Setting vacation rental standards

COEUR d'ALENE — The city of Coeur d'Alene launched a survey Friday to gather input from local stakeholders about regulating vacation rentals within city limits.

"We have 230 vacation rentals in the city currently and people are starting to realize that they’re not legal in the city with our current (zoning) code," said Hilary Anderson, community planning director for the city of Coeur d'Alene.

She said the planning commission has heard from city council members and others who want to look into the issue of making vacation rentals legal and how to add standards since the number of vacation rentals in the area is rapidly growing.

Vacation rentals by owner, or VRBOs, are furnished homes, apartments or other dwellings rented on a temporary basis as an alternative to traditional hotels, motels and bed and breakfasts.

City planner Sean Holm said VRBOs have been a topic of conversation for a while. A former city attorney interpreted vacation rentals in 1995 as "transient homes, less than 30 days and not allowed in residential zones," Holm said.

Holm said people choose to lodge in VRBOs for a number of reasons.

"The first and foremost is that you can rent an entire house and be by yourself and not share with other people," he said. "That’s part of it."

Websites such as VacationRentals.com, TripAdvisor.com and Airbnb.com have aided the convenience and exposure of VRBOs, which can appeal to anyone from individuals and families to Ironman competitors and those wanting to celebrate bachelor parties.

Part of the reason regulation needs to be examined is because several city departments have received complaints about the rowdier and less neighborly visitors who have utilized local vacation rentals. Presently, little to no regulation is imposed upon VRBOs.

"We hear complaints from neighbors oftentimes how vacation rentals might be negatively impacting their neighborhood or their own personal experience if it’s next to them," Anderson said. "Sometimes they’re just not respectful."

Anderson said the troublemakers don't tend to be the Ironman crowd and rentals for events such as Ironman would most likely be exempt from a permit requirement once an ordinance is implemented.

"I'd rather have codes than a rule of thumb to follow," said Terry Nash of Vacasa, a full-service property management company that manages 60 vacation rentals in the area. "These are homes, we do stress that."

Nash is Vacasa's regional business development manager for the Coeur d’Alene area. He said it's in Vacasa's best interest to be conservative when representing neighborhoods and homeowners and the company welcomes codes and regulations.

"We're very selective," he said. "We take this issues into consideration. Whether there are codes or not, we assume the responsibility."

Anderson said she has heard from the bed and breakfast industry that because of VRBOs, the lodging industry is "not a level playing field."

"They're having to pay taxes, they’re having to pay special use permits to operate," she said. "There are a lot of different standards that are imposed upon them versus someone that's doing Air BnB. There are no standards. Right now they can just operate in a neighborhood, albeit illegally because it’s not allowed by our code, but it’s very convenient for them because it’s likely many of them are not paying taxes even though they are subject to state taxes. There are definitely concerns from different interest groups."

Idaho Bed and Breakfast Association Vice President John Hough, who owns and operates The Roosevelt Inn with his wife, Tina, said he respects the independence of those who rent out their homes and generate some revenue for themselves, but an ordinance with teeth is needed so the same rules he has to follow are applied to VRBOs.

"As it is, they’re handcuffing me as a businessman and giving VRBOs free rein to do whatever they want," John said. "We should be collecting tax revenue from them and we are not."

The Vacation Rentals Survey can be found at www.surveymonkey.com/r/VR4CDA. A meeting to gather more input and hear from the public will take place in April.

"We want to make sure we hear from all the stakeholders," Anderson said. "We want to make sure we hear from our local vacation rental owners as well as people who live in the neighborhoods that might be near vacation rentals. We want to hear from the bed and breakfasts, the hotels, the (Coeur d'Alene) chamber and others in the tourism industry just to find out how it impacts them.

"There’s great things about them but there are some of the negative side effects that you might encounter."