Joey Garrison

jgarrison@tennessean.com

For the past year and a half, Nashville has required that hosts of the popular home-renting online service Airbnb acquire permits and follow a range of new rules in order to operate.

But Metro officials have struggled with the most critical component — enforcement.

Now, following the introduction of a trio of new ordinances, the Metro Council will explore new ways aimed at strengthening oversight in hopes of addressing concerns voiced by many neighbors of Airbnb homes.

Among the proposals — set for a first of three votes next week — is an ordinance that would require Airbnb users display their permit number on the online webpage that advertises their home to renters. The idea would be to crack down on Airbnb hosts who are bypassing the permit system altogether and give Metro an easy way to track who and who hasn’t received a permit.

“It is clear that our codes department is having a hard time with enforcement,” said At-large Councilman Bob Mendes, who is among the council members spearheading the new legislation. “The fact of the matter is there aren’t codes employees who work on Friday night, and Saturday night and Sunday night.

“We just don’t have a good way to enforce the rules. These are designed to try to come up with common sense tools to tighten up places where we’re having problems.”

In all, Metro has issued 1,891 short-term rental permits since the council in February of 2015 voted to approve a set of new regulations for hosts of Airbnb and other short-term rental properties. Months earlier, Metro had started requiring Airbnb hosts to pay the same taxes and hotels and motels.

WPLN radio reported this week that most of Airbnb permit holders so far are held by individuals who do not live in the houses they are renting.

Under the city's permit system, Airbnb hosts are to be at least 21 years old, provide proof of liability insurance coverage, have no more than four sleeping rooms and limit stays of guests to fewer than 30 days and the number of guests to twice the number of sleeping rooms plus four. There are also rules about signage, noise, recreational vehicle parking and food service.

Council members Freddie O’Connell, Colby Sledge and Burkely Allen have co-sponsored the legislation outlining the new permit-number posting requirement as well as a second ordinance.

It would require individuals seeking a short-term rental permit verify by affidavit — a legal oath — that all the information in his or her application is true. Affidavits are already mandated when hosts are applying for permit renewals.

Under the same legislation, Airbnb hosts who live in neighborhoods with homeowners association would have to provide a statement that renting out their homes on a short-term basis would not violate any homeowners association bylaws, which sometimes prohibit short-term rentals altogether.

As it stands, Metro has no way of enforcing the bylaws of homeowners associations. The proposed ordinance is intended to change that.

“If you happen to not tell the truth on the application, you’re committing perjury, which should be easily enforceable,” Mendes said.

O’Connell, who represents parts of the urban core of the city, including downtown and Germantown, said the goal of both bills is to make sure individuals are correctly permitted while appropriately penalizing those who are not.

“Right now, I don’t think there’s been a single dollar in fines collected and I don’t believe that codes has successfully prosecuted a single court case on the people who have been in violation," O'Connell said. "So, I’m pretty sure, we’ve had effectively zero enforcement.”

A third ordinance up for consideration next week, one sponsored by Mendes, O’Connell and Sledge, but not Allen, would further limit the number of guests who could stay at an Airbnb home in Nashville. It comes as some neighbors have complained of large parties at some Airbnb homes.

Under the ordinance, the number of occupants allowed at an Airbnb would be limited to the lesser of two figures: Either the maximum number of guests allowed by Airbnb regulations, which range from six to 12 depending on the number of rooms of a house, or the maximum number of guests allowed under the city’s long-term rental properties codes.

The latter allows no more than three people who are not related to each from staying a long-term rental property at one time, but places no limits on the number of people who are related to each other.

Mendes said that the short-term rental and long-term rental policies are inconsistent with each other. He hopes to spur a debate over which is preferable.

“I wanted to get this out there to try to pose something that would try to resolve the inconsistency between the two ordinances and drive a debate based on the legislation about what we want short-term rental properties to be,” Mendes said.

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236 and on Twitter @joeygarrison.