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The following is an August 1 Message from ANC President — Call for Action: Protest Commercial Short-Term Rentals at City Hall:
“Dear Neighbors,
Your city needs you this Thursday, August 2, 2012.
Back on June 7, 1990, more than 1,000 citizens took the time to come to Austin City Hall to protest an environmentally destructive development on the banks of Barton Creek. By standing united in opposition, they stopped the development and saved Barton Springs. It is one of our city’s proudest moments.
We need you to show up again to save our neighborhoods.
This Thursday evening, the City Council is poised to vote to allow and encourage investors to buy single-family houses all over Austin and turn them into Commercial Short-Term Rental (CSTR) properties. That means you might live next door to a hotel—and even have several on your street.
Please come to a press conference and rally this Thursday, August 2, at 11:30 AM at City Hall Plaza. And we especially need you at 6:30 PM at City Hall when the Austin City Council meets to vote on this issue. (Plan to stay late.)
The ordinance now on the table will have a severe, detrimental impact on the character, vitality and quality of life in Austin.
Currently, business enterprises like Commercial Short-Term Rentals are not permitted within residential zoning and should not be allowed. But unless you act, they will be legalized because Chris Riley, Mike Martinez, Lee Leffingwell, Bill Spelman and Sheryl Cole think such “hotel” business activity within neighborhoods should be allowed. Their five votes will open the floodgates to corporate-backed short-term rentals. (Laura Morrison and Kathie Tovo oppose commercial short-term rentals.)
Some Austinites want the ability to rent out their homes for a few days during South by Southwest or the Austin City Limits Music Festival. That’s OK, because that’s a short-term use of a dwelling that serves as a residential home for majority of the time. However, when a home becomes a commercial short-term rental, it’s rented like a hotel to customers by the week or weekend throughout the year. The owners do not live on the premises, and they might not even live in Austin.
Thousands of Austinites already have CSTRs in their neighborhoods. If you don’t live near a short-term rental (yet), imagine for a moment that the home next to yours or several on your block are converted, and your neighbors are replaced by a continuous stream of strangers.
Would your neighborhood seem as cohesive? Would your sense of community change? Would your family feel as safe? We could see whole streets in our thriving neighborhoods with more short-term rentals than owner-occupied homes.
Schools could be severely impacted. It is unfathomable to consider a policy that could hollow out our neighborhoods at a time of heightened concern about possible school closures.
Families with children could be driven from Austin’s urban core. Central city schools could further struggle to remain open.
Short-term rentals also make our neighborhoods less affordable, which leads to sprawl. When Austinites can’t afford to live in neighborhoods near where they work, they must commute, joining the daily gridlock.
For these and other reasons, municipalities around the country have begun banning commercial short-term rentals. If you feel Austin should do the same, we urge you to take action.
Help us urge the Austin City Council to not pass this ordinance. We need to come together to make it clear to city council just how bad we think this ordinance will be, and why they must do their duty as our public servants to vote it down.
Back in 1990, we saved our springs because we showed up in force.
Let’s take pride in our city and do what needs to be done to keep thousands of homes across Austin from turning into hotels— and save our neighborhoods.
You can find out more about this issue on the ANC website: http://www.ancweb.org/issues/STRs/STRs.htm. Please sign the petition to help stop CSTRs at www.SaveAustinNeighborhoods.com.
Sincerely,
Steven Aleman
President, 2011-2012
Austin Neighborhoods Council”
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Indications are that it is unlikely that the City Council will schedule another public hearing on Short Term Rentals, but instead will vote to approve the ordinance on second and third readings Thursday afternoon in the session scheduled for 4:00 PM. change.org has issued the following message:
URGENT: We need everyone at City Hall this Thursday!!!
“The City Council will vote on the commercial short-term rentals ordinance this Thursday, August 2. We’re calling on all supporters to go the the City Hall plaza at 11:30 AM on Thursday, August 2 for a news conference and to protest commercial short-term rentals ordinance.
Bring a friend, wear red, and tell the council NO COMMERCIAL SHORT-TERM RENTALS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOODS!”
URGENT: We need everyone at City Hall this Thursday!!!
The City Council will vote on the commercial short-term rentals ordinance this Thursday, August 2. We’re calling on all supporters to go the the City Hall plaza at 11:30 AM on Thursday, August 2 for a news conference and to protest commercial short-term rentals ordinance.
Bring a friend, wear red, and tell the council NO COMMERCIAL SHORT-TERM RENTALS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOODS!
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The agenda for the City Council meeting August 2nd lists two items concerning short term rentals.
Item 84 in the morning session: Set a public hearing to consider an ordinance amending the City Code Chapter 25-2 addressing the short term rental of residential units. (Suggested date and time: August 23, 2012, 4:00 p.m. at Austin City Hall, 301 W. Second Street, Austin, TX).
