In Cleveland, owners of Airbnbs and other short-term rentals need to get a city permit to operate. In Hudson, they must notify neighbors when they launch operations. In Toledo, each rental must ensure a local contact can be reached by authorities within 45 minutes.
Some places, like Parma Heights, Worthington, Shaker Heights and others, have banned them outright, sometimes temporarily, sometimes indefinitely.
In response to this quiltwork of local approaches, Sen. Andrew Brenner, a Powell Republican who works in real estate, has again introduced legislation that would limit the kinds of laws local governments can pass to regulate short-term rentals like Airbnb, Vrbo and others.
The legislation revives a perennial conflict between Ohio’s generally liberal urban areas and the Republican-dominated, business-friendly Statehouse. Ohio’s state constitution guarantees local governments “home rule” powers of political autonomy. However, Republicans over the past two decades have increasingly adopted the practice of passing so-called “preemption” laws that defang Ohio’s cities of their powers to make rules around guns, cell towers, retail pet sales, natural gas hookups and dozens of other policy arenas.
Senate Bill 104 – backed by the realtors’ lobby, Airbnb operators and business interests like the Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Prosperity – would prevent cities from passing laws that:
- Ban short-term rentals, including through city zoning rules
- Set up a lottery system for who can operate a short-term rental
- Restrict the number of short-term rentals a person may operate
- Require that owners “occupy” the short-term rental property
The legislation would allow cities to require registration or licensing to operate, so long as they charge less than $20 per house. That’s far less than Columbus (up to $150), Cincinnati ($250) or Cleveland ($70), and other cities. Those fees cover the cities’ regulatory costs.
“When local municipalities impose regulations and restrictions under the guise of improving the community, it negatively affects our industry,” said Mark Remeis, a real estate broker who testified to lawmakers on behalf of the Ohio Realtors association.
Others, including Brenner himself, have framed the bill as a property-rights issue and the local ordinances as infringing on homeowners to do with their residences as they wish.
Why Ohio communities want to regulate short-term rentals
The legislation comes as local governments have grown increasingly skeptical of allowing de facto hotels into their residential neighborhoods.
Plus, as Signal Ohio has reported, Airbnbs and other short-term rentals in Ohio have played host to at least 27 shootings at crowded house parties over the past several years. Sixteen people have died, and nearly 50 were injured in those events, according to media and police reports. Most of the victims range from teenagers, with victims as young as 16, to young adults.
Brenner didn’t respond to an interview request about the bill in light of the gun violence. Scott Williams, CEO of Ohio Realtors, didn’t respond to a similar request.
The legislation has drawn opposition from local governments around the state. They say it will pave the way for investors to snatch single-family homes from the already scarce supply, and change the character of the neighborhood when long-term residents are replaced with a churn of visitors.
“If communities are not allowed to regulate, we’ll have less secure locales on every block and neighborhood,” said Merisa Bowers, city council president of Gahanna, in an interview.
And during a committee hearing and written testimony at the statehouse, mayor after mayor of Ohio’s cities brought up the parties.
Bay Village Mayor Paul A. Koomar mentioned one instance where 500 people showed up for a party at a short-term rental on the lake owned by an “absentee landlord” from Chicago. There was public urination, loud noise, disruptive behavior, a huge traffic jam and a mess left behind for the cities to deal with. The village responded with a near-prohibition on such rentals.
Willoughby Hills Mayor Chris Hallum described a range of problems, including a party that ended in a blaze of gunfire.
The legislation restricts local regulatory authority and “could” be challenged under Ohio’s Constitution, according to the Legislative Service Commission, a nonpartisan arm of the legislature that analyzes policy issues for lawmakers.