Pullman considers short-term rental policies amid Airbnb boom

(Central Square) – The city of Pullman is considering how to regulate short-term rentals, or STRs, like Airbnbs after a previous policy left the municipality without the ability to enforce compliance.

Some hope the new regulations are part of a broader effort to update the city’s code and help deal with the influx of Airbnb and VRBO listings. According to AirDNA data, Pullman has 208 short-term rental listings on both platforms, with 137 currently active, an 8% increase over last year.

On Wednesday, a six-page draft outlining potential regulations reached the city’s Planning Commission. If it comes into force, it will require operators to, among other things: have a business license and city approval, pay fees and verify your tax status. Additionally, it would limit occupancy to two people in a bedroom and no more than ten people in an apartment.

However, the regulations depart from the current municipal code. As Pete Dickinson, a former city planner, pointed out in 2019, STRs are already very limited. Pullman requires the owner to obtain a conditional use permit, but according to Pullman Radio, the city has issued only a handful of such vehicles since 2019.

During Wednesday’s workshop, Ariel Medeiros, assistant planner at Pullman, told the committee that under the proposed regulations, STRs would become legal in all zones, eliminating the CUP process currently required to ensure compliance.

She said operators should be eligible for city approval if they meet long-standing criteria. However, Pullman would withdraw this approval if it found that the operator had violated the regulations three times in one year.

In other states, such as Arizona, cities must verify violations, which means they must find through a judgment that the STR operator violated state or local law; thus, unless guilt is proven in court, these municipalities cannot enforce penalties.

However, unlike the CUP process, the Pullman regulations include an enforcement section. If passed, any authorized city representative could declare a violation, giving the city a basis to monitor and enforce compliance in the future.

Pullman resident Carolyn Gordon spoke at the meeting, explaining how she had filed several records requests, which revealed only a handful of complaints and police reports regarding STR since 2019.

She added that these demands also included code violations, noise complaints and parking incidents; which was mentioned as one of the reasons for the need to introduce new regulations.

“From 2019 to present, there have been 1,652 code violations, with zero short-term rental violations,” she said. “There were 3,111 noise complaints, of which zero were related to short-term rentals. There were 2,540 parking problems and zero for short-term rentals.”

While Gordon supports some regulations allowing the city to track STRs, available data does not justify exceeding such a high level, she said. Gordon continued that if citywide STRs close down, local businesses will lose revenue in the long run, depriving the city of tax revenue.

Medeiros attributed the lack of significant data to the pandemic, as people were advised not to travel for two of the years provided for in Gordon’s requests. She also said most residents probably don’t realize that STRs are illegal in Pullman without a CUP, which may explain the lack of STRs mentioned in connection with violations.

Helene Hopkins, a local property manager and Airbnb operator, said renting provides visitors with other options. He rents rooms for about $250 a night year-round; meanwhile, local hotel prices regularly skyrocket, sometimes as high as $750, as people come to town for an event.

“All the people who aren’t going to stay in my house,” Hopkins said, “will go to Moscow.”

She warned against putting too much pressure on operators, which could financially harm the city and its residents, who are gaining an increasing position on the market.

Wednesday’s workshop was part of a series of meetings that will continue after Pullman officials update the city code. The Planning Commission will hold another meeting on June 26 to provide additional updates to the proposed STR regulations.