Procurement News Notice |
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| PNN | 6790 |
| Work Detail | The city of Coralville is looking to regulate how homes and other rooms are rented through online home-sharing services like Airbnb. At the same time, the city is seeing a boom in the local hotel market, with five new hotels in varying stages of development and others still in the planning stage. Earlier this month, the Coralville City Council approved its first of three readings to an ordinance that would require property owners in Coralville renting their homes through services like Airbnb to live in the house with guests on the nights they plan to stay. Kelly Hayworth, Coralville's city administrator, said the ordinance is the result of several complaints the city has received about noisy houses and parties that last until the wee hours of the morning. "We've had numerous complaints from residents, primarily in the Brown Deer neighborhood, over the past six months to a year about the impact on their neighborhoods where these rentals are," Hayworth said. "In one particular case, residents mentioned a house that has been rented numerous times that's had late parties until 3 or 4 a.m. and a large number of vehicles parked around the neighborhood in various spots. "They've said it's a detriment to their use of a single-family house in a single-family neighborhood," he said. According to the ordinance, short-term rentals are those that last less than 90 continuous days. Properties that are advertised for short-term rentals must be owner-occupied and the units must pass an inspection, the ordinance states. At the Aug. 23 City Council meeting, City Attorney Kevin Olson told council members that state law allows cities to fine a property owner who does not follow the new ordinance a maximum of $750 for the first violation and up to $1,000 each day the violation continues. The ordinance takes three votes in order to be adopted, but Hayworth said the council is expected to collapse its second and third readings and adopt the ordinance at its Sept. 13 meeting. Ben Breit, an Airbnb spokesman, said in a Thursday email that the company keeps track of home-sharing legislation across the country and has been keeping an eye on Coralville's ordinance. "For our hosts in Coralville, Airbnb offers a way to earn a little extra income and pay the bills. Our platform also allows greater Iowa City and Johnson County to expand their capacity during major events such as University of Iowa football games, wrestling matches, homecoming and graduation weekend," Breit said in his email. "We continue to have productive conversations with policy-makers across the United States and around the globe to create clear, fair home-sharing rules." While the short-rental ordinance heads into its final consideration, Coralville also is seeing significant hotel development. Josh Schamberger, president of the Iowa City/Coralville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said ground has broken on a nearly 100-room Hilton Home 2 Suites extended-stay hotel at 740 Coral Ridge Ave., southwest of the Coral Ridge Mall, and on a Marriott Springhill Suites Hotel planned to bring about 100 rooms to the intersection of 25th Avenue and 10th Street. Schamberger also said a roughly 185-room Drury Inn and Suites is expected to break ground in the next couple months at the Iowa River Landing and will replace the Bandana's BBQ at 807 First Ave. A 92-room Fairfield Hotel also will be built near the intersection of Highway 6 and Highway 965, near the Home 2 Suites. A 120-room Staybridge Suites also is planned for the Iowa River Landing as part of the city's ice arena project. "There's at least four others that are being considered, but I don't think they're in any stage of saying whether they're going to happen or not," he said. "About every month I get calls about somebody looking to do a hotel project and ask for a feasibility study. A majority of them don't move forward, but the market's being investigated quite a bit." A few of the city's older hotels have closed within the last year, including the The J&M Motor Lodge, the Days Inn motel at 205 Second St. and, most recently, the Big Ten Inn. According to a market report Schamberger receives for the area, which includes Iowa City, Coralville and North Liberty, occupancy for fiscal year 2016, which ended in June, was 66.4 percent, up 1.9 percent from the previous fiscal year. The average daily rate in the area was $97.94, up from $95.32 in 2015. Area hotel/motel tax revenue, an amount that fluctuates depending on the average daily rate, was about $1.6 million for Iowa City, about $2.7 million in Coralville and $79,732 in North Liberty. A concern among some hotel operators in Coralville, Schamberger said, is that property owners advertising their property on services like Airbnb are not always assessing the same hotel/motel and sales taxes to their guests. "There's many times I'm contacted by hotels and other individuals that tell me they have to pay more in insurance and have to charge these taxes and some Airbnb users operating as a business may not be," he said. "If you're operating through Airbnb and you're promoting you have a room or a house for rent for overnight, you're in business. There's no question about that. "As long as those individuals that are using these services and promoting their homes are assessing the proper sales and hotel/motel tax, then great," Schamberger said. By state law, Hayworth said, cities need to have a rental housing permit or program requiring the proper tax permits, as well as room inspections. He added that the recent increase of hotel development in the city was not the cause of the city's new short-term rental ordinance. "The council is very open to listening to neighborhood concerns and wanted to see what could be done. Staff and our city attorney did some research and knew that West Des Moines addressed this over a year ago and adopted an ordinance. This is modeled closely to what they had done," Hayworth said. "The city of Waukee is in the process of considering the same ordinance as well." |
| Country | United States , Northern America |
| Industry | Hotel & Hospitality |
| Entry Date | 15 Oct 2016 |
| Source | http://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/local/2016/09/05/amid-hotel-boom-coralville-looks-regulate-short-term-rentals/89772642/ |
