Explanation
Background:
In August 2018, Columbus City Council passed Ordinance 2145-2018 which amended Chapter 598 of the Columbus City Code in order to establish regulations for short-term rental operations and hosting platforms. As the first of two pieces of short-term rental related legislation, Ordinance 2145-2018 standardized this industry in alignment with the hotel/motel industry. This second piece of short-term rental legislation will amend Chapter 371 of the Columbus City Code in order to establish a regulatory tax framework. This legislation will standardize the levying, collection, and allocation of all short-term rental related taxes.
A number of the Ohio Revised Code provisions applicable to lodging taxes have been moved and/or renumbered since this Chapter 371 was originally enacted; however, to ensure that the state law bases used for the original enactment are maintained in order to reflect that the sole purpose of this ordinance is to address short-term rentals and not to change the existing hotel tax in any way, those Revised Code section references are maintained in this ordinance as originally enacted with cross-reference to the current Revised Code sections.
Emergency Justification: This legislation must be amended to emergency so that it takes effect by March 1, 2019 for penalties for short-term rentals and housing platforms.
Title
To amend, enact, and repeal various provisions of Chapter 371 of the Columbus City Code in order to establish a regulatory tax framework for short-term rentals and to standardize the levying, collection, and allocation of all short-term rental related taxes, and to declare an emergency.
...Body
WHEREAS, localities across the United States have implemented, or are implementing, regulations and standards around the short-term rental and online hosting platform industry; and
WHEREAS, the State of Ohio currently has no regulations on short-term rentals and online hosting platforms; and
WHEREAS, short-term rent...
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