‘A neighborhood of strangers’ — Kansas City’s Columbus Park pushes back against Airbnb | Opinion

Kansas City has a short-term rental problem. Homes are being flipped and turned into small hotels without registering with the city, housing advocates say. The unregulated market has led to quality of life issues in some of the city’s historic residential neighborhoods. Outdated policies that govern these lodging units must be updated. If city leaders fail to move in an expedient manner, the city’s permanent housing stock could be at risk, critics contend.

And that should concern all Kansas Citians.

Kate Barsotti is president of the Columbus Park Community Council. For 20 years, she’s called the area home. Commercial interests have gobbled up property in the neighborhood just north of Independence Avenue, turning homes and duplexes into unlicensed mini-hotels, Barsotti says.

Columbus Park residents have made their concerns known at City Hall. But will city leaders act? They’d better. Outside business interests are cashing in on generations of neighborhood advocacy and driving away long-time residents, according Barsotti.

“We refuse to live in a neighborhood of strangers,” she said. “The fight is just getting started.”

A Jan. 23 letter made Mayor Quinton Lucas, City Manager Brian Platt and the City Council aware of the issue by the council’s Neighborhood Advisory Council, which has tracked the rise of short-term rentals such as AirBnb and Vrbo.

“Short-term rentals began as a way for visitors to fully experience a community and live like a local,” the letter reads. “However, rapid expansion of this industry into a fully commercial enterprise has replaced neighbors with tourists and turned neighborhoods into de facto hotel districts. In addition to increased crime and loss of community, the depopulation associated with this trend results in fewer registered voters, lower census counts, reduced school enrollment and (shrinking) tax revenues needed for local infrastructure and basic services.”

Our attempts to speak with Lucas before press time about much-needed regulations were unsuccessful.

Over a five-year period, 93% of short term rental units in Kansas City were unlicensed, a city audit released last year found. As a result, city government failed to collect millions of dollars in tax revenue. In recent months, the number operating without a permit dropped to 89%, meaning only 11% of hosts were paying their fair share of taxes.

The Neighborhood Advisory Council has studied the issue. Using data compiled by six neighborhood associations, the group found close to 300 short term rentals were registered with a permit to operate on file with the city. On the other hand, about 3,000 more were operating without a permit.

“They have not paid into the system,” said Tiffany Moore, council co-chair. “That exacerbates the problem.”

Is there a quick fix? No, Moore says. But the long-term ramifications could include more hits to neighborhood housing stocks. Most Kansas City short-term rental hosts are not required to pay taxes in the same way that hotels must. No other city in Missouri has such a senseless policy — one caused by language in code defining a “hotel” as having eight or more guest bedrooms. That isn’t how tourists book rooms today, and the oversight must be fixed. This and uncollected permit fees cost the city up to $3.7 million in potential tax revenue, its audit found.

Under city ordinance, short-term rentals are considered non-owner-occupied units. In residential areas, at least 55% of adjacent property owners must sign off on those setups. The same does not apply in urban renewal project areas such as Columbus Park — zoning overlays used to stabilize an area. Each has a set of priorities. For Columbus Park and other projects, permission for short-term rentals wasn’t in the plans.

“The ordinance left us out,” Barsotti said. “I’m assuming this is an oversight, but it’s a big one that we have to fix.”

The proliferation of unlicensed short-term rental properties in Kansas City isn’t unique to our area, according to advocates we spoke with. Other cities have been faced with similar problems. Most were slow to react. Some, like Denver, have moved in recent years to meet the challenge.

In the Mile High City, only a primary residence can be used as a short-term rental unit. Booking websites such Airbnb and Vrbo must vet property licenses. Providers could be fined up to $1,000 a day for allowing customers to book an unlicensed unit. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the city’s primary residence requirement on short-term rentals hasn’t resulted in a violation since 2020. The compliance rate is 90%, according to The Denver Post.

The Neighborhood Advisory Council’s letter recommended that the city rewrite its policies on short-term rentals. We join that call. It’s time for Kansas City to keep its neighborhoods intact and recognize the realities of how tourism works today.