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VIRGINIA BEACH — After years of fighting for regulations on short-term rental properties in their neighborhoods, members of three Virginia Beach Oceanfront civic leagues were astounded this week when they learned state lawmakers could pass legislation that would sidestep the city’s regulations.
Sen. Lynwood Lewis, a Democrat representing District 6, and Rep. Daniel Marshall, a Republican representing District 14, each introduced two identical short-term rental bills at this year’s General Assembly session.
The bills (SB1391 and HB2271) essentially strip cities and localities of some of their power to regulate short-term rentals operated by Virginia realty companies. For example, Virginia Beach would not be able to enforce an ordinance that would limit the number of days in a calendar year for which a short-term rental property can be rented or require an owner to add additional parking spaces.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Mike Kelly, president of the Croatan Civic League. “They’re basically carving out real estate property managers into a special class that are going to be governed in a very limited fashion, and why is that right?”
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Sen. Lewis introduced the legislation “to put some guard rails or address the overreach in some localities,” he said by phone from Richmond on Thursday.
Virginia real estate companies approached Lewis, who is chair of the local government committee, about introducing the bill.
“Over the past few years, we have seen a move by a number of jurisdictions to severely limit allowances on short-term rentals, whether or not there have ever been any problems with those homes or their guests,” Jeremy Caleb Johnson, chairman of the board of the Hampton Roads Realtors Association, wrote in an email. “These limits have definitely impacted our members and their ability to do business with and for their clients.”
Johnson said real estate agents are professionals who are capable of quickly responding to issues that arise.
“We set a very high standard when we represent short-term rental owners and their guests,” he wrote. “Our members live and work in many of the same neighborhoods that we manage rental properties.”
Lewis said city ordinances on noise and trash issues, for example, wouldn’t change under the proposed law.
“I don’t think it’s quite as extreme as people think,” Lewis said. “We’re trying to get things back on an even keel.”
Lewis’ 6th District Senate seat includes Accomack County and Northampton County on the Eastern Shore, Mathews County on the Peninsula and parts of Norfolk and Virginia Beach. Marshall’s district includes Danville in south-central Virginia.
Virginia Beach enacted a short-term rental ordinance in 2021. New short-term rentals are only allowed in Sandbridge and in an overlay district at the Oceanfront. Grandfathered short-term rental properties approved before 2021 are still operating in other areas of the city. Parking provisions and restrictions on the number of rental contracts within a certain time period are part of Virginia Beach’s short-term rental ordinance.
Debra Bryan, Virginia Beach’s director of legislative affairs, said the bills have been a point of controversy in recent days. She’s been opposing them on behalf of the city.
Virginia Beach is a defendant in ongoing lawsuits regarding short-term rentals. Bryan said she plans to bring that up at the committee meeting, citing that it has been customary for the General Assembly not to take up bills that are the subject of current litigation.
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Lewis said Thursday he was unaware of the litigation in Virginia Beach when he introduced the bill.
Nancy Parker, a member of the Resort Beach Civic League who has been an advocate of short-term rental regulations for years, said she was surprised to see such a bill arise at the state level. She described it as giving realty companies “carte-blanche” on rentals in her neighborhood, which is adjacent to the resort area.
Andrew Cohen, a board member of the North Virginia Beach Civic League, estimates there are 50 grandfathered short-term rental properties in the North End. The organization has been keeping an eye out for bills in the General Assembly after Sen. Bill DeSteph introduced legislation last year that sought to skirt a number of city requirements on homes rented for less than 30 days.
DeSteph, who at the time said he was concerned about how Virginia Beach’s laws were affecting long-standing local realty companies, ultimately struck the bill, citing a pending lawsuit by the Virginia Association of Realtors and the Hampton Roads Realtor Association against the city for its short-term rental ordinance.
“We didn’t expect something so focused on Realtors getting an exemption,” Cohen said by phone Wednesday. “Our goal is to stop these bills, and to rely on the ordinances that Virginia Beach enacted in 2021.”
He added, “Certainly, we’re open to improving those, but that should be a local decision.”
Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com