Air BnB issue
Hi all,
I was contacted by the mayor of the town I represent and there was an incident at an Air BnB. Below is what I received. What are other towns doing for situations like this and to try to prevent similar things from happening in the future. Are there ordinances disallowing Airbnb’s or taxing them as a business? I’m not sure what can be done now that the “business” is established without seeming like it’s targeted.
“There was an incident that happened at a residence that is currently being offered through Air B&B as a short term rental. There was a party that occurred there and was advertised via social media, resulting in a fight breaking out and shots being fired into the air, according to my conversation with the Logan County Sheriff. The sheriff also contacted the owner of the property and the owner asked the sheriff to evict the tenants and the access codes were changed remotely. After being contacted by several concerned residents about the issue that occurred, I feel that it is necessary to make an effort to make a formal notification to the property owner.
Would it be possible to get a letter drafted by legal council to the property owner, stating that the Town Council was notified by the citizens of the community and is concerned with the activities that took place on June 9th at the residence that has disturbed the peace to the community? I would like a response from the owner of how they plan to remedy similar situations from happening with future short term rental tenants, if they plan to operate this type of business in a residential area.”
[1470857813174_cropped]
Samantha M. Manuel
Private Counsel & Attorney at Law
PALMER LAW
5601 NW 72nd Street, #106, Warr Acres, OK 73132
(918) 219-9997 manuel@callpalmer.commailto:manuel@callpalmer.com
This email may be privileged attorney-client communication and/or litigation work product. It is intended solely for the addressee(s). Please reply to sender if you receive this message in error. Such error does not waive the applicable privilege(s).
I'll offer my insight from my own experience as a City Attorney. In my
City, we had a guy buy a house intending to rent it out as a high
dollar but long term rental. His economic sense was apparently off, because
he couldn't get anyone to rent it. So he decided to throw it on AirBNB
until he could find a long term tenant. But he started making a lot on
AirBNB. But this was a very nice house that was lake front property, and
quite of few of his renters were renting the house to throw big house
parties. There was never any violence but there was a ton of noise.
The easiest way to deal with this would have been to get a citizens
complaint for disturbing the peace and then serve the renters. But no one
wanted to be the complainant and, since the Officers cannot have their
peace disturbed, that left us with little recourse. Which is when I started
getting pressure as City Attorney to find a way to ban AirBNB's altogether.
After reviewing our City Code, I reached the conclusion that technically
this was a hotel and, so, not permitted within a residentially zoned
district. Our ordinances on hotels (in both our hotel tax ordinances and
our zoning code) essentially turned on the number of rooms made available
as well as the duration of the stay being less than 30 days (I think). This
was a bit perverse, as it would only pick up the medium to larger size
houses that were made available and not smaller houses (if they didn't have
the required number of total rooms - something I thought of this weekend
when my family stayed in a small AirBNB in the Dallas area which would have
been 1 room short of being a "hotel" under my City's ordinance). The hotel
ordinances were adopted by in 2008 (just before I became City Attorney) and
obviously weren't intended to address this kind of setup (they were
intended, however, to address the new and first hotel that was going to be
built in our City). But from a textual standpoint, it met the definition
and, therefore, was not a permitted use in our residential district and
they hadn't been paying the hotel tax the voters had approved.
We filed a case in Municipal Court. The person pled not guilty and the case
was tried to our Judge who found the person guilty and imposed a fine for
each day the City could prove that the property had been rented out for a
short term rental. The guy appealed to District Court but ultimately
dismissed his appeal after he sold the house and was no longer using it as
an AirBNB (it wasn't the fine he cared about - it was the ability to use it
as an AirBNB).
