Denton City Council members were divided at Tuesday night’s special called meeting over whether to tighten restrictions on short-term rentals, citing reasons such as the lack of enforcement of current rules that require short-term rental owners to pay the city’s hotel occupancy tax.
Out of the estimated 250 short-term rental units in Denton that are listed on sites such as Airbnb and Vrbo, only 33 are registered with the city to pay the tax, according to a city staff presentation Tuesday night.
Tuesday’s discussion ended in a tie vote that requires the issue to return on the council’s next meeting on Aug. 6.
Brandon Chase McGee, the Place 5 council member, would have been the deciding vote but was unable to attend the Tuesday night meeting in person or virtually.
“People don’t want their neighborhoods thrown to the wolves,” council member Paul Meltzer said shortly before he moved to add a 60-day grace period to register short-term rentals.
Council members in support of the measure — Meltzer, Brian Beck and Vicki Byrd — called the new regulations a good compromise between those who don’t want short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods and those who don’t believe new restrictions are necessary.
A majority of the new restrictions relate to single-family neighborhoods, where short-term rentals would have to be at least 100 feet apart, be limited to only two per parcel and be capped at 1,000 each year. Council member Jill Jester and Mayor Gerard Hudspeth didn’t think reaching that number would happen anytime soon.
“At this point and time, I’m not as worried about the 1,000 cap,” Jester said. “We’re not close to that. We don’t have Six Flags here or Disney World. I don’t know that we’re going to be rushing up to that amount at this time.”
In a multifamily development, such as an apartment complex, the new regulations would limit the number of short-term rentals to 10% of units, or at least two. The 100-foot separation rule and the registration cap would not apply in areas that are not zoned residential.
Short-term rentals will still be allowed downtown if the council approves the amendments.
City staff also recommended several administrative changes, including defining short-term rentals as a rental of an entire dwelling unit or a single bedroom for monetary consideration for a period of 24 hours and no more than 29 consecutive days.
If the amendments are approved, owners who register before the 60-day deadline could be grandfathered in as long as they’re in compliance.
Other changes include:
- Short-term rentals would be a permitted use in any zoning district that allows residential uses by right or by specific-use permit.
- The rules would clarify an owner’s or management’s responsibilities to provide safety information to guests in writing, including contact information for a designated local emergency contact.
- The maximum number of vehicles allowed on premises for a short-term rental would be limited to available off-street parking.
- Within 10 days of registration approval, the city would notify all property owners within 100 feet of the short-term rental and include the local emergency contact information and pertinent information about regulations.
The city staff also wants to strengthen enforcement, which they said Tuesday night would help wrangle short-term rental owners who have neglected to register.
Under the proposed changes, a rental property would lose its registration status if it has received three notices for violations of the property maintenance code or citations for violations of the Denton development code, any other city ordinance, or any state or federal law on the premises within the past 12 months. Examples include noise violations, trash and debris violations, and parking violations for a vehicle impeding a sidewalk or on an unimproved surface.
Other violations include knowingly making a false statement on the registration application.
Both the Planning and Zoning Commission and city staff recommended that the council approve the amendments to the short-term rental rules.
Though city staff conducted community outreach, about a dozen community members addressed the council Tuesday night to reiterate comments shared in May at a town hall meeting with city staff. A majority were either real estate agents or short-term rental owners or operators who want the council to remove the restrictions for single-family zoned areas from the recommended amendments.
They argued that part of the appeal of a short-term rental is its location and proximity to attractions such as the University of North Texas and its football stadium. This appeal, they said, brings visitors from around the world to boost tourism in Denton.
“We did meet with city staff, we thought, for negotiations. It went nowhere,” Lisa McEntire, the president of the Greater Denton/Wise County Realtors Association, told council members. “We did put our concerns out there, but no changes were made at all. Let’s enforce what we got on the books.”
In early June, city staff met with 18 people — including short-term rental owners and operators, real estate agents and residents — about the proposed amendments.
