Sedona continues on its quest to combat its short-term rental issue.
The city’s Deputy Manager Joanne Keene presented the council with the latest update from the legislative end for STR regulation.
“Fortunately, short-term rentals seem to be on quite a few people’s agendas this session,” Keene said.
According to the meeting’s report by city staff, council continues to support bills to return local control for the short-term rental issue. The League of Arizona Cities and Towns’ working group, as well as Sedona’s lobbyist, have been a part of the city’s attempt to correct the STR crisis.
Currently, the league is proposing action to require licensing, regulate nuisances and limit the number of short-term rentals allowed in the designated city or town. In response to these goals, Sedona put forward the motion for STRs to be regulated as transient lodging.
“The decision is that the league is going to look at running two separate bills. One will be led by Lake Havasu City … which will include the notification and the local permit or license. And the other items are included in a separate bill,” Keene stated.
Keene is involved in the process, along with the city’s lobbyist Paul Senseman. Based on the progress until now, the League of Arizona Cities and Towns is still looking to see which bill would be the best for lawmakers to pick up during this election year. According to Keene, this will come down to whether legislation finds limiting the numbers or nuisance to be the more pressing issue.
Sedona, Flagstaff, Scottsdale and Lake Havasu City have been at the forefront of the conversations when it comes to STR regulation.
Recently, Scottsdale has made headlines involving the short-term rental issue. On Jan. 7, that city’s new regulations went into order. Now all STR and vacation rentals in Scottsdale are required to provide an emergency contact number that must show up to the property within an hour of the call. Penalties range from $250 for first-time offenders up to $20,000 for habitual offenders who are those ”having previously been found responsible by a court on four or more separate occasions for committing a civil violation of this article within a 24-month period.”
“This will really help to facilitate that there’s an actual contact for the police to talk to,” Scottsdale Police Sgt. Kevin Quon said to Phoenix FOX News 10. “If it rises to a level of a notice of violation, we can issue that to them, which will then go to a different department of the city to deal with.”
Along with the rest of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, Sedona City Council also discussed these regulations being added into their own city limits.
“While all these things will help other cities, we are not sure if they will help us. But obviously, we will support this, if it is the effort by the league this session,” Keene said.