Town Evaluates Frisco Responsible Agent Requirement for Short Term Rentals
The Town of Frisco is in the process of developing an ordinance pertaining to further regulation of short term rentals. As per its website, the Town summarizes the purpose as follows: “[t]his important effort will enhance the Town’s ability to ensure compliance, address neighborhood concerns and begin collecting the information necessary to analyze the true impacts of the [short term rental] industry in the community.” On September 12, 2018, Town Revenue Specialist, Chad Most, conducted one in a series of stakeholder meetings regarding the proposed ordinance. Chad opened the meeting by providing some information on the current state of the short term rental market in Frisco. Short term rentals currently generate somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of the total lodging tax collected by the Town. Right now, the Town defines a short-term rental as less than 30 days, and it levies a 2.35% lodging tax on those rentals (on top of other taxes assessed by the County & State). The Town previously created an online tax filing portal for the payment of taxes by Frisco short term rental owners. And, out of potentially 850-1000 units advertised for short term rental in the Frisco area, Chad reported that the Town currently has 251 registrants who pay these taxes.
Turning to the proposed ordinance, the Town is contemplating a licensing system for every individual property in Frisco that is short term rented. Other than a licensing fee to be paid by short term rental owners, the Town will not seek to create any barriers to entry into this new program. For instance, the Town has no intent of limiting the number of licenses that will potentially be available, as some other municipalities outside of Summit County have done. Once a property owner has obtained a license for their short term rental unit, they will be required to post their license number in any online advertising with sites, such as Airbnb and VRBO.
Like the programs creating requirements for a Breckenridge Responsible Agent (already implemented) and a Summit County Responsible Agent (under consideration), the Town of Frisco has stated that it is likely to implement a requisite for short term rental owners, who must designate a Responsible Agent to respond on a 24/7 basis to complaints regarding their units. If the Frisco Responsible Agent requirement is implemented, the Town believes a hotline and website would be created where any short term rental complaints could be submitted. If a complaint necessitates immediate response, the call center would contact the Frisco Responsible Agent, who was previously named by the short term rental owner. Then, if the regulations end up following suit with other Summit County local governments, the Frisco Responsible Agent would have 60 minutes to respond to the complaint on a 24/7 basis.
On September 19, 2018, the Town of Frisco will host a Short Term Rental Community Conversation at the Adventure Day Lodge. The Town’s website states that “[t]he meeting will feature a presentation on the goals of the proposed regulations and then move into a conversation to engage participants and offer an opportunity to provide initial perspectives.” After this meeting takes place, the goal of Town staff is to have draft regulations completed in time for the Frisco Town Council’s working session on September 25. When Frisco eventually enacts regulations, the target date for their full implementation is May 2019.
