CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Corpus Christi is one step away from having a short-term rental ordinance with the goal of protecting neighborhoods from too many short term rentals of single-family homes and the problems that come with that practice.
The city council passed the ordinance at its meeting Tuesday, and it will be on the books if it passes again at the next council meeting January 11.
The ordinance would require all short-term rental owners to register with the city and buy a permit for $100. Permits wouldn't be issued to owners of homes in single-family zones of the city.
At a later date, the city would implement phase 2 of the ordinance that will allow a controlled number of homes to be rented short term.
It's something an island organization has been pushing for awhile.
“When you rent out these houses for short-term rentals, of course the neighbors are subject to extra noise, extra parking, extra crime — that kind of thing," Padre Isles Property Owners Association Board President Marvin Jones said.
Owners of short-term rentals in higher density zones, like condominiums, would have other new rules to follow if the ordinance gets final approval.
Among them, they'd have to post a notice inside their units with important information for renters to read like emergency phone numbers and maximum occupancy.
A North Padre Island resident who rents out her condo on the beach says she would be willing to follow the new rules.
"I am not one who really cares for regulation or interference," Suzanne Payne said. "But I don’t think it’s going to be anything that's going to be too out there — that’s going to make it difficult for me to do this.”
Payne is also a real estate agent, and she thinks the ordinance could lead to more properties for her and other agents to represent. That's because she thinks people who own investment homes might sell them, because they're no longer able to rent them out short-term on websites like Airbnb and VRBO.
But Jones says the ordinance gives those people options.
“We hope it doesn’t come to all of that," he said. "You can still have short-term rentals. You just can’t have it in the R6 single-family zoning. So if you want to have a condo at the beach and rent it out short-term, you can certainly do that."
