By Lisa Sievers
Special Contributor
Councilwoman Carolyn King Arnold quickly cut to the heart of the matter during the City of Dallas Quality of Life, Arts and Culture Committee last week:
“The big issue here for us is that of property rights,” the Dallas City Council representative for District 4 said.
The committee met on March 23 to discuss options to regulate short-term rentals in Dallas. Two of the options require a registration program for all short-term rentals and the remaining options either eliminate or severely restrict by zoning where short-term rentals can operate.
With loud voices on both sides of this issue, maybe it’s time to dial down the volume and listen to each other. We may find we want the same things.
Registration
The City of Dallas already requires Short-Term Rental (STR) owners to register and pay the city’s Hotel and Occupancy Tax. The two committee options for registration involve running registration through the existing rental registration program or forming a new entity to handle registration along with inspections, posting of house rules, the registration number on advertisements (i.e. platforms such as VRBO and Airbnb), a 24-hour contact person, as well as fines.
Shelby Fletcher of Dallas STR Alliance — an organized group of more than 400 STR operators and community stakeholders — says, “The vast majority of Dallas short-term rental operators are good actors who bring value to their neighborhoods. We support the Dallas City Council’s push to create a regulatory scheme that punishes the small handful of bad actors and preserves the rights of neighbors and good short-term rental operators.”
Registration does not appear to be a problem. The city can leverage the platforms to provide the STR registration number on all ads. The city can then track the bad actors and provide further enforcement including leveraging the platforms to remove them completely. Not to mention automate the collection of the Hotel and Occupancy Tax that goes directly to the city.
Zoning Options
Texas has always been a business-friendly state. It is also a big property rights state as evidenced by Zaatari vs. the City of Austin in which the Texas State Appeals Court has come out in favor of property rights and has disallowed some of the more restrictive laws enacted. Restrictive zoning will end in taxpayer-funded lawsuits.
According to VisitDallas, 27 million people visit Dallas yearly making an economic impact of $8.8 billion and providing 65,000 jobs in the tourism industry. Why do we want to limit entrepreneurs by zoning them out of existence?
Vera Elkins, has been managing STR apartments for a local business owner for about five years in East Dallas. This work has made it possible for her to help take care of her grandmother and adult special needs brother.
“Regulations that would put us out of business would mean unemployment for my family and about 10 other people, which in turn means families would lose their sole source of income,” Elkins said. “Zoning regulation cripples the heart of entrepreneurship at the expense of property rights while stealing from ‘COVID recovering’ families.”
For some, the right to operate an STR is an equity issue, allowing first-time homebuyers the opportunity to earn extra money to help pay their mortgage or allowing fixed-income retirees to continue to stay in their homes by earning a little extra to help with bills and property taxes. There are hundreds of stories like these.
Zoning changes will also take at least a year, but more likely two to three years to get passed. This is too long for neighborhoods to wait.
Dallas already has a 311 program in place that is designed to take care of nuisance items such as noise, parking, occupancy, trash, and other issues. Can we ask the code enforcement group to work Friday nights and weekends to document 311 events? Can we ask them to issue fines and process violation information under a three-strikes program? Yes, and Yes.
Require registration, a 24/7 contact, and registration number for the platform listing. Strengthen the 311 program and leverage the platforms to remove bad actors based on evidence. We are all saying the same thing — no one wants party houses. But why penalize the vast majority of good STR operators whose livelihoods are at stake?
See the city’s presentation on Short-Term Rental options below:
City of Dallas Quality of L… by Jo Jemison England
Lisa Sievers has lived in East Dallas for over 30 years. She is an interior designer, having founded her small business 25 years ago. She and her husband own and operate two short-term rentals in East Dallas for which they have over 750 5-Star reviews.