Item 122, added in the addendum as the last item in the afternoon session: Approve an ordinance on second and third readings amending Title 25 of the City Code addressing the short term rental of residential units. (Public Hearing closed)
The city sent out two memos Friday and they really confused things (and effectively disrupted the anti-CSTR groups’ plans for Monday press conference and rally, some think they did this on purpose). The first memo said the Aug. 2 discussion on CSTR’s would have to be postponed. The second one said, oops, never mind, it doesn’t have to be postponed and is back on the agenda for August 2. (of course, after the media and about 600 people were notified that the rally was cancelled.)
Additional information will be posted as it becomes available.
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The Sunday July 29 edition of the Austin American Statesman contained an editorial, “Make rentals easier to tax, monitor.” That editorial can be viewed online at:
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/make-rentals-easier-to-tax-monitor-2424065.html
The Monday July 30 edition contained two opposing editorials. NSCNA supports the position of Council Members Laura Morrison and Kathie Tovo, expressed in the first editorial which can be viewed online at:
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/morrison-tovo-uphold-limits-for-stronger-community-2424433.html
NSCNA does not support the position of Council Member Chris Riley in his editorial, which can be viewed online at:
www.statesman.com/opinion/riley-refine-regulations-but-encourage-visitors-2424434.html
Copied below is a letter from Phil Thomas and Carol Stall who live in East Austin:
“First, let me clarify the blurred lines the author presents between long term rentals and short term rentals (STRs). Also short term rentals vs commercial short term rentals (CSTRs).Long term rentals are not and never have been in question. They are not per se considered commercial ventures and never have been. They are permissible within a residential framework and under residential zoning and always have been.
Owner occupied short term rentals (STRs) are often a casual by product of high taxes. People rent a room out during an event, or let friends stay for a fee. Not really a problem for most neighborhood folks.
Both of these are startlingly different than commercial short term rentals CSTRs.
CSTRs would be owned by either corporations or people who would not live in your neighborhood. One can assume that these interests have no concern whatsoever for what will happen to your little community or street—unless it affects their profits.
The problem of CSTRs is not limited to noisy parties or extra street traffic, but the change to the nature of a neighborhood from residential to commercial.
Allowing CSTRs in residential neighborhoods– with the fallacious reasoning that Austin is short of hotels is like suggesting that oil & lube garages could set up on your street if Austin happened to be short of oil and lube garages.
In reality, big moneyed interests are eyeing our neighborhoods like tasty tarts, and, sensing easy tax revenues, the city is on the verge of allowing them to operate.
Let’s face it–it’s much cheaper to buy a residential home near –say Zilker or East Austin than to pay for commercial space close to the festivals or F1 action.
The interested parties are saying that the taxes generated would allow the City to police said CSTRs to prevent abuses and loud partying and bring illegal ones into the open. Don’t count on it.
Clearly illegal CSTRs are not being effectively policed now and given the potential increased numbers, it’s doubtful that even with some city regulation, policing would improve.
Even with possible improved regulation– CSTRs not only compromise the residential part of a neighborhood, but they will also eat up available housing that families with kids now occupy. Those kids fill our classrooms and their parents potentially work in the downtown businesses that the city is promoting in their growth plans.
We can say good-bye to any affordable housing in those areas.
Anyone who has lived in Austin for very long can see that what is presented as a reasonable compromise will likely become a full-blown incursion down the road. Rules will change, percentages will be altered and in sunshine of broad daylight your neighborhood will become hotel row—and no longer the charming caring community where you can raise your children and know your next door neighbor.
Just follow the money and you will find the truth that big dollar interests—realtors & Home Away/AirBNB are blowing some serious sunshine and twisting the facts.
What they’re doing is an effective end run around residential zoning and all the protective covenants and deed restrictions we rely upon to protect our neighborhoods from commercial incursion.
And they’re not doing it to fill a desperate demand or to bring jobs or any of those reasons that are being spouted. .
They are doing it to make big bucks—at the expense of our neighborhoods.This is what needs to be seen in the bright light day.
Carol & Phil”
Members are encouraged to communicate with City Council Members to express their opinions regarding short term rentals, and support the positions of NSCNA, ANC and other groups in opposing commercial short term rentals in residential areas
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The following is copied from a July 29 message from the President of Austin Neighborhood Council (ANC):
“Protect Austin Neighborhoods, the group fighting to keep Commercial Short Term Rentals (STRs) illegal in Austin, will NOT hold a news conference on Monday, July 30. There are still plans for a press conference, but it is being postponed. As you may know, City staff on Friday, July 27 issued two different memorandums that have caused confusion over the timing of Council action on STRs. This disputed planning for an event with the media on Monday.
The group will hold a press conference at 11:30 AM on Thursday, August 2 at City Hall Plaza. Everyone is asked to attend and the news conference and attend the City Council meeting later in the day to protest the short-term rentals ordinance.
Bring a friend and wear red!
A big turnout from every neighborhood will send a strong message to the Council that we don’t want commercial short-term rentals in our neighborhoods!
The position of Protect Austin Neighborhoods is in alignment with the Austin Neighborhoods Council (ANC). For information on commercial STRs and the stance of ANC, visit the ANC website at www.ancweb.org. “
Note: Additional information will be posted as it becomes available.
