City council members passed an ordinance establishing regulations for short-term rentals in North Little Rock on Monday after more than a year of debate, with seven for and one against.
The ordinance featured two new amendments, one to further explain that new short-term rentals in R1 and R2 zoning districts, or owner-occupied and single-family districts, are prohibited, and a second to clarify that an initial and subsequent annual business license privilege tax for short-term rental type 1 and type 2 shall be $50 per person, per year.
It also states a six-month startup period after the enactment of the ordinance will be in place requiring short-term rental operators with an active city of North Little Rock business license to submit documentation to maintain such a license within three months. If the process is not started within three months, the revocation process for existing licenses will be initiated.
Existing short-term rental properties without a city of North Little Rock business license also have three months to start the process for a special use to allow the short-term rental. To qualify as a preexisting short-term rental, satisfactory proof of operation prior to the adoption of the ordinance must be provided.
Debi Ross, council member for Ward 1 and co-sponsor of the ordinance, said the city has only seen two applications for a business license to run a short-term rental, ever.
Beth White, a former council member, visited the council again on Monday to state her frustration with the six short-term rentals near her home.
"It's a continual stream of strangers who aren't invested in our community," she said.
Visitors park on the neighborhood's grass, leave trash bags everywhere and host parties until all hours of the night, White added.
Nathan Hamilton, the only council member to vote no on the ordinance, said he is for regulating short-term rentals, but not "blanket bans" on them.
"We're not enforcing laws we have ... it's a redundancy," he said. "The number of complaints that this city gets from long-term rental properties, compared to the number of complaints that we get from short-term rental properties, it's not even close."
Hamilton explained that long-term rentals are what the council should be focused on because too many absentee landlords are decreasing the value of neighborhoods.
The question of whether short-term rentals under Airbnb and VRBO paid taxes also had council members at odds.
"There were lawsuits about this," Hamilton said. "Airbnb, Expedia, they all have to pay taxes to short-term rentals. Now the ones that don't have licenses, they're not paying because we're not telling them they need to be licensed, so what do we do? We put a moratorium in effect and say, you can't get a license. I don't know why we did that."
In February, the city issued a moratorium to allow time to draft regulations for short-term rentals.
Ross argued that the city is not collecting taxes on short-term rentals and has not been able to reach Airbnb and other corporations when they have run into issues.
Charlie Hight, council member for Ward 4 and co-sponsor for the ordinance, said that before, the council didn't know who the owners of short-term rentals were or if they paid taxes.
"Now, we're gonna make sure that happens, but they still need to adhere to the rules of the neighborhood," he said. "I think it's a good move on our part. I think we did something to benefit the citizens of North Little Rock."