Committee: Looser restrictions for STRs

BOISE — The Senate Commerce & Human Resources Committee moved to hold a bill placing restrictions on short-term rental properties while advancing another bill loosening restrictions for these same properties.

With the opportunity to testify on what has been a multi-year effort to change regulations around these rentals in Idaho, the committee room was packed Thursday afternoon with individuals favoring either side of the matter.

"The legislators in Boise have made it clear that exploiting residential property for personal profit at the expense of their neighbors is a driving motive. It's a sad day," Coeur d'Alene Mayor Dan Gookin wrote in an email to The Press on Friday.

The persuasions of individuals testifying for both bills was largely the same: those either owning short-term rentals themselves or representing the rental industry argued for looser regulations while public officials in attendance generally argued in support of localities retaining the ability to adopt stronger regulations on these rental types.

The first bill considered Thursday was Senate Bill 1263 from Sen. Mark Harris, R-Soda Springs. He framed the intent of the legislation as balancing the rights of homeowners and short-term rental owners by preventing cities or counties from adopting ordinances exclusively targeting this type of rental property, most commonly seen in the form of Airbnbs or Vrbos.

Limited exceptions to this prohibition are in place for ordinances that have safety requirements specific to short-term rentals. These include requirements for smoke alarms, fire extinguishers, carbon monoxide detectors and maximum occupancy limits that align with existing state standards.

Harris’ bill also prohibits cities and counties from requiring business licenses for short-term rental unless a property owner has four or more short-term rentals within a city or county, or their short-term rental property generates more than $10,000 per year.

McCall Mayor Colby Nielsen spoke in favor of the legislation, noting that while some argue the city’s ordinances go too far, “safety standards save lives.” He noted that prior to the city’s ordinance around safety inspections for short-term rentals, there were 50 incidents of people being transported to the hospital for carbon monoxide poisoning, a number that has since dropped to zero. 

“All of those were coming from short-term rentals,” Nielsen said.  

Spencer Bailey, a resident of Bear Lake County and president of the Idaho Vacation Rental Association, argued Harris’ bill did not “address the hardship and overreach we’re currently experiencing.” He highlighted Bear Lake’s requirement for short-term rentals that other types of residencies were not subjected to, such as requirements around asphalt driveways. 

"I believe we can protect neighborhoods ... without creating different classes of homeowners," Bailey said.

The committee opted to hold Harris’ bill in committee, rather than send it to the Senate Floor for further debate.

Following its passage through the House, the Senate committee also took up a hearing on House Bill 583, which permits cities and counties to enact ordinances on short-term rentals only to address various public safety concerns such as through requirements for smoke alarms, fire extinguishers and carbon monoxide detectors — in a similar fashion to Harris' bill.

House Bill 583 goes further, however, by restricting cities or counties from requiring license fees, permits, certifications or registration to operate a short-term rental. Any ordinances related to “noise, parking, nuisance, curfew and traffic regulations,” can also only be in place when they are applied to non-short-term-rental uses as well.  

Sen. Todd Lakey, R-Nampa, who sponsored the bill, said the aim is to address a pattern of cities “inappropriately targeting short-term rental properties” through overly burdensome restrictions. Local ordinances, Lakey said, are intended to provide “reasonable, consistent restrictions” that protect property rights and well-being rather than outlaw a land use. 

“This legislation is needed to clarify the intent of the short-term rental act and make sure that local governments are not discriminating against short-term rentals,” Lakey said, in reference to existing Idaho code that states cities and counties cannot enact ordinances that effectively ban short-term rentals.

Heather Andrews, western regional director of Americans for Prosperity, a libertarian conservative advocacy group, said the bill "brings much-needed clarity and fairness" to how short-term rentals are regulated in the state. 

"It prevents local governments from imposing excessive or discriminatory requirements such as owner-occupied mandates, arbitrary caps on rental days, burdensome parking rules or conditional use permits that go beyond what is required of other residential properties," Andrews said.

Juan Bonilla, fire chief at the Donnelly Rural Fire Protection District, testified the legislation needed additional restrictions in place to protect individuals using these rental properties in the state. Bonilla said the fire district has had multiple instances of “mass casualty” events due to improper safety standards. 

While both of the bills discussed at the meeting met some necessary safety standards, a key commission remained in the realm of gas detectors. Since carbon monoxide detectors do not detect gas leaks, there have been instances of as many as 50 patients from one home needing treatment as a result of this detector not being in place in these rental properties, Bonilla said. 

With this in mind, Bonilla asked the committee to amend the bill to allow for cities and counties to require this standard and others for short-term rentals.

Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, put forward an initial request to send the bill for amendments before being voted down 7-2. The vote to send the bill directly to the Senate floor passed 8-1. Having already been passed by the House, it would go to the governor’s desk if approved by the Senate.

Lynn Fleming of the Coeur d'Alene Planning and Zoning Commission was disappointed with the outcome of the voting.

"Our city is becoming a large hotel with house keys throughout our residential blocks that hold no voters, no school children and no local citizens," she wrote. "As they stalled a softened Bill 1263 involving life safety and registration by Idaho cities, our senators voted in favor of House Bill 583 that gives all the power to the owners and operators, whether local or absent. This is a corporate taking by short-term rental companies."

Fleming went on to say that STRs are fine in small doses, "but what we see in our downtown historic areas is an avalanche. Pretty facades but a rolling occupancy in summer and no one in winter of these empty structures that were former homes."