It’s great to be able to travel out of town and rent a room or a small guest quarters in someone’s well-kept home.
However, some deregulation that’s taken place in Arizona — particularly one state law passed in 2016 — has created a number of problems in communities across the state.
Some northwest Valley leaders, local-governance advocates and others in the Valley are lobbying the state legislature for changes or rollbacks to Senate Bill 1350. That 2016 law, which prevents local municipalities from creating rules or restrictions unique to short-term rentals, has handcuffed local Arizona governments from combating some of the ills that go with the business boom of companies such as AirBnB and VRBO.
Making adjustments
A move to alter that 5-year-old law this year would not be the first attempt to alter it. House Bill 2672, passed in 2019, requires property owners renting out space to provide authorities with contact information in case of a complaint, such as for excessive noise, and also prohibits rentals for the purpose of holding a special event that would otherwise require a permit or license or for using a residential building for commercial purposes.
That law also requires all “online lodging operators” to obtain a transaction privilege tax license before offering rentals and list the license number on all advertisements.
However, users of rental apps have found ways around these restrictions, and some situations with rental properties have gotten progressively worse.
Shorting housing
The buying up and hording of real estate by hotel and real estate holding companies, along with surge in “party houses,” seem to be two of the biggest short-term rental complaints.
Around the state, places with limited housing inventory in the first place, such as Sedona, Payson and Globe, have struggled to meet the demand of growing tourism industries and the need for employee housing as firms buy up homes to rent out room-by-room or as a single unit.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has dragged on, vacation spots, hotel and travel frustration set in, and demand for vacation soared even higher.
Last year, Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, submitted Senate Bill 1379 that cleared the Senate, but was soundly defeated in the House. This year, with a slight shakeup to the lineup in both Houses, he’s hoping for a different outcome.
“I’m starting with the final version of 1379, as this year’s starting point,” Mesnard said. “Hopefully, we’ll get the support for citizen-resident property owners this time.”
Mesnard’s Senate Bill 1168, along with a House companion bill, House Bill 2234, sponsored by Rep. Steve Kaiser, would give municipalities more tools to go after corporations or whomever owns “party houses” that are rented to customers and which violate local noise, nuisance or other ordinances.
Another bill, House Bill 2069, proposed by Rep. Walt Blackman, R-Snowflake, is a repeal of Senate Bill 1350, the 2016 law signed by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed. The bill Blackman introduced would return law back to before changes were made. His District 6 seatmate, Sen. Wendy Rogers of Flagstaff, has identical legislation in Senate Bill 1026.
Some leaders, including Mesnard, say Blackman’s proposed repeal goes too far. Mesnard said his measures address one of the biggest issues: irresponsible short-term renters.
Scottsdale’s efforts
Brent Stockwell, an assistant city manager for Scottsdale, is part of a the city’s Short-Term Rental Working Group. He said problems with short-term rentals are complex and accelerated in growth soon after SB 1350 was signed into law.
“Shortly after this preemption of local authority, Scottsdale began hearing from constituents about their desire to amend the law to allow for reasonable regulations,” Stockwell said. “(Residents want to) limit the proliferation of short-term rentals and prohibit activities disrupting their neighborhoods and quality of life, such as loud noise, crowds, and trash.”
Stockwell said Scottsdale has more than 4,000 short-term rental properties.
“Residents have consistently and repeatedly asked the city for help in mitigating the adverse impacts of short-term rentals,” he said.
This has resulting in hundreds of new calls for service to the Scottsdale Police Department, Stockwell said.
“The destructive experiences in our neighborhoods are shared by many across the state of Arizona and the effects have been so detrimental that some homeowners have moved out of their homes,” Stockwell said.
He said city staff are working with other cities most impacted, including Paradise Valley, Sedona, Flagstaff and Lake Havasu, and participating in efforts by the League of Arizona Cities and Towns to get a bill passed that would be better for all Arizona residents.
The entire Scottsdale City Council signed a letter to Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, pleading for help in the form of more legislature-enacted tools to deal with rental situations.
Scottsdale’s committee developed these priorities:
• Allow cities the ability to impose reasonable licensing or permitting requirements.
• Reestablish the ability of cities to manage short-term rentals differently than long-term rentals.
• Create a mechanism that caps the total percentage of short-term rentals allowed and establishes method to provide better separation between rentals.
• Require platforms to provide a disclosure of state laws and local ordinances, and require acknowledgment by owners, hosts, and renters.
• Require short-term rentals to follow many of the public health and safety laws that apply to hotels.
Paradise Valley
In November, the Paradise Valley Town Council discussed additional ways to strengthen its authority to work with short-term rentals. New tools to deal with rental situations is one of the council’s stated priorities going into this year’s legislative session.
The meeting included input from police department officials who spoke of the strain on public safety short-term rentals cause, as well as other unintended consequences. A police sergeant said there are so many drugs, alcohol, assaults, sex crimes, robberies and other factors at rented homes, which sometimes have parties that include 400 people, it is stretching thin the law enforcement ability to control those situations.
The meeting produced some proposed code amendments, which include expanding the definition of “special events” to capture problem activities, requiring an owner’s in-person complaint response within one hour when people are on a rented property and a set of health and safety standards that include rental cleaning between bookings that follow CDC guidelines.
The town has wrestled with these issue for some time. Last January, in a call that include state lawmakers and the town’s hired lobbyist, Mayor Jerry Bien-Willner said there were numerous problems with what he called “unregulated motels,”
“It’s not really a party house issue — that’s what the industry would like to pretend it is,” he said.
Bien-Willner, who is running for reelection this year, recently wrote an opinion piece published by Independent Newsmedia in which he vowed to “finish the job when it comes to reigning in the short-term rental situation and ensure our residents and neighborhoods are protected.”
Other communities
During last year’s legislative session, Sun City Home Owners Association officials supported a bill that would have allowed more local control over short-term rentals. Complaints of various types have been discussed in SCHOA meetings for years.
Not all of the worst Arizona short-term rental situations are in the Valley. Sedona is boxed in by its tall cliffs of red rocks and national forest land, curtailing its ability to construct more housing within the city, and any private property is gobbled up quickly by individuals or companies looking to make short-term rental income in a variety of ways. Housing for city staff and private
Sedona Mayor Sandy Moriarty has said annually that getting help from the legislature with SB 1350’s unintended consequences is a top city priority.
However, some communities are growing so fast and have such a strong presence of homeowners association restrictions, short-term rental issues haven’t crept into town yet. Buckeye spokeswoman Annie DeChance said while short-term rental legislation and more guidelines are a stated priority this year, the city hasn’t been through the kind of wringer Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Sedona and other Arizona communities have been through.
“Currently, Buckeye does not have a significant number of short term rentals, so we have not experienced some of the challenges that other cities are facing,” DeChance said. “If that changes, we do actively participate in the legislative process and can quickly amend our city code appropriately.”
Another southwest Valley city, however, approved measures to help deal with short-term rentals. The city of Litchfield Park this week passed a measure to require some similar things as Paradise Valley of those short-term rentals within the community.
Melissa Rosequist and Rusty Bradshaw of Independent Newsmedia contributed to this story.
Jason W. Brooks is a News editor for the Daily Independent and the Chandler Independent.
He covers the Chandler area for both yourvalley.net and the monthly print edition while writing for and assisting in the production of the Daily Independent.
Brooks is a well-traveled journalist who has documented life in small American communities in nearly all U.S. time zones.
Born in Washington, D.C. and raised there and in suburban Los Angeles, he has covered community news in California, New Mexico, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and northern Arizona.
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