COVINGTON, Ky. — The Covington Board of Commissioners is considering beefing up the penalty for anyone caught illegally operating a short-term rental.
The board agreed to add the new penalty, a one-year ban on applying for a license. It's on the agenda at the next board meeting for a first reading Tuesday night.
It will get a second reading at the February 28th meeting where the commission is expected to vote on it.
City Manager Ken Smith said this new penalty would be the last straw for repeat offenders. He said they first issue a warning, then add fines, and if they still don’t comply, they’ll increase the fines.
Neighborhood Services Director Brandon Holmes said they get weekly complaints about noise coming from unlicensed short-term rentals.
“The city doesn’t have a problem with short term rentals. The issue that we’ve been having is that they’ve gotten out of control,” Holmes said.
Last week, they issued warning letters to 250 owners suspected of illegally operating short-term rentals. Holmes added there are only 43 legal operating ones.
“We’re starting to see the change in character in some of our neighborhoods, so we have neighborhoods that should be residentially based and protect that residential character which are starting to turn into hotel districts,” Holmes said.
He said to address the issue the city put a 6-month moratorium in place that stopped the issuing of new licenses.
“The process that was put in place before is you apply for a license for us, we’ll review the application and as long as all the parameters were there, we would approve it,” he said.
Holmes added in order to get a short-term rental license you have to get a conditional use permit through the zoning board of appeals. This gave the public an opportunity to speak on any residence wanting to obtain this license.
“It gave the public an opportunity to get feedback on these if one was going to be next door to you, it gave notice to all the neighbors, so when folks don’t follow that process there really is no public input early on,” Holmes said.
Covington has also invested in an online platform to help identify people renting out their home illegally.
“The city invested in an online platform where we're actually able to do daily scans of the 84 largest STR or short-term rental hosting platforms,” Holmes said. “The platform scans listings, it also scans confirmed stays with reviews, so we have a robust system that we actually go back and see what particular date, who stayed there, what the revenues were for that day. We’re able to use that for enforcement going forward.”
Covington adopted a new ordinance in 2021 for short-term and long-term rentals to put a formal licensing process in place, requiring inspections.
During the meeting Tuesday night, Commissioner Ron Washington noted there is also a safety concern with unlicensed short-term rentals because there are no required inspections. Holmes added if there’s an emergency at the property the city would have no way of contacting the owners.
Smith said if owners receive a notice that they cannot apply for a short-term rental license for a year and continue to illegally operate, he said that would be a code violation, meaning the city could foreclose the home.
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