Airbnb saga: Throw us a lifeline
Three-and-a-half weeks after the short-term rental ordinance hit, slamming Old Louisville residents with a convoluted, more than $1,100 process for applying for a permit, our councilman, David James, sent out a notice by email in his District Six Dispatch: A low-res graphic showing the steps in the 72-day timeline for applications was accompanied by a cheerful message:
“This is the current process for opening a short-term rental location in Louisville, Kentucky. To get the process jump-started, here are the forms. Don't be scared by the prices just yet; 'I am in the process of working with Planning and Design to reduce the cost of short-term rental permits,' Councilman James comments. Please email us if you have any questions or concerns.”
No link was provided to email, so I headed to the councilman's Facebook page to ask for more information. He'd sent the message about three hours after I left Planning and Design Services downtown the day before, where no mention was made of any changes by assistant director Joe Reverman or the other three staff we talked with, so I was most curious.
James quickly replied, “The Planning Commission has control over the Fees that are charged for the CUP. Because of the shortened process for Short Term Rentals that we recently changed, it stands to reason that Planning and Design has much less work to do in order to process the application. I'm working to find out what that number actually is, but I'm thinking it should at least be a 50-60% reduction from the current fee.”
When I pressed for more details – what shortened process? – the councilman referred me back to Reverman.
In between hunting for the owner information and proper mailing address for the 37 properties that adjoin mine or adjoin those that adjoin mine (find the property addresses on the LOJIC map and then the owner's mailing address at the sheriff's property tax search website, repeat) so that I could notify neighbors of my required meeting, I reached out to Reverman to inquire about this very welcome news. Why, though, I asked, hadn't these changes been mentioned in either meeting this week, and what is their plan to communicate changes to hosts already in the process?
He replied within a few hours. Yes, in fact “the subject of short-term rental conditional use permit fees is on the agenda at the next Planning Commission meeting on September 1,” he wrote. “Due to the customer feedback we have received, we have added some process information specific to short-term rentals on our website. Since the last time we spoke, edits have been made to the short-term rental website as well as short-term rental conditional use permit pre and formal applications. These edits were made to make the applications simpler and more straightforward.”
As best as I can tell, the changes, viewable at https://louisvilleky.gov/government/planning-design/short-term-rental-information are related to formalizing the removal of the site plan requirement. That's great news, but I have to wonder why they waited until 26 days after implementing the ordinance to remove one of the most significant barriers.
Now I hope the next significant barrier – the thousand-dollar application fee – is slashed. Airbnb released data recently showing that the 1,200 active hosts in Louisville (the second most visited destination in what they call the Midwest) on average hosted 17 guests and earned $4,100. Our city showed year-over-year inbound guest growth of 125 percent.
Requiring that Old Louisville hosts pay more than a quarter of that average in permit fees – fees that don't guarantee approval of their application, at that – is a sure way to halt growth in our neighborhood. Do we really want to turn away visitors who make a point of visiting locally owned businesses?
“The rapid growth of Midwest home sharing is turning historically great communities into truly global destinations,” Airbnb's report said. “And the sharing economy is empowering people across the Midwest to utilize their most important asset - their home - as economic lifelines.”
I hope when the planning commission meets on September 1 they remember those of us who could use that lifeline. As the fees stand now, those who could use the lifeline most can't reach it.
This is the third of a series of occasional columns in which Dana McMahan will detail the process she and her husband go through to try to get their home ready to meet Louisville requirements for short-term rentals through sites such as Airbnb.
