Juneau people who manage short-term rental properties may soon need to register their business with the city.
It’s the first step towards the regulation of short-term rentals like the ones listed as such on AirBnB and VRBO.
The Deputy Mayor Robert Barr said a registration program could aid the city in collecting sales tax as well as track the number of units the property owner or owner operates.
“That lets us get a greater understanding of rental activities for short-term rentals during Juneau,” Barr said in an interview.
In the year prior there were 170 short-term rental companies that had been registered in the office of sales and taxation for Juneau. However, a spring-time analysis of data revealed that Juneau was home to nearly 600 active and sometimes intermittently operating short-term rentals.
The city’s system for registration of short-term rentals will assign a unique number to each rental and require owners to provide the number on their listings online. There would be a fee of $25 every time they post their short-term rentals without having a proper registration.
Short-term rental companies are legally obliged to cover sales tax as well as tax on hotel beds. Barr suggested that assigning a unique number to each rental can help the city identify which companies pay tax and which ones don’t and also make them aware that they need to pay sales tax in any way.
“Part one of the reasons we’re moving forward with this registration law is to have an understanding of we’re able to do in terms of our conformity rate,” he said.
Communities across all over the nation are taking tougher measures to limit the growth in short-term rental which could cause those renting for long periods with fewer and cheaper alternatives .
Sitka permits short-term renters to reside on the property for at least half of the time.. Wasilla only issues 75 permits per year and a property owner may get the option of having up to 3 permits.
Destinations for vacation across the nation has passed similar legislation.. This week, AirBnB sued New York City regarding its new registration requirements for short-term rentals.
If the Juneau registration schedule won’t have those kind of restrictions at the very least for the moment. However, Assembly members debated the possibility during an assembly meeting on Monday night.
Assembly members Alicia Hughes and Skandijs stated she’d be interested in looking into the limits on how many rental properties a person can manage and prioritizing the renters who have spaces in their primary residences and levying permit fees that could be redirected to the affordable housing fund of the city.
Wade Bryson urged fellow Assembly members to be vigilant.
It’s a matter of style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”I believe that we’re following the right path. We should sign up short-term rentals, and we have to ensure that they’re not causing a displacement of residents of our community,” he said. “We need to be mindful that we’re currently working out how we can tell people what they are able to use their property to have. This is always a tricky upward slope. .”
In the last month, Anchorage Democratic Rep. Andrew Gray introduced a bill that would require owners of short-term rentals to sign up at the state level. Owners will be restricted to registering only an individual short-term property. Assembly members Carole Triem said she would not support the legislation in the event it was brought back during the next session of the legislature.
“We ought to set your own laws,” she said.
Barr stated that the registration program won’t likely yield valuable data until it’s in operation for a full year or more. However, he believes it’s an excellent beginning to understand the rising market for short-term rentals in Juneau.
“Regulation is more difficult for more people as you delay in implementing this,” he told the committee.
The Assembly will be deciding whether or not to establish an application for short-term rental registration at its June 12 session. If it is approved, the program will begin to take effect in July.
