NEIGHBORS FIGHTING STRS: A PROPOSAL
09-Oct-2023
The history of municipal regulation of short-term rentals is well known. The current case law and a brief review of recent proposed legislation is addressed in this paper; however, this review goes further. I assume, rightly or wrongly, that both the state courts and the Texas Legislature will not be sympathetic to a high degree of municipal regulation, and in fact may only leave municipalities the option of enforcing traditional nuisance ordinances (loud noise, trash on public property, public intoxication, etc.) when property is offered for short-term rental. With that premise, the purpose of this paper is to consider an alternative that may be available to private property owners to address STRs in the event municipalities are stripped of most of their regulatory authority. While this proposal is not ideal, in areas where STRs are not welcome, this may provide private property owners with some recourse—assuming their neighbors agree with them!