Dallas City Council members failed to agree on recommendations to regulate the city’s short-term rentals, with some council members arguing that the proposed task force designed to regulate it is too close to the industry, according to FOX 4 News. Consequently, efforts to make the regulations failed in a vote held during Tuesday’s council member’s meeting.
Per FOX 4 News, Paul Ridley, one of three council members who brought forward a memo last November asking for the industry to be restructured, argued that the task force is lopsided in favor of the industry it is supposed to regulate.
“As a result we had a situation where the fox is guarding the henhouse, and the deck is stacked against reasonable regulations of STR hotels,” said Ridley during Tuesday’s meeting.
Ridley also argued that creating the task force will result in regulations written by the industry that is being regulated.
According to FOX 4 News, Ridley and two other council members were not comfortable with the fact that one of the voting members of the task force lives in Austin and is a lobbyist for Airbnb.
“My understanding is the rules changed on folks, that everyone had to be a resident, until the one position, that the chair put in, a lobbyist from Austin, which violated the rules from the memo,” councilman Omar Narvaez said during the meeting.
However, Committee chairman, Adam Bazaldua, explained that finding a representative that lives in Dallas was not possible. He also apologized for not finding a representative who lives in the city.
Bazaldua added that the lobbyist, Luis Briones, is now moving to Dallas.