Cleveland City Council Passes Short Term Rental Regulations Aiming to Curb Parties, Nuisance Properties

Cleveland City Council has had enough with short-term rental parties that get out of control.

And after years of considering legislation to address the issue, it this week passed new regulations members say will curb properties that have fueled out-of-hand ragers and violence.

The new law, which passed 14-1, will go into effect at the end of November. By then, anyone interested in hosting an Airbnb or Vrbo or other short-term rental will have to pay $150 a year to be licensed with the city. Owners will also have to show proof of a half million dollars in liability insurance and provide a “local contact” that will be available “at all times” to respond to emergencies in less than an hour.

The exhaustion over the issue was felt in both Council’s seven-hour marathon Committee of the Whole session on Monday and its final meeting before summer recess. Everyone seemed to have an anecdote of that one Airbnb party that led to cops being called or to nearby restaurant goers being evacuated.

Ward 10 Councilman Michael Polensek cited a recent 75-person party at a rental that demanded “five police cars” because “all hell broke loose.”

“I want to say to the party houses and to the animal houses: It’s over,” Polensek. “We’re not having this going on” any longer.

As in Pittsburgh, Detroit or Indianapolis, Cleveland’s new law uses city-monitored regulation to curb two ongoing issues with short-term rentals: the occasional wild parties and the dent in the city’s housing stock for families hoping to buy.

Though City Council introduced some new rules for short-term rentals leading up to the 2016 Republican National Conventional, it wasn’t until 2024 when then-Councilman Kerry McCormack drafted a potential new law after hearing grievances from his constituents in Tremont and Ohio City.

But the questions around the room on Monday were ones mostly of severity: Is the new law and licensing database enough to keep bad actors from terrorizing neighbors ever again?

Some like Dave Stokely, the president of the Northern Ohio Short-Term Rental Association, thinks the law went too far. A Superhost on Airbnb, Stokely critiqued Council for letting the “party image” infest the proposed new rules a bit too much.

Most of his guests aren’t teenagers gone berserk, but well-behaved (and well-paying) families, he argued.

“And these are the people you’re regulating,” Stokely said. “Forcing them into uncomfortable hotel situations and sending their dollars to international hotel chains instead of local property owners and local restaurants.”

Several on Council cited the new law’s density rule—that any street or building can be no more than 10 percent short-terms—as the legislation’s most scrutinized restriction. A street of 60 homes that could have six Airbnbs would be, as Ward 14 Councilwoman Jasmin Santana noted, “a lot of properties.”

Some current Airbnbs or Vrbos that have operated before last November may be grandfathered in as licensed short-term rentals, the city said, but would still have to pay for a license.

Anyone without a license, or displaying one inside their home, could risk being slapped with a $5,000 fine. (And even up to six months in prison.) Those with three nuisance violations in a year could have their license revoked.

This is a “more reasonable system,” Ward 15 Councilman Charles Slife said. “Because it allows us to revoke something and demonstrate if something is illegal.”

The city will have until late November to develop a web portal to help operators of short-term rentals to apply for a license and/or dispute a rejection or fine.

In a statement, Airbnb said: “Short-term rentals provide essential income for Clevelanders and play a vital role in neighborhood economies, driving guest spending in local businesses across the city and generating over $1.2 billion in economic activity for the state last year. We look forward to continuing to work with local policymakers to champion balanced and fair rules that uphold everyday Ohioans’ right to share their homes and earn extra income.”