The City council recently voted on a Proposed ban on short-term rental homes in Missoula. The majority vote was against this ban, so it will not be put in place at any time in the near future. This temporary ban would have banned all temporary rentals in residentially owned areas of Missoula.
Jen Savage, a city council member said “I think housing, in general, is our number one issue in Missoula. We don’t have enough affordable housing in Missoula. And for many years we haven’t had enough new homes (called housing stock) coming into the market to satisfy demand.” She agreed that proposals like this in city council are very important to Missoula right now and more housing legislation should be focused on.
She said that she voted no on the proposed ban. “I believe property owners should be allowed to run short-term rentals in residential areas.” she said. She also added that consultants who were tasked with studying the situation in the residential areas advised that Missoula was not at a point to limit temporary rental homes and this drove several voters to take their advice and not take an action with the ban. She also said code reform is taking place and will clarify the rules and recommendations of Missoula housing. “This is a comprehensive process and I think it’s important that we let it play out. It will address short-term rentals as part of the whole municipal code and it’s important to me that we let that process unfold,” She said.
Savage also lists several acts that have been put in place in recent years in order to maintain the stability of short-term rentals in Missoula, which has remained a regulated 1.5% of all municipal rentals. “We raised the fee last year from $60 to $500ish to register for a short term rental, we have software that we subscribe to that continues to monitor the number of short term rentals and last week me and two other councilors brought a referral to require short term rentals to have a listing number,” She said. She said that this ban was not necessary with these current monitors and rules put in place and that she was happy that the overall census was no.
Though the ban that intended to help with Missoula’s housing crisis was voted against, this raises other options to help with the issue such as funding to build more affordable housing in the city. Missoula’s housing crisis is a prominent issue to the city council right now, but the majority of them feel that a ban on short term rental homes does not help with this issue in the most effective way and aim to find another solution.
