think the first thing to do is nothing. I'd like to sidestep doing nothing today because we need leadership in this area. I would never have thought I would have been a proponent of ready, fire, aim, but I am. Even if it's not quite right, if you get it done, you can amend it. I think that's the best thing to do. I think there's great work still to be done. This item would remain in committee for those zoning things but for now this is the best first step. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Councilmember. Is there any other comments on the motion? All right. Councilmember Farmer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to go back and forth on the 52 here. I understand this is a great starting point of moving us forward and we have to address the tax issue. This is a great start. Thank you for that, Councilmember Farmer. I think there's ample opportunity once this becomes before the full council. I'm not a huge support of just 52 so I think I'll be making a motion or looking to see a motion change that once it becomes before the full council. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember. Is there any other discussion on the motion that's on the floor? Can I get some clarity before we go to the full council? If this doesn't move forward in committee, the work on this legislation, what happens to it? It just stays in committee? Yes, that's correct. It would stay in committee until you chose to remove it from committee or forward it to the full council. If there's no other discussion, I'll call the vote. Let's get the screen going if we can. Okay. Well, it looks like that motion has passed, so this motion will move to the full council. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council. Thank you. Thank you, Council. Thank you. Council Member Low. Thank you, Chair. I will say that between now and the time this reports out, which is February, it will be in March when this is reported out to the full council. I have full intention of looking further into the amount, the $300 million, the amount of that registration fee. So I have every intention before this is reported out to the full council to do more homework and do more homework on this 52. Just so you all know, when it is reported out to the full council a month from now, it will be properly reported to the full council. It could be three months from now. I just wanted the public to know that that is the case and that is the proper venue. Again, with all respect, I appreciate all the work that has been put into this. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I appreciate all the conversations. We value all the input and comments that we heard today. Going down the agenda, we have a comprehensive review of code enforcement that we're going to push off until our next meeting maybe in April, not the March meeting. So we're going to do that. With that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion has been made. Any second? Seconded. All right. We're adjourned. Thank you. adjourned. Thank you. adjourned. Thank you.