My personal view was - the issue wasn't really the short term rental as it
was a few of the particular short term renters. We had ordinances that
criminalized what they were doing. And if it continued to persist, we could
have looked at whether it would have qualified as a nuisance for which we
could have tagged the owner. I've used that as a City Prosecutor in a
different City as it related to barking dogs. Admittedly, in that case that
City's nuisance ordinances expressly defined what kind of activity
constituted a nuisance, and that included an enumeration of dogs who
frequently or continuously annoys persons in its vicinity by barking. The
ordinances made the owner of property culpable if they neglected to abate a
continuing nuisance on their property. And in that instance, the renter who
was leaving her dogs out all night as they barked all the time had pled
guilty to numerous barking dog citations over a short time. This allowed us
to notify the property owner that their tenant had criminal convictions
related to activity that was occuring on the owner's property and was
continuing (based on the offense dates), and notified them that they had to
abate the issue or face a potential citation. That solved our problem - the
owner terminated the lease and the person and dogs moved out.
In your situation, your zoning code may dictate whether or not a short term
rental is a permitted use. As I said, in my case there was a textual
argument that it was not a permitted use in residential, albeit based on
language that was adopted to address what, in 2008, we would have thought
of as a true hotel. But if your code doesn't address it currently, then any
change at this point would bring up the issue of legal non-conformance.
Sounds like the bigger issue is the activities of the people renting the
property. It's highly unlikely that your code would allow you to pursue
something against the property owner for a one-off event that was the
result of the actions of a person that rented the house. If there were on
going issues, you might be able to look at whether there'd be a potential
nuisance that you could tag the property owner with. But that would be
difficult in many cases - all turning on how your code is worded.
Those are my thoughts.
Matt
On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 12:33 PM Samantha Manuel manuel@callpalmer.com
wrote:
Hi all,
I was contacted by the mayor of the town I represent and there was an
incident at an Air BnB. Below is what I received. What are other towns
doing for situations like this and to try to prevent similar things from
happening in the future. Are there ordinances disallowing Airbnb’s or
taxing them as a business? I’m not sure what can be done now that the
“business” is established without seeming like it’s targeted.
“There was an incident that happened at a residence that is currently
being offered through Air B&B as a short term rental. There was a party
that occurred there and was advertised via social media, resulting in a
fight breaking out and shots being fired into the air, according to my
conversation with the Logan County Sheriff. The sheriff also contacted the
owner of the property and the owner asked the sheriff to evict the tenants
and the access codes were changed remotely. After being contacted by
several concerned residents about the issue that occurred, I feel that it
is necessary to make an effort to make a formal notification to the
property owner.
Would it be possible to get a letter drafted by legal council to the
property owner, stating that the Town Council was notified by the citizens
of the community and is concerned with the activities that took place on
June 9th at the residence that has disturbed the peace to the community? I
would like a response from the owner of how they plan to remedy similar
situations from happening with future short term rental tenants, if they
plan to operate this type of business in a residential area.”
[image: 1470857813174_cropped]
Samantha M. Manuel
Private Counsel & Attorney at Law
PALMER LAW
5601 NW 72nd Street, #106, Warr Acres, OK 73132
(918) 219-9997 manuel@callpalmer.com
This email may be privileged attorney-client communication and/or
litigation work product. It is intended solely for the addressee(s). Please
reply to sender if you receive this message in error. Such error does not
waive the applicable privilege(s).
--
Oama mailing list -- oama@lists.imla.org
To unsubscribe send an email to oama-leave@lists.imla.org
Stillwater has a great short term rental ordinance if you are interested in going that way. I am attaching the link for your review.
Beth Anne
Beth Anne Childs
The Childs Law Firm, PLLC
1015 South Detroit Avenue
Tulsa, Oklahoma. 74120
(918) 521-3092
From: Matt Love matt.love@gmail.com
Date: Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 5:23 PM
To: Samantha Manuel manuel@callpalmer.com
Cc: oama@lists.imla.org oama@lists.imla.org
Subject: [Oama] Re: Air BnB issue
I'll offer my insight from my own experience as a City Attorney. In my City, we had a guy buy a house intending to rent it out as a high dollar but long term rental. His economic sense was apparently off, because he couldn't get anyone to rent it. So he decided to throw it on AirBNB until he could find a long term tenant. But he started making a lot on AirBNB. But this was a very nice house that was lake front property, and quite of few of his renters were renting the house to throw big house parties. There was never any violence but there was a ton of noise.
