Columbia considers new rules to crack down on Airbnbs, other short-term rentals
Members of Columbia City Council are drafting an ordinance aimed at cracking down on Airbnbs and other short term rentals. Among other things, the city could ban short-term rentals in residential areas unless the owner lives at the property.
“We have over 600 short-term rentals in the city,” City Council Member Howard Duvall said. “It’s gotten to the point where we need to have some specific regulations.”
As the industry has grown, more residents have complained about loud parties and other issues at these units deteriorating quality of life in their neighborhoods, Duvall said.
He also raised concerns about how these rentals might decrease the availability of affordable housing in the city.
Duvall said the easiest solution is to keep non-owner occupied rentals out of residential neighborhoods.
“The problem is, that would eliminate about 90 to 95% of short term rentals in Columbia,” said local Airbnb host David Bergmann. He has organized a group of more than 200 short-term rental owners who oppose this stipulation and are trying to convince city council to consider other alternatives.
“We are in favor of fair and reasonable regulations, but we want to make sure we’re still able to stay in business,” he said.
In 2018, Charleston adopted a similar rule that restricted short term rental units to certain neighborhoods and required hosts to live on-site. Despite this, the city has struggled to enforce these rules and has been overrun with several illegal units, The Post and Courier reported.
Bergmann said a better solution for Columbia would be to create a licensing system to keep track of short term rentals. Though landlords are already required to register all rental units with the city through a similar process, Bergmann said having a separate system just for short term rentals could make it easier to identify and penalize units with repeated problems.
Duvall stressed that the proposal, which will be introduced to council on July 20, is still in the early stages and is subject to discussion and public comment.
In the meantime, he said he is open to hearing ideas from short term rental owners.
“We don’t want to get rid of short term rentals,” he said, “We just want to make sure there are rules in place.”
