Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government approves draft on changes of policies on short-term rentals

LEXINGTON, Ky. (ABC 36 NEWS NOW) — On Thursday afternoon, a special council meeting was held regarding the future of short term rentals in Lexington.

The proposal aims to make changes to the current policies set in place for short term rentals in Lexington.

“The policy changes are hopefully to address, address some of the concerns that we’re hearing from neighborhood associations or neighbors within our residential neighborhoods about the concentration of short term rentals,” says Tracy Wade, the planning manager for the Division of Planning.

Urban county council members making surveys to compile the information to help modify the policies to address any concerns.
Those with the Division of Planning say they saw 70 applications last year and approved around 75% of those un-hosted short term rentals.
So what is the difference between hosted and un-hosted?

“Hosted means that the person who’s offering the short term rental is there on site while the visitors are there while the guests are staying with them. Whereas an un-host, it means that the person hosting lives elsewhere,” added Wade.

During the meeting, the council also heard about specifics when it comes to how close to each other these STR’s ( short-term rentals) can be in residential zones.

“A lot of the changes that you’ve seen and that were proposed in today’s draft came strictly or came straight from neighborhoods that are feeling the impact. So they think a maximum of 10 as opposed to 12 is a more appropriate number for residential neighborhoods. They also are concerned about the over saturation of short term rentals. So that’s why we put the spatial requirement in and then also the distance requirement,” added Council-at-Large member James Brown.

Thursday marked the continuation of a long journey, the draft passed and moves on to the full council.
But it still has to go through some other hurdles.

“The council is going to finish reviewing this and it sounds like they’re going to make a report out in September. And if they decide that these changes need to move forward, they will what we call, initiate a text amendment and that will come to the Planning Commission for further review. Planning Commission has two months to review the application and then they’ll hold a public hearing available to any citizen in the community to come and speak and they’ll make a recommendation back to the Urban County Council about the proposed text changes,” also said Wade.

If you currently already have a permit, you’re in good shape, all you would need to do is renew your license at the end of its term.