AirBnB and other Short Term Rental Policy at City Open House

Flyer

Wednesday evening the City's holding an Open House on policy for short-term rentals like AirBnB and such. Zoning, friendly neighborhood relations, some basic standards seem to be the focus. Unsaid here, but perhaps also important, is collecting the transient occupancy tax. (A couple years back, CANDO noted that Salem wasn't collecting it, and that it would typically contribute to funding things like Sunday Streets.*)

With the advent of home-sharing websites, like Airbnb, FlipKey, and others, there is an increasing demand by residents in the community to make their homes available for rent by others on a short-term basis.

In order to address this increasing demand, the City of Salem is considering amendments to the Salem Revised Code (SRC) to make it easier for small-scale forms of short-term commercial lodging to operate in residential zones.

Currently, the only form of short-term commercial lodging allowed in the City's residential zones are bed and breakfasts. In the Residential Agriculture (RA), Single Family Residential (RS), and Duplex Residential (RD) zones, bed & breakfasts must receive Conditional Use Permit approval, which requires a public hearing, regardless of the number of guest rooms being rented.

In order to make it easier for residents to rent their homes, or guestrooms within their homes, on a short-term basis, proposed amendments being considered would allow short-term rentals of an appropriate scale to the surrounding neighborhood to operate without a Conditional Use Permit. In order to ensure such activities won't impact the livability of surrounding neighborhoods, limits on the maximum numbers of guest rooms and numbers of guests, minimum parking requirements, standards to ensure safety, and other requirements will be considered.

Here's the flyer.

The Open House is tomorrow, Wednesday the 1st, 6:00 p.m. at the Salem Public Library, Loucks Auditorium.

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* Which remains on hiatus as a City-sponsored event. A different group is trying to revive a similar event. The City of Eugene has three staff attached to their Sunday Streets project (not 3 FTE, however), so it remains unclear whether something can thrive here in Salem without any City staff involvement.