No new Airbnbs, short-term rentals in Columbia neighborhoods, says City Council
No new Airbnbs and other short-term rentals will be allowed in most Columbia neighborhoods, limited by new rules unanimously given final approval by City Council Tuesday.
Columbia leaders and residents have for months debated the future of short-term rentals like Airbnbs in the city. The discussion began over the summer, after a June 6 shooting at an Elmwood Park Airbnb left one teenager dead and injured three others.
The shooting became a lightning rod that re-opened the conversation about Airbnb’s in neighborhoods, after the city passed initial Airbnb rules in 2023 that permitted the rentals in neighborhoods so long as they operate with a permit. Many neighborhood representatives were opposed to that approach.
Now, the city has passed new rules that restrict the rentals to areas zoned for commercial and mixed uses, with the caveat that rentals that fall outside those zones can operate if they are located on a four-lane road.
The biggest critics of the city’s approach are the Airbnb operators and managers, who say the new rules effectively ban short-term rentals, which are often single-family homes in residential neighborhoods. Before the new rules went into effect, neighborhood spokespeople said the Airbnbs in their neighborhoods were effectively hotels and should be subjected to the same restrictions.
“The pendulum has really swung from no regulation, to a middle ground ... to banning [them],” said David Bergmann, who runs Heartwood Finished Homes, a rental company that largely focuses on short-term rentals across the Midlands. Bergmann said his company operates around 90 short-term rentals in Columbia, and about 85 of them fall outside of the new zoning restrictions.
His existing rentals will be allowed to stay, but no new short-term rental permits will be given in most Columbia neighborhoods under the new rules. However, if someone wants to rent out a part of a home they live in full-time, that will likely be allowed, but the city will need to approve an amendment, first.
City Council chambers two weeks ago were packed with short-term rental operators asking the city to reconsider. Columbia’s Planning Commission also previously recommended that the city reject this set of rules in favor of a “middle ground,” in a 5-3 vote Nov. 13. The City Council moved the new rules forward, despite the Planning Commission’s recommendation. Had the City Council agreed with the Planning Commission, the process to enact new restrictions on the rentals would have effectively restarted.
“I think we’ve created a balance, I know you don’t agree with that,” Mayor Daniel Rickenmann said in a public back-and-forth exchange with an Airbnb operator during Tuesday’s meeting.
“We’ve come up with what we believe is a fair [approach],” Rickenmann said, adding that there is “obviously” room for “change down the road.”
