Bozeman city staff estimate fewer than half of short-term rentals are registered with the city. The Bozeman City Commission moved forward on Tuesday with a plan to put the onus of permit enforcement on hosting platforms, like AirBnB and Vrbo, among other changes.
The ordinance requires hosting platforms to include short term rental permit numbers on each publicly facing listing and remove those that aren’t compliant, or face fines. Hosts would also be required to have a fire inspection of their rental property every three years.
All three commissioners present at the meeting voted in favor of it including Commissioner Jennifer Madgic.
“To me this is simple. We’ve needed to step up our enforcement and step up what we’re looking to enforce,” he said.
Bozeman Tenants United has been pushing the city commission to review and change short term rental policies. Leader Olive Nakano Sohn was among others with the group who expressed their support for the ordinance.
“Bringing the short-term rentals that exist in Bozeman today into compliance is a great and necessary first step to ending the displacement that second home short-term rentals are causing across our beautiful city,” she said.
Luke Maples with Bozeman-based Mountain Home Vacation Rentals expressed concerns that the $500 fine per day for owners not being compliant was costly and that requiring fire inspections every three years would be burdensome.
The ordinance will go before the city commission for a second and final reading on July 11 and if passed would go into effect a month later.
The city commission is having a workshop in early August to study other potential changes to short-term rentals looking specifically at what types are allowed and where.
