The city of Mission may limit how many short-term rental licenses can be issued to a single owner.
It’s the latest Johnson County city to consider regulations on short-term rentals like AirBnbs and Vrbos.
The Mission City Council during a Wednesday work session expressed support for restricting how many rental properties can be on a single parcel and also limiting owners to two licenses each.
Other cities like Fairway, Merriam and Shawnee have all adopted ordinances this year regulating short-term rentals in some way.
Prairie Village is also looking into requiring all rentals in that city to have a 30-day stay minimum, which would effectively ban short-term rentals in that city.
For its part, Mission is looking at a nuisance party ordinance to work in tandem with a new short-term rentals ordinance. A nuisance ordinance is the route Overland Park took to address AirBnbs and Vrbos, following a fatal shooting at a rental property in 2022.
The Mission City Council took no action on Wednesday, but the governing body is anticipated to consider a final draft of the ordinance in coming months.
A look at Mission’s draft ordinance
The city of Mission’s draft short-term rental ordinance includes similar aspects to that of neighboring cities, such as requiring a management agent for the property who lives within 40 miles.
Notable differences that Mission included in its draft ordinance included the cap on how many short-term rentals could be allowed per property and also how many short-term rental licenses could be issued to a single owner.
The city council also asked city staff to include language on the license application and in the ordinance aimed at weeding out shell corporations that may be trying to buy multiple investment properties and use them as short-term rentals.
The draft ordinance limits the number of short-term rentals per parcel based on the property’s zoning district.
The draft ordinance outlines the following:
- One short-term rental per property in single-family residential districts
- Two short-term rentals per property in two-family residential or downtown neighborhood districts
- Four short-term rental properties in a number of multifamily districts, including two separate apartment districts and the mixed-use district
City staff is recommending a Jan. 1, 2025, effective date for any short-term rental ordinance if the council were ultimately to approve one this year.
Meanwhile, the nuisance party ordinance is not specific to short-term rentals and applies to the entire city.
Nuisance parties are defined as those that have five or more people and disturb the peace in some way, including the discharge of firearms or the use of marijuana.
There are currently 30 short-term rentals in Mission
- Granicus, a software tool that can search short-term rental booking websites for listings in a particular city, found 30 such properties in Mission.
- Almost all of those short-term rentals are in single-family homes, according to city documents.
- City staff recommends using Granicus to help enforce any new regulations, including ensuring short-term rental owners are licensed.
- Annually, Granicus may cost the city of Mission $3,000 based on the monthly average of the number of listings, according to city documents.
Council lands on a $500 license fee
- Mayor Sollie Flora originally proposed a $1,000 license fee to account for the staff time that will go into handling short-term rental applications.
- Councilmembers Ben Chociej and Josepha Haden Chomphosy each said $1,000 seemed too steep a price.
- The city council ultimately agreed on a $500 license application fee, which is the same as the city of Shawnee’s fee for short-term rental applications.
- Additionally, city staff plans to make a running list of short-term rentals available to the public in response to a concern from Councilmember Debbie Kring about neighbors knowing when such a property is nearby.
Next steps:
- The city council is expected to consider a final draft of the short-term rental regulation ordinance at a future city council meeting.
- City council meetings are held on the third Wednesday of the month at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 6090 Woodson St.
Go deeper: Watch the full discussion in the embedded video below.
