Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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Through Monday, Clark County is offering local residents a chance to help shape public policy on a matter that our community must get absolutely right — how the county will regulate short-term rental properties.
It currently prohibits rentals through AirBnB, Vrbo and similar apps, but the state Legislature passed a bill last year that required the county to adopt a new policy by July 1 of this year. The bill was prompted by concerns that the ban was ineffective and by a lack of uniformity in local ordinances on the rentals.
As part of the process to adopt new regulations, the county is conducting an online survey to gauge residents’ opinions on what its new ordinance should look like. We encourage Sun readers to weigh in by visiting www.ClarkCountyNV.gov/survey, but first here’s some important background on the issue.
The legislation from 2021, Assembly Bill 383, bars local governments from banning short-term rentals, meaning Clark County had no choice but to revisit the issue and end its prohibition.
The bill requires the county and the cities of Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas to create a process for property owners to apply for a short-term rental permit and pay an annual fee to maintain the permit. In return, property owners must pay the same taxes as Nevada’s resorts and hotels, maintain liability insurance on the property, designate a local representative for it, and meet other requirements or face fines of up to $10,000. AB383 also set a number of limitations on the properties — a minimum distance of 660 feet between free-standing short-term rental properties, a maximum occupancy of 16 people per property, a buffer zone around the resort corridor, a minimum stay of two nights in properties whose owners live off-site, and more. The local governments can also set caps on how many permits are made available.
The bipartisan bill is hit-and-miss. For instance, there’s something to be said for establishing some degree of uniformity in what is now a patchwork of local ordinances in the valley, where short-term rentals are legal in the three large cities but not in unincorporated Clark County. And since we already opened the door to these rentals in the cities, it’s wise to tax them at the same rate as resorts. This is primarily why the Nevada Resort Association supported the measure, which helps level the playing field between the resort industry and the short-term rental industry.
But we are deeply concerned that in forcing the county to drop its ban, state lawmakers could end up exacerbating a problem we’re already facing — a strain on affordable housing.
As apartment-hunters and prospective homebuyers are all too aware, rents and home prices in the valley have been skyrocketing, including during the peak of the pandemic shutdowns. One index showed home prices up 25.7% in November from one year earlier, far outpacing the national rate of 18.8%. As reported by Las Vegas Realtors, the median sales price of a previously owned home was $425,000 in December.
If the short-term rental regulations are relaxed too much, AirBnB speculators could easily swoop in and apply more upward pressure on the housing and rental market. This has happened in other cities, and we can’t let it happen here.
Taxing owners at resort rates should help cool some of that speculative buying — in fact, the Culinary Union supported AB383 under the argument that the taxation would help regulate the short-term market and would actually protect affordable housing.
Maybe it will. But extreme caution is needed in establishing the number of permits and creating other limitations in the new ordinance.
Our community must do all we can to ensure that the resort workers who form the backbone of our local and state economy can live here affordably. Many of them are already being stretched due to pandemic-related layoffs, inflation and the rising prices of homes and rent — we must be extremely careful not to add to that burden.
Then there are the ramifications for the serenity and security of our neighborhoods, where short-term rentals can and often do cause problems through excessive noise, trash, parking, etc. Party houses, porn shoots and illegal behavior related to AirBnB properties have become an issue in communities. Couple that with the “What happens here, stays here” attitude in Las Vegas, and it increases the need for neighbors to be involved in permitting and to have some form of redress if rentals begin attracting disruptive guests.
This is where the county survey comes in. It takes about 15 minutes to complete, and contains such questions as:
• Should the county consider adopting an ordinance whereby the short-term rental host risks losing their authorization (permit) if the county receives more than a certain number of substantiated complaints about their short-term rental?
• Should there be restrictions on signage of short-term rentals?
• Should the county limit the number of permits for short-term rentals in Clark County?
• Should neighbors be involved in the permitting process?
We encourage our readers to make their voices heard, and to join us in urging caution on the issue.
