Mayor Ortega: Scottsdale short-term rental chaos demands action

Scottsdale mayor calls for stronger measures of local control over STRs in Arizona

By David Ortega | Point of View

Challenges that Scottsdale and many other cities have experienced with short-term rental properties over the past four years have been numerous.

Beyond the daily disruptions that hundreds of residents face when these pop-up hotels appeared in our neighborhoods, there have been tragedies, there have been shootings, there have been huge drug busts.

The Scottsdale City Council and our city staff have done all that we can within the boundaries of state law, but still, it has been a very bad experience for our community these past four years.

At the Tuesday, July 11, City Council meeting, I brought forward an item that was unanimously supported by my City Council colleagues.

We are continuing to take a data-driven approach to confronting this problem and have asked staff to: provide a detailed report on crimes and issues that have occurred at these properties; review actions taken in neighboring cities and Maricopa County, which currently has no licensing requirement for STRs, to see what else, if anything, we can do locally to attempt to control the problem; and finally with that data in hand, prepare possible legislative measures to return local control for STR density and distance criteria.

I support continued work at the Arizona Legislature to return to cities the tools we need to protect the safety of our neighborhoods, and the safety of visitors who keep our tourism industry vibrant. Our neighborhoods have built a case, it’s up to us to represent that at the state level.