Arvada has more than 800 short-term (less than 30 days) rental properties in operation, though just 250 to 300 of those are licensed, which can create problems for code enforcement officials, Arvada鈥檚 Director of Community and Economic Development Jessica Gardner said.
Gardner discussed the current state of short-term rentals in Arvada during a workshop at the Feb. 10 city council meeting and said that when a property has chronic issues but no license, it makes it very difficult to enforce city codes because it becomes unclear who to contact to resolve potential issues.
鈥淭here are many, many properties operating, they don鈥檛 have a license, but one of the bigger challenges we have is when we鈥檙e dealing with persistent chronic problems from some of these properties, it鈥檚 also because they don鈥檛 have a license, so it makes it even more difficult to enforce,鈥� Gardner said.
Code Enforcement Officer Peter Krentz said that although complaints against short-term rental properties are a small proportion of the cases he handles 鈥� about 3% of cases, or 23 complaints against short term rentals out of over 2,000 complaints against other properties 鈥� license gaps make following up on those cases difficult at times.
鈥淚 have issues when they don鈥檛 have a license and there鈥檚 no one to track down,鈥� Krentz said. 鈥淎 lot of (short-term rental properties) are owned by LLCs, some of them by foreign LLCs or they鈥檒l loop them through other states, or some of them will be defunct and I鈥檒l have no one to talk to, and it鈥檚 back to square one again.鈥�
Some council members, including Bob Fifer and Shawna Ambrose, said they have been getting complaints from residents themselves and said short-term rentals do little to help the local community.
鈥淚 am amazed that you only got 24 complaints, because I got 13 of those about five different properties in 2024,鈥� Ambrose said. 鈥淎ccording to our Housing Needs Assessment, we are short 2,790 units for just renters. That is the number of affordable units the city lacks, and having 800 of them for short-term rentals, which is less than 30 days, seems to be adding to the crisis.鈥�
Fifer said the city would be better off to just do away with short-term rentals as a whole.
鈥淚 think we should stop this resolution and just not allow them in our city,鈥� Fifer said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just not worth it for what little we get.鈥�
The fee to register a short-term rental in Arvada is $150 annually.
Gardner said cutting the short-term rental program in Arvada would likely do more harm than good.
鈥淚 just want to acknowledge the challenge of short-term rentals; I know they can be difficult, and I know we get some kind of problem properties that arise that are very noisy and cause a lot of problems for the council members,鈥� Gardner said. 鈥淭hat is the minority of the short-term rentals that are out there.
鈥淭he other thing I want to mention is that once we decide that we don鈥檛 want to regulate, it won鈥檛 get rid of them; it will just get rid of the mechanism to regulate them,鈥� Gardner continued. 鈥淎nd we won鈥檛 have any fees coming in to offset the costs to manage that situation. So, what we feel is the best way to move forward is let鈥檚 regulate them and let鈥檚 do the best job we can to try and catch those challenges we face and do the best we can to bring them into compliance.鈥�
Council resolved to direct the city team to find a third-party vendor who can manage short-term rentals within the city and get the unlicensed properties in compliance while also fielding reports of concerns 24/7. The cost for that is estimated to be $18,000. The city team and city council discussed taking that out of the police budget or funding that through licensing fees.
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