Some opponents said the limit of two short-term rental units per parcel would keep the owner of a triplex or fourplex from registering all of the units as short-term rentals.
“As a property owner, you have three basic rights: You can use your property, you can rent your property or you can transfer your property,” McEntire wrote in a July 11 letter to council. “Eliminating someone’s ability to rent their property restrains a third of those rights. Some people might not consider short term rentals to be ‘rental housing’ but the fact of the matter is, they are.
“People have been renting rooms or whole homes on a short-term basis for hundreds of years. In fact, state law says that a residential lease of any length still is a residential lease.”
Property owners also stressed to council members that their short-term rental income was boosting their households, replenishing retirement funds and helping make up for rising home costs such as insurance.
Kelly Peace, a local real estate broker, pointed out that only 224 people out of 150,000 who reside in Denton answered the staff survey about short-term rentals.
“Throughout the survey, it’s all speculation and opinion,” Peace said. “... I’m against limiting what they can currently do legally. I believe it is wrong and overstepping. … We don’t need to make changes for the sake of change.”
Jester, who voted against the new restrictions, agreed with the Realtors association and short-term rental owners. She recommended removing the 100-foot proximity restriction, preferring instead a percentage calculation.
Denton Senior Planner Angie Manglaris, the project manager, mentioned the city had contemplated using a percentage instead of the 100-foot requirement but said such calculations would be too difficult to manage and enforce, given the various makeups of the neighborhoods around Denton.
Hudspeth and council member Joe Holland also voted against the amendments Tuesday night.
Holland said he spoke with a short-term rental owner and saw the benefits of short-term rentals because he owned two homes and had issues with longtime renters.
As one resident wrote in a May 28 email to staff, “As a homeowner, I have enjoyed the ability to rent my home short-term which can bring me additional income to aid in better care and maintaining my home. If I were long-term renting my home, I would lose rights and control over my immediate house to a renter that does not always have the same values.”
Hudspeth pointed out that the city already has rules such as a noise ordinance to address neighbors’ concerns about gatherings and parties at rental properties.
He also said he had an issue with the multifamily component of the amendments and discussed his frustrations with the lack of enforcement of current short-term rental rules, which opponents of the amendments had also mentioned.
“Let’s take care of what’s on our plate, and let’s not do it and compromise,” Hudspeth said.
Scott McDonald, the city’s director of Development Services, reminded the mayor that enforcing the rules has been challenging for staff due to recent court decisions that have strengthened short-term rental owners’ rights.
“This is that tool to get this there,” McDonald said. “I don’t want to look at hybrid means with regulations by changing what is proposed.”
Council members who support the amendments have mentioned that they could bring the issue back to council if the changes — such as the proximity rule and registration cap — aren’t working for some reason.
Toward the end of the public comment period Tuesday, a few other property owners addressed the council to defend the proposed amendments. They mentioned their safety concerns and worries about short-term rental owners who aren’t responsible like those who spoke Tuesday night and would allow large gatherings, parking on the streets or sneaking beds into a unit to increase occupancy.
“We didn’t move into a commercial district, or a multifamily,” resident Linnie McAdams said. “We moved into a single-family neighborhood, and I have no objection whatsoever to an occasional place for visitors.”
Like McAdams, other supporters pointed out that they didn’t buy homes in a residential neighborhood in order to live next to a business that operates similar to a hotel on a smaller scale. After all, the city requires short-term rental owners to pay the 7% hotel occupancy tax like hotels and motels around town.
Pam Spooner, a longtime homeowner in Denton, urged the council to listen to staff and approve the recommendations. Spooner called them the “bare minimum” and reiterated that they are a compromise, especially given her and others’ opposition to short-term rentals.
“What about my rights? A lot of folks have rights to make money, but what they’re doing is they’re turning a residential neighborhood into a commercial district,” Spooner said. “And now they want to say, ‘Well, we want to have an unlimited number of hotel rooms in my residential district.’ What about my rights?
“... Just because you want to plunder my neighborhood and turn it into a hotel district, that’s not right at all.”