{"id":100873,"date":"2023-07-09T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-10T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/juneau-assembly-passes-controversial-short-term-rental-registration-requirement\/"},"modified":"2023-07-09T21:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T05:30:00","slug":"juneau-assembly-passes-controversial-short-term-rental-registration-requirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/juneau-assembly-passes-controversial-short-term-rental-registration-requirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Juneau Assembly passes controversial short-term rental registration requirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Short-term rental operators in Juneau will soon be required to annually register with the city following an ordinance passed by the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly<\/a> Monday night despite public opposition.<\/p>\n

The registration requirement was OK’d in a unanimous vote during the Assembly’s Monday night meeting and is slated to go into effect in October (90 days following its adopting Monday night), meaning operators of short-term rentals must register with the CBJ sales tax office or be subject to penalties.<\/p>\n

The registration requirement — which is cost-free to operators — will not place a limit on the number of dwellings a business or individual can operate, contrary to many concerns previously expressed by residents. However, Assembly member Michelle Bonnet Hale said regulations could soon follow.<\/p>\n

“There is the possibility that regulation might be coming,” Hale said. “This is the first step — we can’t regulate if we don’t know what our universe is — so that might be happening and I don’t want to pretend that might not be happening.”<\/p>\n

The idea for a registration requirement has been discussed by the city and in the works for months. City administrators argue the registration will assist in ensuring compliance with sales tax and hotel-bed tax requirements, along with giving the Assembly and public a clearer image of the amount of short-term rentals operating in the capital city.<\/p>\n

The ordinance was previously stalled and sent back for further discussion<\/a> in early June after nearly 20 residents expressed opposition during nearly two hours of public comment.<\/p>\n

According to the ordinance, operators will be subject to penalties of $25 per violation if they do not comply with the city’s program requirements such as obtaining a state business license, and sharing information like name, address, phone number and email of the operator. Operators will also be required to give a general description of the short-term residential rental unit including address, property type, number of bedrooms and capacity.<\/p>\n

The ordinance describes short-term rentals as “a dwelling unit that is rented, leased, or otherwise advertised for occupancy for a period of less than 30 days.”<\/p>\n

Tom Williams, a short-term rental operator and Juneau resident, offered public testimony at the meeting on the topic for the second time, speaking as he did previously in opposition to the ordinance.<\/p>\n

Williams said he was disappointed the city did not facilitate a “roundtable” discussion between the city and industry leaders to talk about “real concerns” prior to the Monday night meeting, and expressed concern the city would begin targeting short-term rental operators following the ordinance’s passing.<\/p>\n

Dawn Dulebohn, a Douglas resident and a short-term rental operator, agreed and said she was appalled by the ordinance which she said targets small businesses such as hers. She expressed concern that the ordinance “ is just a step toward future restrictions.”<\/p>\n

“I feel like this move by the Assembly is just another and a growing list of actions showing that the city does not support local and or small businesses,” she said, continuing “I urge the city to stop targeting short-term rental options and actually find viable housing options.”<\/p>\n

Assembly member Wade Bryson pushed back at commenters’ arguments that the city did not listen to local operators and rushed the ordinance through without sufficient discussion.<\/p>\n

“This ordinance did not just come about overnight or something that was pushed quickly through — we had multiple, multiple discussions on the topic,” he said.<\/p>\n

• Contact reporter Clarise Larson at clarise.larson@juneauempire.com or (651)-528-1807.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Operators will now be required to register with the city by October. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":890,"featured_media":100874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[765,75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-100873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-city-and-borough-of-juneau","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/890"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100873"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=100873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}