9.23.2019 City Council Work Session Minutes

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of the neighborhood and the destruction of housing availability; said that having a lot of people coming and going changes the character of the neighborhood and affects parking; said she knows there's two sides and has heard from people who say short-term rentals are ruining neighborhoods and others say that they need to rent short-term in order to pay their mortgage. Councilor Zelenka - said he brought up this issue a few years ago but council wasn't interested in discussing at that point; talked about how many of the rentals are around the university; said he's concerned about the impact on the neighborhoods and livability; said he has a problem with people buying homes to exclusively rent them out short-term all year long; shared concerns that they are turning neighborhoods into a business area, said he doesn't have a problem with people occasionally renting their homes short-term, but not all year long; asked how many days per year other jurisdictions have limited short-term rentals to; asked about owner -occupancy requirements without a conditional use permit; asked about the Transient Room Tax and what percentage of short-term rentals are reporting and paying that fee right now. Councilor Pryor - said that this information has been helpful and he'd like to be deliberate on implementing regulations; asked about the challenges of imposing inspection requirements; said he wouldn't want to require inspections for this kind of housing if the City doesn't require it for other kinds of housing because it seems like overreaching; said he would discourage including number six on the motion related to inspections and instead require a guest registry Councilor Clark- said that guests staying at a short-term rental will report on the condition of a place and people wouldn't stay somewhere with bad reviews; asked how many of the short- term rentals are owned by Expedia, Priceline, or Trip Advisor in Eugene; said it was interesting that the people dealing with where people travel are also owning companies that deal with how houses are bought and sold; shared concerns about the ability to have large companies comply with local regulations; commented that if more ADUs start to be built, the ADU rental income cannot be used towards income to qualify for buying the house but you can use both incomes from the house and ADU if you're buying it for an investment property; said he thinks that will happen to houses around the university. Councilor Syrett - said her main interest is to mitigate the negative impacts of short-term rentals on neighborhoods and without regulations, including licensing, there's no effective way to do that; talked about the logic of applying similar standards as hotels and motels and asked if the City requires them to provide guest registries and parking requirements, noting that not all requirements would be the same; said she's not interested in inspections because of the workload and expense; said she supports parking requirements, limiting the number of people, and limiting the number of days the unit can be rented; said she thinks people would complain if standards weren't being met; said she wanted to be deliberate about implementing regulations and is supportive of adopting some. Mayor Vinis - asked staff to explain the suggestions made and why certain requirements were not included; commented that there's some sense of urgency about short-term rentals in the community and it might make sense for council to adopt some regulations that are able to be quickly and effectively rolled out, understanding that this is an iterative process and regulations can be added or amended later. Councilor Semple - asked about the basis for license ramifications related to complaints; asked about the expense of inspections and complaint response; shared concerns that if the number of days a short-term rental could be rented each year, it may leave some houses empty for the rest of the year. Councilor Zelenka - asked how HB 2001's ADU owner -occupancy and parking regulations related to short-term rental regulations; talked about inspections when new houses are built, noting that new short-term rentals could be inspected and the fees would get paid for by the owner; asked a process question about the way the motion is structured, skipping straight to a public hearing before City Council reviews a proposed ordinance; said he had a problem with MINUTES - Eugene City Council September 23, 2019 Page 3 Work Session