The easiest way to deal with this would have been to get a citizens complaint for disturbing the peace and then serve the renters. But no one wanted to be the complainant and, since the Officers cannot have their peace disturbed, that left us with little recourse. Which is when I started getting pressure as City Attorney to find a way to ban AirBNB's altogether. After reviewing our City Code, I reached the conclusion that technically this was a hotel and, so, not permitted within a residentially zoned district. Our ordinances on hotels (in both our hotel tax ordinances and our zoning code) essentially turned on the number of rooms made available as well as the duration of the stay being less than 30 days (I think). This was a bit perverse, as it would only pick up the medium to larger size houses that were made available and not smaller houses (if they didn't have the required number of total rooms - something I thought of this weekend when my family stayed in a small AirBNB in the Dallas area which would have been 1 room short of being a "hotel" under my City's ordinance). The hotel ordinances were adopted by in 2008 (just before I became City Attorney) and obviously weren't intended to address this kind of setup (they were intended, however, to address the new and first hotel that was going to be built in our City). But from a textual standpoint, it met the definition and, therefore, was not a permitted use in our residential district and they hadn't been paying the hotel tax the voters had approved.
We filed a case in Municipal Court. The person pled not guilty and the case was tried to our Judge who found the person guilty and imposed a fine for each day the City could prove that the property had been rented out for a short term rental. The guy appealed to District Court but ultimately dismissed his appeal after he sold the house and was no longer using it as an AirBNB (it wasn't the fine he cared about - it was the ability to use it as an AirBNB).
My personal view was - the issue wasn't really the short term rental as it was a few of the particular short term renters. We had ordinances that criminalized what they were doing. And if it continued to persist, we could have looked at whether it would have qualified as a nuisance for which we could have tagged the owner. I've used that as a City Prosecutor in a different City as it related to barking dogs. Admittedly, in that case that City's nuisance ordinances expressly defined what kind of activity constituted a nuisance, and that included an enumeration of dogs who frequently or continuously annoys persons in its vicinity by barking. The ordinances made the owner of property culpable if they neglected to abate a continuing nuisance on their property. And in that instance, the renter who was leaving her dogs out all night as they barked all the time had pled guilty to numerous barking dog citations over a short time. This allowed us to notify the property owner that their tenant had criminal convictions related to activity that was occuring on the owner's property and was continuing (based on the offense dates), and notified them that they had to abate the issue or face a potential citation. That solved our problem - the owner terminated the lease and the person and dogs moved out.
In your situation, your zoning code may dictate whether or not a short term rental is a permitted use. As I said, in my case there was a textual argument that it was not a permitted use in residential, albeit based on language that was adopted to address what, in 2008, we would have thought of as a true hotel. But if your code doesn't address it currently, then any change at this point would bring up the issue of legal non-conformance.
Sounds like the bigger issue is the activities of the people renting the property. It's highly unlikely that your code would allow you to pursue something against the property owner for a one-off event that was the result of the actions of a person that rented the house. If there were on going issues, you might be able to look at whether there'd be a potential nuisance that you could tag the property owner with. But that would be difficult in many cases - all turning on how your code is worded.
Those are my thoughts.
Matt
On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 12:33 PM Samantha Manuel <manuel@callpalmer.commailto:manuel@callpalmer.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I was contacted by the mayor of the town I represent and there was an incident at an Air BnB. Below is what I received. What are other towns doing for situations like this and to try to prevent similar things from happening in the future. Are there ordinances disallowing Airbnb’s or taxing them as a business? I’m not sure what can be done now that the “business” is established without seeming like it’s targeted.
