Four years ago the Las Vegas City Council enacted a “party-house” ordinance that was meant to gain some form of control over homes in residential areas that were rented out to noisy, short-term renters who, like the ordinance states, like to party. Well, it appears as if the city council is working on making that law stiffer.
The city’s current law requires homeowners who want to rent out their homes for fewer than 31 days to get a license. However, after hearing a report about existing problems at some of those homes, the city council members talked about completely banning rentals, adding fines or adding more city employees to enforce the laws.
Flinn Fagg, City Planning Manager, reported that 119 licenses had been issued since 2008, resulting in $16,700 in fees. Active licenses only number 37. In the past four years, code enforcement staff opened 30 cases and made 400 inspection visits. The most common complaints made were noise/disruption, unlicensed properties and parking.
In addition to that, problems with the current system are that many of the rented homes do not get the licenses and code enforcers don’t work a lot on weekends, the time when most of the complaints are made. According to Fagg, “Code enforcement is available during the day, not evening, and licensing compliance (personnel) are available every other weekend, but only to a certain hour in the evening.”
Fagg gave the council three options to consider, though council members were not scheduled to make a decision just yet. The three options are: leave the code as is, ban short-term rentals or adopt limits on occupancy numbers, vehicles, noise and set up procedures to revoke licenses. According to Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian, “We need to stiffen (the code). We need to look at not only strengthening the ordinance but if we are to have civil penalties. That really hamstrings us.”
Source: Las Vegas Sun – Council appears poised to toughen Las Vegas ‘party house’ regulations
RentVegas 