North Texas Cities Continue Debate on Short-Term Rentals, Dallas Council Set to Vote in April

The Dallas City Council has remained quiet about short-term rentals as election season is in full swing, but the residents who don’t want Airbnbs in their neighborhood appear determined to keep the issue in the forefront. 

Several residents spoke about restricting or eliminating STRs from residential neighborhoods during Feb. 8 and Feb. 22 Dallas City Council briefings during “public comments” — even though the matter wasn’t on either agenda.

City Hall sources have said STRs won’t likely be addressed until after the May 6 election, but officials confirmed Wednesday the council is tentatively scheduled for a briefing the first week of April, with a vote the following week. Thirteen city council races are contested. 

Plano Short-Term Rentals

Other North Texas municipalities also are tackling the issue of short-term rentals. 

Plano heard from 13 residents at a November city council meeting who supported zoning changes that would regulate or prohibit STRs in residential neighborhoods. 

The council agreed to consider changing zoning definitions and strengthening nuisance ordinances in a process similar to the one used in Arlington. 

The Plano City Council again discussed the matter in late January and received the following update from Director of Planning Christina Day. 

According to a Jan. 17 memo drafted by Day, Plano city staff has:

• Met with Arlington staff to understand their process and solution, as well as key differences between the two cities.  
• Substantially completed research on other cities’ zoning ordinances, in preparation for a discussion on zoning amendments.  
• Pursued procurement of third-party STR data through efforts from Technology Solutions, Neighborhood Services, and Purchasing departments. Because specific locations of short-term rentals are not readily available, a third-party data consultant is being selected. These consultants monitor STR platforms and cross-reference them with publicly-available data to identify STR in the city. A recommendation is being finalized at this time for the selected vendor. 
• Held interviews with four potential facilitators to assist with public outreach. 
• Continued to track STR data through the Police Department. For the year 2022, there were 141 calls for service at known STR locations (57 properties). Forty-one percent of calls (58 calls) were from 11 percent of the properties (six properties). 

Moving forward, Plano staff is working toward finalization of the third-party STR contract, receipt of data, and full data analysis, Day said.  

Campaign Contributions And STR Monitoring

Late last year, KERA News reported that each of the current Plano City Council members and Mayor John Muns received campaign contributions from a political action committee for a real estate advocacy group that strongly supports STR owners. 

The Texas Realtors Political Action Committee donated $1,000 to all Plano council members and $2,000 to the mayor in late 2021 or early 2022, according to the KERA report. 

Accepting a campaign contribution doesn’t guarantee a vote to support that organization’s cause. 

Dallas City Council campaign finance reports are published online and can be searched using candidate names.

A look at Mayor Eric Johnson’s 2022 contributions shows pledges from the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas and the Texas Association of Realtors MetroTex PAC, but nothing from the Texas Realtors PAC, at least for last year. The Texas Real Estate Council PAC endorsed Mayor Johnson during his 2019 runoff election. 

While advocates for residential STRs are making waves, those on the other side are showing up in droves to fight illegal and nuisance activity they say is connected to STR properties. 

TX Neighborhood Coalition monitors the activity of 15 Texas municipalities as STR ordinances are drafted and debated. Those cities include Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, Arlington, Grapevine, Keller, Richardson, and Southlake.