Vail Town Council to consider suspending some new short-term rental registrations

The Town of Vail last week issued the following press release on possibly suspending new registrations for some short-term rentals:

The Vail Town Council will consider an emergency ordinance suspending new registrations for certain short-term rentals at its July 20 meeting. The discussion is listed as action item 7.2 on the meeting agenda which begins at 6 p.m. in the Town Council Chambers. Public comment will be available both in-person and virtual. To register to provide public comment virtually, visit https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4P6uXQJET6ynQf_3SKfc1g.

The town’s short-term rental regulations were adopted in 2017 and became effective March 1, 2008, and currently require an annual registration fee of $150 for owners wishing to rent their property for 30 days or less using Airbnb, VRBO or other listings. The regulations also address properties using onsite or offsite professional property managers. 

During an analysis conducted in 2017, the town’s regulations were identified as “passive” compared to other peer resorts. Now, four years later, the Town Council has directed staff to prepare an emergency ordinance to take a brief “time out” to study the impacts of short-term rentals in Vail, particularly in residential neighborhoods. 

As drafted, the emergency ordinance would become effective immediately and suspend the acceptance of new registrations for properties within specific business license zones through Oct. 19, 2021. The 90-day suspension would apply to properties located in “Zone 2,” mainly outside of the village commercial core areas. A map of the license zones is provided in the council packet materials and is available online on the town’s website page for STRs. Properties exempted in Zone 2 include those with a front desk operation and serviced by a full-time onsite property manager, any accommodation units, bed and breakfast, fractional fee club unit, lodge dwelling unit, limited service lodge unit or timeshare unit. 

There are currently 2,163 approved short-term rental registrations in Vail. Of those, 1,043 registrations have no front desk and are not fractional units. The town’s resident housing goal includes acquiring  a total of 1,700 deed-restricted units by the year 2027. Currently about 36% of Vail’s 5,600 total year-round residents, or about 2,000 people, live in the town’s 930 deed-restricted homes. This represents 12.7% of the total number of homes in Vail.

To view the staff memo on this topic, including a map of the impacted zone districts, visit www.vailgov.com or to learn more about the existing regulations, visit www.vailgov.com/short-term-rentals.