After more than three years of deliberation, the Dallas City Council voted late Wednesday to ban short-term rentals in single-family residential neighborhoods.
The 12-3 vote to amend the Dallas Development Code for that purpose came at almost midnight on Wednesday during a City Council meeting that began at 9:00 a.m.
Dozens of community members and advocates came to City Hall to share their thoughts and concerns with the council, with 60 individuals registered to speak. Most spoke firmly against short-term rentals, repeating stories of party house disasters, shoot-outs, and drug use at short-term rentals in their neighborhoods.
However, some short-term rental (STR) owners and operators argued that penalizing them for the errors of a select group of bad property managers is unfair and will do nothing to truly address the crime allegedly brought to communities through STRs.
Council members approved the City Plan Commission’s recommendation to allow STRs only in commercial areas, with an amendment that guarantees STRs will be allowed in areas zoned for multi-family housing as well.
This option — dubbed the “keep it simple solution,” or “KISS,” by its proponents — will effectively ban almost all existing short-term rentals in the City of Dallas.
While most council members voted in favor of KISS, the most vocal opponents were council members Chad West and Adam Bazaldua who argued that it would be difficult to enforce and that problems such as party houses could be addressed in other ways, as City staff recommended last week.
Bazaldua claimed KISS is not simple at all and is rather convoluted. He also introduced an amendment that would grandfather existing short-term rentals in single-family neighborhoods, allowing them to continue operation, but the amendment failed in a 7-8 vote.
Other council members including Paul Ridley, Cara Mendelsohn, Omar Narvaez, and Carolyn King Arnold stood firm and maintained that they oppose not only party houses but all short-term rentals in single-family residential neighborhoods.
They argued that having short-term rentals in such neighborhoods degrades the community even if the rental is not a party house creating loud disturbances, as neighborhood residents have an ever-rotating door of guests rather than true neighbors.
“I fear no courts,” Arnold responded to opponents concerned that KISS would land the City of Dallas in legal hot water.
The Development Code amendment was passed alongside a short-term rental registration ordinance and will take effect in six months.