Colorado Springs has appointed a task force to determine whether it should license, regulate and tax vacation rental homes.
Turns out there are 60-80 homes sprinkled around the city that are advertised around the world in Web sites as vacation rental properties.
They are favored by parents of Air Force Academy cadets when they come for parents’ weekend or graduation.
Many families looking for a reunion site prefer vacation homes over hotels or bed-and-breakfast inns.
Folks with special needs, like sterilized kitchens or quiet places for elderly or children, often choose vacation rental homes over hotels.
Problem is, they bring a parade of strangers into neighborhoods. Strangers who soak up parking spaces and sometimes hold late parties. A few people living near vacation rental houses have begun complaining to the city about the situation.
So Dick Anderwald, the city’s land use and planning chief, created the Vacation Home Rental Task Force Committee to study the issue. He appointed neighborhood activists, vacation rental home owners and city planning staff to the task force.
Here’s the agenda for the initial meeting in September: vacationrentals. Please note that the roster of task force members changed after this was printed. Michael Clark and Autumn Hyser dropped out.
One of the task force members, Jackie Ayers, owns the “Old Colorado Springs” 1902 Downtown House W/ Private Hot Tub - Colorado Springs Here’s a look at her house from the Web site:
She also manages a vacation rental for another owner. Ayers said the task force is an over-reaction to the complaints of a few people, including two task force members who live near vacation rental homes — one on the Westside and one in the Broadmoor.
Anderwald apparently agreees. He said the issue appears to be confined to a small area of the city and the task force likely won’t produce new rules and regulations.
However, owners of vacation rental homes likely will start getting tax bills from the city for sales taxes they have not been paying.
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