The city of Scottsdale released an update authored by Assistant City Manager Brent Stockwell on Jan. 20 through Councilwoman Tammy Caputi’s newsletter Caputi on Council.
In the update, it stated that as of Jan. 15, 2,333 short-term rental applications have been submitted, 536 applications approved, 928 are pending and 869 have been sent back for incomplete information.
According to this report, it is taking staff about seven business days to issue licenses once an application has been completed successfully.
“As you can imagine, the incomplete applications take much more time and effort due to back-and-forth communication with the applicant, and additional research,” Stockwell wrote. “Problems are typically due to incomplete addresses, or lack of proper ownership or emergency contact information.”
Notices of violation began being sent out on Tuesday, Jan. 10, to properties that were advertising as of Jan. 9, but were not yet in the licensing process.
In Stockwell’s update, he detailed how the application process works once a property opens a licensing application and what will happen to unlicensed rentals.
“If they fail to apply after receiving written notice from the city, a non-refundable $1,000.00 penalty will be assessed for every 30-day time frame this property or dwelling unit remains unlicensed,” he wrote.
Unlicensed properties can receive a minimum fine of $1,000 per violation, which will be considered a debt to the city, allowing the city to take court action for the delinquent license fee and penalties.
Courtesy City of Scottsdale
However, Stockwell did note that there have been noticing challenges that have required additional work to make contact with rental properties.
“In addition, among the notice of violation letters that were sent out last week, some unintentionally went to properties already in the licensing process,” he wrote.
According to the update, those properties were notified about this error and 102 open cases were closed.
“The teams in the city treasurer’s office and code enforcement unit continue to work diligently to get these properties licensed, and hold unlicensed properties accountable,” Stockwell wrote. “As you can imagine this is a tremendous effort, and I am very appreciate of all of the hard work by both teams.”
Closing his update, the city manager wrote about work being done on the legislative side in relation to short-term rental ordinances.
The full update can be found here. An updated map of licensed properties is available on the website at ScottsdaleAZ.gov, search “short term rentals.”
