Local governments could have less say over short-term rental regulations if a bill from a North Idaho legislator makes it over the finish line.
On Thursday, the Senate Local Government & Taxation Committee held a public hearing on SB 1162 carried by Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa, and Sen. Jordan Redman, R-Coeur d’Alene. The measure would further tighten the state’s rules on what rules local governments can impose on short-term rentals, like Airbnbs or VRBOs. The current state law allows local governments to only regulate short-term rentals to address health and safety issues.
This bill would block any city or county ordinances requiring short-term rentals to be regulated differently than traditional long-term rentals, including in planning & zoning regulations. The bill doesn’t block cities or counties from licensing short-term rentals, but it does say that the fee per property cannot exceed $50 and licenses can only be revoked if there have been three or more criminal convictions at the property by the owner, manager or occupants in the past year.
It also requires the property owner to disclose to renters if the property has smoke detectors in every bedroom, a fire extinguisher, a first aid kit, and an emergency exit from basement bedrooms that is at least 30 inches wide and 30 inches tall.
Airbnbs and the rules regulating them have divided Idahoans over recent years, with property owners and the Idaho Association of Realtors pushing for state action to curb regulations from cities they say are overly burdensome and block their private property rights to do business. Resort cities say the ability to write their own ordinances requiring fire sprinkler systems, smoke detectors and emergency exits is essential to keeping their residents safe and protecting nearby neighbors.
The City of McCall put into place a series of stringent regulations on short-term rentals, drawing a lawsuit challenging them in court.
Redman brought a bill rolling back regulations even more last year, but House Business Committee Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, opted not to take any action and directed local government leaders and property owners to negotiate to come to a solution. In response to questions from committee members about what happened to those negotiations and why the bill is popping up first on the Senate side of the rotunda, Redman said talks reached an impasse and he assumed the issue was dead for the year because Clow did not end up with a bill draft he wanted to put forward. But, once Lenney was willing to carry the measure he wanted to try to get it passed.
“Our state prides itself on being the least regulated state,” he said. “Unfortunately, there are some (local governments) that have overstepped that and this bill provides clarity for both the property owner and the local jurisdiction.”
All of the Republican Senators on the committee voted to send the bill for possible changes, like possibly allowing cities to set their own zoning designation for short-term rentals.
Bill bans requirements for fire sprinklers, zoning rules and more
Even with the current state law’s limits, local governments have still imposed various rules on vacation rentals throughout the state.
This bill would zero out a large swath of these rules imposed by cities and counties by requiring that regulations for short-term rentals be the same as they are on traditional long-term rentals for full-time residents. The bill specifically calls out that short-term rental owners cannot be required to live on the property for any length of time, hire a professional property management company, or purchase any additional insurance.
Local governments also wouldn’t be able to require short-term rental owners to report information on how often projects are used or any other statistics, any additional fire protection or a fire sprinkler system, build improved entrances and exits, or add additional parking. No local ordinances or building codes could require any modifications to the physical structure of the home, inspections or interior or exterior signs, notices, or diagrams.
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This bill would also ban any local ordinance from capping the number of short-term rentals in a city or county, limiting how close short-term rentals could be to each other or putting requirements on how many days a property could be rented. It would also ban any ordinance requiring notices to nearby neighbors, require a conditional use permit to operate in a residential zone or regulations mandating the property owner add extra sewer capacity to the property.
It would require cities to classify short-term rentals as “non-transient” residential use in their zoning rules, which means they could not be considered a commercial use in a local government’s zoning code rules.
Rules like these governing short-term rentals in Idaho have spawned at least two lawsuits challenging the legality of these rules. The McCall lawsuit is currently awaiting a decision in district court. The Idaho Association of Realtors also filed a lawsuit against the City of Lava Hot Springs in 2022 after city officials denied a permit for a short-term rental in the city because it was in a residential zone, not a commercial zone.
The City of Lava Hot Springs prevailed in district court, the case was appealed and the Idaho Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments, but has not yet issued a decision. In response to a question from Sen. Ron Taylor, D-Ketchum, Max Pond, a lobbyist for the Idaho Association of Realtors, denied that the bill was specifically written to circumvent any decision in the case.
Jade Riley, the city administrator for the City of Ketchum spoke on behalf of the Idaho Resort Cities Coalition, urging the senators to vote against the bill, saying it did not reflect the negotiation process that Clow attempted last year and the realtors were not willing to make as many concessions as the cities were. He also referenced a fatal explosion of a wood stove in a short-term rental in Donnelly that left four dead in 2017 and the need for these regulations to protect visitors, as well as nearby property owners.
“Cities do not regulate short-term rentals with a primary focus to the short-term owner,” he said. “Instead, we regulate to protect the consumer who will use the renter and adjacent property owners who pay taxes.”
Local control vs. private property rights
Senators agreed that the issue needed to be settled, but there were questions about why the bill was introduced so late in the session, and on the Senate side of the rotunda, not on the House where Clow ordered the parties to negotiate.
Majority Leader Sen. Lori Den Hartog, R-Meridian, said supporting private property rights in Idaho is important, but she had criticism for Redman and Lenney for the process they used to get the legislation heard.
“I’m frustrated of what feels like a process of going around something that would be negotiated and ending up in the legislation could use a little bit of work, but there’s a lot of important things in here,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to change what happens here today, but I think we’ve seen this a couple of times this session where it feels like we are circumventing a process that should happen and a process that was in the works.”
Sen. Treg Bernt, R-Meridian, said he was hoping to see amendments to give the cities a little more control over their zoning ordinances. But, even though he supported the bill with slight changes, he pointed out what he felt was the legislature’s hypocrisy on the idea of local control being the best form of government.
“Sometimes we’re for local control until we’re not,” he said. “We say that a lot ‘I’m for local control, I want to take care of the cities’ until there’s a certain piece of legislation in front of us that we like that doesn’t really correspond well with local control and then we’re against local control.”
Before voting, Taylor’s only comment was to read the entirety of a Senate resolution passed espousing the importance of local control, which fellow committee member Senate Pro Tem Sen. Kelly Anthon, R-Burley, sponsored. Anthon replied, affirming his love of local governments and his work as a city attorney, but he said the Idaho Constitution discusses the importance of private property rights first and local governments later.
“When I’m given the option of weighing what’s more important, weighing whether the city council has control over people versus protecting people’s property rights I will always land on the side of protecting people’s property rights,” Anthon said. “I swore an oath to do it.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the party of Sen. Ron Taylor. It has been changed to reflect that the is a Democrat.