“There was an incident that happened at a residence that is currently being offered through Air B&B as a short term rental. There was a party that occurred there and was advertised via social media, resulting in a fight breaking out and shots being fired into the air, according to my conversation with the Logan County Sheriff. The sheriff also contacted the owner of the property and the owner asked the sheriff to evict the tenants and the access codes were changed remotely. After being contacted by several concerned residents about the issue that occurred, I feel that it is necessary to make an effort to make a formal notification to the property owner.
Would it be possible to get a letter drafted by legal council to the property owner, stating that the Town Council was notified by the citizens of the community and is concerned with the activities that took place on June 9th at the residence that has disturbed the peace to the community? I would like a response from the owner of how they plan to remedy similar situations from happening with future short term rental tenants, if they plan to operate this type of business in a residential area.”
[1470857813174_cropped]
Samantha M. Manuel
Private Counsel & Attorney at Law
PALMER LAW
5601 NW 72nd Street, #106, Warr Acres, OK 73132
(918) 219-9997 manuel@callpalmer.commailto:manuel@callpalmer.com
This email may be privileged attorney-client communication and/or litigation work product. It is intended solely for the addressee(s). Please reply to sender if you receive this message in error. Such error does not waive the applicable privilege(s).
--
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We require a conditional use permit for short term rentals and that they pay lodging tax. https://library.municode.com/ok/jenks/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=COOR_CH16UNDEOR_ART5USSPST_S16-5-6LOUSSPST
If your city had a lodging tax ordinance that is broad enough to cover AirBnBs, the city can get a contract with AirBnb to collect and remit lodging tax automatically.
From: Beth Anne Childs bethanne@thechildsfirm.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2023 6:56 PM
To: Matt Love matt.love@gmail.com; Samantha Manuel manuel@callpalmer.com
Cc: oama@lists.imla.org
Subject: [Oama] Re: Air BnB issue
[EXTERNAL EMAIL] DO NOT CLICK links or attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Stillwater has a great short term rental ordinance if you are interested in going that way. I am attaching the link for your review.
Beth Anne
Beth Anne Childs
The Childs Law Firm, PLLC
1015 South Detroit Avenue
Tulsa, Oklahoma. 74120
(918) 521-3092
From: Matt Love <matt.love@gmail.commailto:matt.love@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 5:23 PM
To: Samantha Manuel <manuel@callpalmer.commailto:manuel@callpalmer.com>
Cc: oama@lists.imla.orgmailto:oama@lists.imla.org <oama@lists.imla.orgmailto:oama@lists.imla.org>
Subject: [Oama] Re: Air BnB issue
I'll offer my insight from my own experience as a City Attorney. In my City, we had a guy buy a house intending to rent it out as a high dollar but long term rental. His economic sense was apparently off, because he couldn't get anyone to rent it. So he decided to throw it on AirBNB until he could find a long term tenant. But he started making a lot on AirBNB. But this was a very nice house that was lake front property, and quite of few of his renters were renting the house to throw big house parties. There was never any violence but there was a ton of noise.
The easiest way to deal with this would have been to get a citizens complaint for disturbing the peace and then serve the renters. But no one wanted to be the complainant and, since the Officers cannot have their peace disturbed, that left us with little recourse. Which is when I started getting pressure as City Attorney to find a way to ban AirBNB's altogether. After reviewing our City Code, I reached the conclusion that technically this was a hotel and, so, not permitted within a residentially zoned district. Our ordinances on hotels (in both our hotel tax ordinances and our zoning code) essentially turned on the number of rooms made available as well as the duration of the stay being less than 30 days (I think). This was a bit perverse, as it would only pick up the medium to larger size houses that were made available and not smaller houses (if they didn't have the required number of total rooms - something I thought of this weekend when my family stayed in a small AirBNB in the Dallas area which would have been 1 room short of being a "hotel" under my City's ordinance). The hotel ordinances were adopted by in 2008 (just before I became City Attorney) and obviously weren't intended to address this kind of setup (they were intended, however, to address the new and first hotel that was going to be built in our City). But from a textual standpoint, it met the definition and, therefore, was not a permitted use in our residential district and they hadn't been paying the hotel tax the voters had approved.
