The Tempe City Council has approved new short-term rental regulations that will become effective in March.

The council voted in favor of the regulations, which will begin March 6, at its Jan. 5 meeting. The vote followed several public hearings.

Short-term rental owners will be notified by mail in February on how to apply for the new license, Tempe officials said in a release.

The Arizona Legislature previously pre-empted cities and towns from prohibiting short-term rentals within their borders under threat of withheld state-shared revenues.

The legislature recently passed a bill  that gave cities additional tools – but not total regulatory control – over short-term rentals, according to the city.

“Until this time, cities had few tools other than to maintain a registry of short-term rental properties, which Tempe did establish,” city officials said.

Those tools now include requiring owners of short-term rentals to:

• Obtain a business license and pay an annual $250 license fee.

• Provide proof of a valid sales tax license and evidence the rental is registered with the Maricopa County Assessor’s Office. 

• Notify all residential properties adjacent to, directly and diagonally across the property of their emergency contact information. Responses to complaints would be required from the emergency point of contact within 30 minutes for complaints for which public safety personnel are dispatched or 24 hours for non-emergency complaints.

• Maintain liability insurance of at least $500,000 or provide evidence that each vacation rental or short-term rental transaction will be provided through an online lodging marketplace that provides equal or greater primary liability insurance coverage for the short-term rental.

• Conduct a sex offender background check on the person booking the short-term rental at no cost by using the online national sex offender public website operated by the United States Department of Justice and retain a record either in hard copy or electronic form of the background check for 12 months after the booking date.

• Require the display of the local license number on advertisements.

For more: tempe.gov/ShortTermRentals