All right, I'm gonna go ahead and call our Monday, March 16th, 2026, City of Columbia uh council work session to order.

Um Miss Peters let me know that she might be a few minutes late.

Um our topic of conversation today is uh short term rental update uh our ordinance potential updates.

So I think I'm just kicking this right over to you, Clint, and I'll remind us to use the microphone so that everybody can hear us in here.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor, uh council.

So I'm Clint Smith with community development department.

Um with me tonight is also uh Ms.

Gaway Jones, who is the planning and zoning commission uh chairperson uh to offer some perspective.

I think if there are questions regarding uh I think short-term rentals in general, they have spent a uh uh a fair amount of time working on these provisions over the last several years.

Uh, we thought it would be helpful to have her perspective and again answer any questions uh that you might have on planning zoning's perspective on some of these.

So with that said, um, we have a little presentation tonight uh to discuss um a specific amendment um set of changes to the short-term rental um provisions that uh actually were at planning and zoning uh middle of last year.

Uh and we'll go through those here uh real quick.

Um not real quick, we have two hours, so we'll take some time.

And I'll just remind so yeah, this is our work session on it at the end.

We'll kind of talk about next steps, but no changes will be made or voted upon today.

Correct.

Yeah, so the people in the audience, not you, Clint.

You know that.

I appreciate that.

So, yes.

So just kind of walk through what what our steps tonight will be and what our goals.

So um, I'm just gonna provide a little history, I think, of these particular amendments to the short-term regulations.

Um, an overview of some of the goals, I think, that were identified uh when this did come uh in front of council or we're uh in front of planning zoning as well.

Um, and then we're gonna review a little bit of the current short-term rental information, uh, some statistics and numbers for the amount of uh permits and applications we've seen to date from the beginning of the short-term rental ordinance.

Um, and then I've given you a short packet or small packet of three pages, and there's three charts in there.

Uh, that's going to be really kind of our high level overview to talk about what the significant changes to the short-term rental regulations are going to be.

Um we have some uh additional slides there that go into a lot more detail and some of the specific text, but I think for the most part, we'll probably try to live in that slide or that fourth high level overview to kind of give a broad idea of what the changes are.

And I think we can kind of accomplish that.

And what I've got given you here is uh kind of the charts that we're gonna be looking at.

Feel free to take some notes on those or any additional information you'd like, but uh that way you can kind of reference back to these even if we're not on that particular slide.

So uh really just the history to kind of get you up to speed on where we've been.

Um so February 24 uh is when council adopted the the original short-term rentals, um, and they became effective June that same year.

Um, March last year, there was a year in review report um by our staff, kind of gave an update on some of the information that we've seen so far coming out of the short-term rental applications.

Um, and we also presented uh council a uh report uh and a recommendation to pursue some additional amendments to that short-term rental um uh regulations that we'd seen up to date.

And that was in response to I think some of the uh I think trends we had seen coming out of the the implement uh uh the implementation of the short-term rental regulations.

Uh and then during April to May, uh staff had worked to draft those amendments and planning and zoning did review those uh at that time.

So they had been completed.

If you notice some of the materials in your packet, they'd be completed mid last year.

Uh, I think with the change of leadership here in the department.

Um there was a little bit of delay, but we've been working on getting those brought before council at a work session to kind of go a little more into detail about um why we're proposing the changes and what those changes actually are.

I should know that that they're a little bit complicated.

Um, and so one of the uh principal goals uh for the the changes really is to reduce that complexity.

Um there's three tiers, but within each tier, there's kind of multiple standards and factors that go into determining which factor you might find yourself within.

Um, and so one of those uh primary goals is really make it simpler.

I think for the public to understand and those who are looking to actually uh utilize short-term rental regulations a little easier to participate.

Um we're looking to try to create a little more direct path to licensure.

I think some of the um outcomes we've seen could be pointing to uh the fact that maybe the complexity of the short-term rentals is uh inhibiting some people from actually submitting license requests going through the process.

So we're we're trying to make that a little more direct.

Um the last one really is to make sure in all of this that we're kind of retaining the core, I think, factors that went into the original short-term rental.

Um, some of the things that were the primary concerns were the density of such short-term rentals in in a certain area, uh was the limitation on the number um per individual.

So those things are really important to be retained.

Uh, and we'll talk about um how those have been addressed, I think, in those amendments.

So really, I want to kind of kind of frame this as having really three significant changes to the current short-term rental amendment.

And one, the very first one essentially is eliminate tier one.

Um, it's underused, and we'll talk about it a little more in detail, but eliminate tier one and essentially roll that into tier two, kind of simplifying the different levels that people uh might have to consider when they're looking at short-term rental regulations.

Uh really uh kind of open the door for individuals who are not just principal residents for a property.

Um, and part of this kind of goes along with uh number the first priority there is really kind of put a single cap uh on that tier on that first tier.

Uh and that's there's some nuance there.

We do have a couple other uh additional uh night tiers, but we'll talk about that a little more detail.