Demystified: Short term Rentals

by Brian McNary

The short term rental ordinance has generated a lot of interest. At the moment, the ordinance is sort of an evolving document, with the last posted ordinance dated October 2022. I thought this might be a good opportunity to bring readers up to speed.

As of Feb. 1, the city has placed a moratorium on short term rentals. The city has 6 months to square up the details.

Currently, according to AirBNB and VRBO, Toquerville has 51 residential units offering short term rentals.

Armed with that information and a few articles I gleaned from the St George News (SGN) regarding problems in Hurricane, I made an appointment to speak with Afton Moore, our city manager.

I should mention that Hurricane City has even set up a complaint hotline for short term rentals. I cannot speak for Hurricane but I suspected the response might be overblown. If the SGN were your guide, you might think there was full blown anarchy in the streets of Hurricane.

My first question was simple. Has the city of Toquerville received complaints about the occupants of short-term rentals? The answer was no.

The city is considering the idea of limiting short term rental permits to 5% of existing water hookups. That number is currently 721 or about 35-40 permits. Beyond that, prospective short term rental properties would be placed on a waiting list.

Tying permits to utility service assures the city that an owner cannot use a permit to operate a number of individual properties.

I have no idea how the city would accommodate the excess 10 or 15 rentals currently being offered which would need permits or licenses.

Trail Ridge and Cholla do not allow short term rentals by CCR. If they did, that would add about 6 units. So Shangrila, Westfield, and the old townsite would bear the burden of the short-term rental market.

I wondered; do we need an ordinance at all? Afton said we do. The State of Utah requires it. I was unaware of that.

I didn’t get into the cost of permits or the escalating fine structure for those operating without a license.

What bothered me most was enforcement. Who is going to enforce code violations? Currently we have no code enforcement. The Sheriff has not expressed any interest in enforcing municipal code. That means the city would need to hire someone to enforce code violations. After the initial startup, can the city justify or utilize a new code enforcement officer? That piece seems a little murky to me.

The other wildcard is Firelight. They have expressed no interest in allowing short term rentals. For now. Built out, Firelight is a huge subdivision of over 3,000 homes- dwarfing the rest of the city’s subdivisions combined. Afton said that Firelight would like to confine short term rentals to commercial property.

Having been snookered by a number of developer promises over the years makes me want to get their plans for Firelight in writing.

All in all, my meeting with Afton went well. I think the percentage of permits as currently proposed by the city may have to go up to accommodate a few additional permits. I can’t imagine those people currently renting their properties- would suddenly quit once the ordinance is passed and we run out of existing permits.

I applaud the city thus far. I’ve tried to play devil’s advocate with respect to this new ordinance. I am encouraged that some fair, middle ground is emerging with just a few remaining unknowns.