Denver readies short-term rental rule, multi-property owners push back
City rule crafted in attempt to keep tight, expensive housing market from getting worse
By Jason Blevins
The Denver Post
The Denver Post
Posted: 02/02/2016 05:30:12 PM MST
Denver’s proposed rules for regulating and taxing short-term rentals took two years to create. But even before the first official airing of the measure, resistance is building against limiting by-owner rentals to primary residences only.
Economists estimate that as many as 40 percent of short-term rentals offered on sites such as Airbnb, FlipKey and VRBO are marketed by people who own more than one property.
“We are already getting pushback on the primary-residence rule. It’s probably the most controversial,” said Denver City Councilwoman Mary Beth Susman, who chaired the city’s Sharing Economy Task Force.
The owner occupied rule is the way we keep the owners of the STRs accountable to their neighbors and their neighborhood. We don’t want a network of mini-hotels that can skirt the laws that hotel/motels have to follow.
I believe the real value to the “sharing economy” of STRs lies in the owner occupied model anyway.