Warwick moves one step closer to rules on short-term rentals. Here's what's changed.
WARWICK − Warwick is much closer to joining nine other municipalities in Rhode Island that regulate short term rentals.
On Jan. 18, the City Council passed an ordinance that would require the registration of short-term rentals with the city and bans them in eight of the 13 zoning districts – but does not require owner occupancy.
City Council President Stephen McAllister said the ordinance must be passed a second time before it can go into effect. It is set for the council's Feb. 27 meeting.
"I think we're real close," McAllister said in an interview. "I don't think everyone will love every part."
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If the ordinance is amended at the Feb. 27 meeting, it will need to be passed a third time, he said.
One of the mostly contentious parts of the original ordinance was a requirement that short-term rentals be owner-occupied, which would have eliminated most of the rentals in Warwick because 72% of the city's housing stock is single-family homes.
The ordinance's sponsor, City Councilman Edgar Ladouceur, said during the Jan. 18 meeting that supported a slate of amendments proposed by Councilman Anthony Sinapi that eliminated the most restrictive provisions of the ordinance, including the requirement of owner occupancy.
Other amendments to the ordinance include reducing the occupancy limit, to two people per bedroom from two people per bedroom plus two additional people per house. At the same time, parking requirements from the original ordinance have been dropped.
Ladouceur said during the meeting that the revised ordinance was "an excellent example of governance, an example of the spirit of negotiations."
Removing the requirement of owner occupancy will give the city time to monitor and map short-term rentals and allow officials to take another look in a year if problems arise.
Is your town regulating them?Short-term rentals are booming with online bookings.
Short-term rental owner Bill Gagnier, representing a group of 26 owners in Warwick, testified during the hearing that there are still constitutional issues with the ordinance the City Council passed on first reading.
In an interview, Gagnier pointed to a requirement in the ordinance that short-term rental owners obtain information about their guests, including names, addresses, phone numbers and vehicle registration information, hold onto it for 180 days and provide it to "city officials" if they are investigating offenses involving the renters.
That requirement would seem to run counter to the U.S. Supreme Court case, City of Los Angeles v Patel. In that case, the justices ruled that the Los Angeles cannot require motel operators to hand over guest information to police without a warrant.
Short-term rental owner Gerald Galleshaw, who attended the meeting, said in an interview that the current ordinance is a good working model, even if he still wants to see some tweaks, as Gagnier does.
"In politics, there's the saying, 'If I didn't lose, it's a good thing,' Galleshaw said. "Not everybody won, but not everybody lost on this."
The spectrum of short-term rental regulation in RI
Across the state, there are three levels of regulation schemes:
Requiring registration
Putting limits on occupancy and location
Requiring owner occupancy of short-term rentals
If the City Council passes the ordinance a second time, it would put the city into the second level of regulation, with Barrington, Jamestown, Middletown and Portsmouth.
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See more of our coverage of short-term rentals in Warwick and the rest of Rhode Island
Dec. 12, 2022: Short-term rentals are booming with online bookings. Is your town regulating them?
Sept. 16, 2022: Warwick contemplates banning all but owner-occupied short-term rentals
July 29, 2022: Why RI Airbnb owners may soon have to register their property and pay a $50 fee
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Reach reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite at wcowperthwaite@providencejournal.com or follow him on Twitter @WheelerReporter.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Short-term rental rules in Warwick move forward, some parts changed
