The Covington Board of Commissioners approved a new ordinance regulating the operation of short-term rentals at a special meeting Wednesday night.
The vote follows a long period of regulatory deliberation and public comment that began at the end of last year when the board declared an emergency moratorium on new licenses for short-term rentals, often referred to as Airbnbs after the web service where such rentals are advertised, in the city.
Although the vote officially ends the moratorium, it does not finalize regulations of short-term rentals; the city will now need to revise its zoning plan to accommodate the new ordinance, a process that will require approval from the county and could take months, a city press release stated.
“I really appreciate and I applaud the number of our constituents that have reached out to us and engaged with us to try and help guide this process,” said Commissioner Tim Downing.
The board completed a first reading of the ordinance the night before. The ordinance itself was a revision of a draft ordinance first crafted after an initial round of public comments, which included a public hearing in April.
“We had 47 people comment at the public hearings, and the city received 256 written comments” during the public input period, said Mayor Joe Meyer.
Covington began regulating short-term rentals in 2021 when city staff noticed their increased popularity, especially in neighborhoods closer to the riverfront. Visitors often come to Covington to use it as a place to stay for big events across the river in Cincinnati, like football games and conventions.
The city commission increased penalties for unregulated properties in March while the moratorium was still in effect, frustrating many local investors and property owners, who felt the new regulations unduly stifled their business interests. Short-term rental investors made their issues known in numerous statements to the commission at both public hearings and regular commission meetings.
Covington isn’t alone in regulating short-term rentals. Several other cities in the region have deployed varying degrees of regulation on similar properties, and Lexington recently instituted its own regulations.
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Although short-term rentals can be an economic boon for property owners and even municipalities as a whole, there are questions about how they affect city zoning practices, housing cost and access, and neighborhood safety.
At the public hearing earlier this month, some property owners expressed displeasure at several of the new regulations in the draft, particularly caps on the number of short-term licenses that the city could issue in historic neighborhoods and the city-wide total cap of 150 non-host occupied units.
Despite these grievances, very little changed between the public hearing and Wednesday’s vote. All major proposals from the first draft were kept in the final version of the ordinance.
The mayor and the majority of the commission supported the ordinance and the process that led to its approval.
“As a commissioner, I met with neighborhood groups about their concerns about short term rentals,” said Commissioner Ron Washington. “I listened to what they had to say. Also, as part of my engagement with the public, I visited with short term rental owners and viewed their locations [and] had private meetings with them… I’m personally happy with the engagement.”
Downing said the final ordinance was “imperfect,” but he was pleased with the results overall.
“A lot of the work that we end up doing is for the public at large,” Downing said. “We do our best to make sure that we are meeting halfway, and we’re trying to make sure that we are doing what is in the best interest for the long term growth of the city.”
Commissioner Shannon Smith agreed.
“I’m confident our staff and this board is always listening for areas of opportunity, and if something doesn’t work, we’re listening,” Smith said.
There was one dissenting vote on the commission from Commissioner Nolan Nicaise.
“While I do believe that this ordinance is moving us in the right direction, providing better clarity on terms and setting a framework for the licensing of short-term rentals, I am prepared to not vote for this for a couple of reasons,” Nicaise said.
Nicaise was skeptical that the new license fee structure would be able to offset expenses born out of the new regulatory mechanisms.
He also expressed concern “that by limiting the number of short term rentals to 150, we could be creating localized monopolies that could affect the quality of those short term rentals and could allow those owners of the licenses to up their prices,” he said.
Finally, despite the comments from other commissioners, he did not feel the city did enough to communicate effectively with the public.
“I’m concerned that we added this into the agenda yesterday,” Nicaise said. “So it wasn’t advertised to the public that it would have been on the agenda yesterday, and today there’s not public feedback,” pointing out that the special meeting did not have time dedicated to public comment like a typical legislative meeting.
Nicaise did not offer any amendments to the ordinance as it was written.
Interested property owners may now apply for a new short-term rental license and a business license, both of which are necessary for compliance with the new laws. They can also read a full text of the new regulations here.
Applicants will still need to obtain a conditional zoning permit from the city’s architectural board while the city updates its zoning plan, a process that will be discarded once the new zones are established. Meyer stated that the city-wide cap could change depending on what happens with the current cap.
“We will have the opportunity to revisit the cap of 150 based on the experiences that we have had between now and the time that that final decision is made,” Meyer said.
Anyone who applied for conditional zoning or a license before June 22 will need to reapply to keep their spot in line. Otherwise, license applications will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis.
The next meeting of Covington Board of Commissioners will take place on July 11 at 6 p.m. at Covington City Hall on Pike Street.
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