We filed a case in Municipal Court. The person pled not guilty and the case was tried to our Judge who found the person guilty and imposed a fine for each day the City could prove that the property had been rented out for a short term rental. The guy appealed to District Court but ultimately dismissed his appeal after he sold the house and was no longer using it as an AirBNB (it wasn't the fine he cared about - it was the ability to use it as an AirBNB).
My personal view was - the issue wasn't really the short term rental as it was a few of the particular short term renters. We had ordinances that criminalized what they were doing. And if it continued to persist, we could have looked at whether it would have qualified as a nuisance for which we could have tagged the owner. I've used that as a City Prosecutor in a different City as it related to barking dogs. Admittedly, in that case that City's nuisance ordinances expressly defined what kind of activity constituted a nuisance, and that included an enumeration of dogs who frequently or continuously annoys persons in its vicinity by barking. The ordinances made the owner of property culpable if they neglected to abate a continuing nuisance on their property. And in that instance, the renter who was leaving her dogs out all night as they barked all the time had pled guilty to numerous barking dog citations over a short time. This allowed us to notify the property owner that their tenant had criminal convictions related to activity that was occuring on the owner's property and was continuing (based on the offense dates), and notified them that they had to abate the issue or face a potential citation. That solved our problem - the owner terminated the lease and the person and dogs moved out.
In your situation, your zoning code may dictate whether or not a short term rental is a permitted use. As I said, in my case there was a textual argument that it was not a permitted use in residential, albeit based on language that was adopted to address what, in 2008, we would have thought of as a true hotel. But if your code doesn't address it currently, then any change at this point would bring up the issue of legal non-conformance.
Sounds like the bigger issue is the activities of the people renting the property. It's highly unlikely that your code would allow you to pursue something against the property owner for a one-off event that was the result of the actions of a person that rented the house. If there were on going issues, you might be able to look at whether there'd be a potential nuisance that you could tag the property owner with. But that would be difficult in many cases - all turning on how your code is worded.
Those are my thoughts.
Matt
On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 12:33 PM Samantha Manuel <manuel@callpalmer.commailto:manuel@callpalmer.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I was contacted by the mayor of the town I represent and there was an incident at an Air BnB. Below is what I received. What are other towns doing for situations like this and to try to prevent similar things from happening in the future. Are there ordinances disallowing Airbnb’s or taxing them as a business? I’m not sure what can be done now that the “business” is established without seeming like it’s targeted.
“There was an incident that happened at a residence that is currently being offered through Air B&B as a short term rental. There was a party that occurred there and was advertised via social media, resulting in a fight breaking out and shots being fired into the air, according to my conversation with the Logan County Sheriff. The sheriff also contacted the owner of the property and the owner asked the sheriff to evict the tenants and the access codes were changed remotely. After being contacted by several concerned residents about the issue that occurred, I feel that it is necessary to make an effort to make a formal notification to the property owner.
Would it be possible to get a letter drafted by legal council to the property owner, stating that the Town Council was notified by the citizens of the community and is concerned with the activities that took place on June 9th at the residence that has disturbed the peace to the community? I would like a response from the owner of how they plan to remedy similar situations from happening with future short term rental tenants, if they plan to operate this type of business in a residential area.”
[1470857813174_cropped]
Samantha M. Manuel
Private Counsel & Attorney at Law
PALMER LAW
5601 NW 72nd Street, #106, Warr Acres, OK 73132
(918) 219-9997 manuel@callpalmer.commailto:manuel@callpalmer.com
This email may be privileged attorney-client communication and/or litigation work product. It is intended solely for the addressee(s). Please reply to sender if you receive this message in error. Such error does not waive the applicable privilege(s).
--
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