HOUSTON — After years of complaints from Houston residents, a city ordinance could be introduced this fall to regulate short-term rentals (STR).
The impending proposal was discussed Wednesday during a Houston City Council "Quality of Life" committee meeting. The city’s Administration and Regulatory Affairs (ARA) Office was directed to begin work on the ordinance in April, according to ARA Director Tina Paez.
“At a very minimum, it will require them (property owners) to register, to identify the property with some specificity, because once you have the address, you can start to track police and 311 calls to those specific addresses,” she said.
When council members asked, Paez confirmed the ordinance would create a "mechanism" to de-register short-term rental owners when warranted. However, Paez explained that specific parameters may not be in place when the ordinance is first presented.
“There will definitely be revocation,” she said. “But first we have to know where these are, who the owners are, and then what comes behind that is all the service calls directed at these addresses. So it will be phased, but it’s not going to be slow.”
Paez said the process of creating the ordinance was ongoing and ARA would be accepting input from stakeholders including councilmembers and the public before the ordinance is introduced later this year.
In her presentation to the city council, Paez said a third-party data mining company found there were 10,545 STR properties in Houston. Within 300 feet of each property, the company mapped 311 calls and HPD calls. Data found that residents made 61,671 calls to HPD and 7,789 calls to 311 in the 300-foot radiuses surrounding all 10,545 properties from July 2023 to June 2024.
Councilmember Sallie Alcorn called those numbers “astounding” and said the ordinance would serve as an enforcement tool to stop bad actors in Houston’s STR industry.
“This many calls for services, this many citations, this many instances of wreaking havoc on the public, and you no longer get to have a short-term rental," she said.
While many of Houston’s short-term rentals are well-maintained, we've chronicled other properties where neighbors have reported gun violence, out-of-control parties, and STRs essentially being operated as hotels.
When KHOU 11’s Matt Dougherty pressed Mayor John Whitmire in March on his plan to regulate short-term rentals, Whitmire said he may go after STRS by declaring them hotels. However, at Wednesday’s committee meeting, Assistant City Attorney Rashaad Gambrell appeared to walk back that idea.
“I don’t think that applying the hotel ordinance is going to yield the result some people think it will, in fact, my suspicion is that it will only invite litigation,” he said.
Gambrell said residents may be able to completely ban short-term rentals in their neighborhoods by updating deed restrictions.