San Antonio plans another look at its short-term rental rules

SAN ANTONIO – Short-term leases, like Airbnb and Vrbo, seem to be in San Antonio for the long-term, and the town is poised to take another look at the way it handles them.

The City of San Antonio has had rules at the books for short-term leases, or STRs, since past due 2018, together with density limits, a allow procedure and violations that might get a assets’s allow revoked.

However, some neighborhood individuals suppose extra may well be carried out to implement the rules and make sure all leases are registered.

In a Thursday presentation to the Planning and Community Development Committee, town workforce mentioned there are 3,240 energetic STR lets in, lots of which might be in District 1 neighborhoods across the town core. The town works with a third-party corporate to gather Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) from the STRs, and workforce says they’ve equipped estimates that there are another 1,200 to at least one,500 STRs running with out the right kind, three-year $100 allow.

“We believe, based on our third party’s (information), it’s currently at about 70% compliance. That’s not great. It’s not terrible, but we want that higher,” Development Services Director Michael Shannon advised the committee.

The head of the Short Term Rental Association of San Antonio, Chair Shelley Galbraith, sees unpermitted STRs as unfair neighborhoods and different STR homeowners.

“For one thing, our prices are a little bit higher because of the tax. And it, you know, we hear it from our neighbors and from the neighborhood associations that they don’t like the fact that enforcement is difficult,” Galbraith mentioned.

Most of the town’s registered STRs are what are referred to as “Type 2″ under the city regulations, which means the owner doesn’t live on site. These are generally the biggest source of concern for neighbors, who have concerns about how the revolving cast of renters will treat the property.

“Party houses” have been of specific worry to neighborhood individuals talking at Thursday’s assembly, with some recounting tales of out-of-control events.

Shannon mentioned the town’s rules already restrict STRs from getting used as tournament venues, which may end up in an instantaneous revocation.

The town has begun extra vigorously implementing its STR ordinance now that operators have had a number of years to get used to the rules. Of the 1,366 lets in it has revoked, 932 of them have been within the 2023 fiscal yr, which resulted in September. According to a town memo, maximum of the ones have been over-delinquent HOT bills.

Still, some suppose enforcement efforts may well be stepped forward.

Former District 1 Councilman Mario Bravo submitted a formal request for the town to re-evaluate its rules in December 2022 and in particular discussed enforcement and allow compliance as problems. The request stalled out, even though, after he misplaced his re-election bid to Councilwoman Sukh Kaur in June.

However, 3 of the co-signers to Bravo’s CCR are at the Planning and Community Development Committee, which indicated Thursday it nonetheless needs town workforce to convene a bunch of stakeholders and apply thru with a overview of the ordinance.

After the assembly, Shannon mentioned the workforce would put in combination a plan and convey it again to the following PCDC assembly.