Woonsocket Radio News Room

Sen. Euer introduces bill to mitigate community impacts of short-term rentals

STATE HOUSE – A bill introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Dawn Euer would help municipalities dealing with the impact of short-term rentals by allowing them to collect fees to fund projects that mitigate these impacts.

“Short-term rentals and the property speculation market have a cascading effect that increases housing costs for everyone,” said Senator Euer (D-Dist. 13, Newport, Jamestown). “The goal of this bill is to allow municipalities to raise revenue from short-term rentals in their community to fund projects to offset these community impacts.”

The growth of short-term rentals in Rhode Island have led to complaints of increased noise and parking constraints in neighborhoods, concerns that they are exacerbating an already severe housing crisis, a decrease in hotel tax revenue and increased pressure on municipal water systems, as short-term renters use more water than permanent residents.

Senator Euer’s bill (2024-S 2020) would allow municipalities to charge a community impact fee of no more than 2% of the total charged to customers by short-term rentals. Municipalities could use the funds collected only to pay for improvements to infrastructure, housing units and expenses incurred by the municipality because of short-term rentals.

This fee would only apply to resident dwellings that are rented in their entirety for less than 31 consecutive days.

“Short-term rentals provide unique costs to their communities, costs that are not always covered by existing tax and revenue collection structures,” said Senator Euer. “Municipalities should have the flexibility to collect revenue from short-term rentals specifically to pay these costs.”