Summit County officials are taking steps to regulate nightly rentals after spending the past year collecting data, identifying units and enforcing licensing laws, and could approve new rules this summer that could restrict nightly rentals in specific neighborhoods.
The Summit County Council previously held off on implementing ordinances to regulate nightly rentals, or units rented for less than 30 days, on websites like Airbnb and VRBO, because councilors felt they lacked information about the number of rentals in the area, their locations and their impact on local neighborhoods.
To combat the lack of data, the county hired Scott Buchanan as a code enforcement officer last year and tasked him with overseeing short-term rentals in Summit County. Buchanan has since partnered with Azora Software, a company that helps local governments find and enforce short-term rentals without business licenses.
Azora Software originally found 1,900 operating nightly rentals in Summit County, 1,300 of which were already licensed.
“It was a delicate and complex process to identify the first batch of roughly 650 units … that were unlicensed at the time,” Buchanan told the County Council on Wednesday. “Since that time, we’ve identified an initial 300 (more). Each time an individual unit is identified, it’s a painstaking process to ensure that the listing that we are alleging is engaging in this activity is truly the one that occupies the parcel in question.”
Buchanan said the short-term rental enforcement program is split into two phases, with the first phase focused on bringing the first 650 identified units into compliance and launching a 24-hour complaint hotline. The second phase will center on the remaining 300 units, as well as ordinances intended to solidify further regulations.
Currently, the county is between the two phases, with Buchanan wrapping up enforcement efforts on approximately 140 outstanding units that are either still in the application process for a business license or have not responded to the county’s communications. Property owners who have reportedly ignored the county’s courtesy warnings will start receiving official notices of violation, which trigger a hearing with an administrative law judge.
“I’ll go before the administrative law judge and say, ‘Hey, here’s everything we’ve done. We haven’t heard from this person, and we’re asking you to find in our favor, impose fines,’ and then I’ll work with the county on collecting those fines,” Buchanan explained. “Ultimately, those fines will be recorded against the property. After that, if I have no movement at all, then we would start talking about moving with criminal prosecution, but we have no desire to do that. We hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Buchanan has also been mapping the location of licensed and unlicensed nightly rentals in Summit County, telling the County Council that a majority of the units are located in Canyons Village, Kimball Junction, Summit Park and Tollgate Canyon.
“All of this data is very, very important and useful, especially when I look at these maps of where these short-term rentals are located,” said County Councilor Tonja Hanson. “In order for us to move forward with regulations or not, this is where we needed to start.”
While Buchanan finishes enforcement efforts for the first phase and starts on the remaining 300 units identified after the fact, the county’s civil attorneys are working with the Clerk’s Office to draft ordinances regulating short-term rentals, including potential restrictions for specific neighborhoods.
Lynda Viti, the civil attorney working on the ordinance, told the County Council that those hypothetical prohibitions are largely related to safety concerns.
“If someone lives in a neighborhood, they know how to get in and out of that neighborhood if there’s an emergency,” Viti said. “Someone who’s not familiar with the area may be at a higher risk for injury, and also, people who are visitors may not receive the county’s emergency alerts.”
The tentative list of neighborhoods includes Toll Canyon, Summit Park, Timberline, Rockport Estates, Stagecoach Estates and Samak, as well as properties bordering Weber Canyon Road, Browns Canyon Road and Kimball Canyon Road.
Viti emphasized the neighborhoods are only suggestions at this point, though, and the County Council will need to refine and discuss the ordinance in-depth before finalizing any restrictions.
However, councilors generally seemed supportive of prohibiting nightly rentals in areas of the county that may pose more dangers to visitors, although they also agreed there needs to be a broader conversation among councilors and with the public before making a decision.
“Our number one job as a County Council is the safety, health and welfare of our constituents and our guests because, in my opinion, our guests are part of us being here,” Hanson said. “To me, this is something that we need to take very seriously, be very thoughtful and figure out how we want to move forward with the number one priority of health and safety.”
The County Council did not take any action on short-term rentals or any new ordinances on Wednesday. Instead, councilors requested Buchanan, Viti and interim Clerk Malena Stevens present a drafted ordinance for discussion in August after the primary election, with an opportunity for public comment.