The practice of using all or part of a house as a short-term rental is trending in cities across the country with unwanted consequences. Some owners live on the premises (owner-occupied) and some just rent out an entire house and live elsewhere (non-owner-occupied}.

In Orem STRs are currently illegal based on Orem city Code 22-19-1 and have been for the last 24 years. The first question is why then do we have short-term rentals in Orem?

As I understand it, previous state laws made it difficult for the city to regulate short-term rentals, so Orem city adopted a loose approach to regulating STRs. In the past, this situation led short-term rental owners to believe they were compliant with city code when they should have been told by the city that short-term rentals have been illegal since 2002.

State laws have changed and leaders in Orem are facing difficult decisions regarding how to protect the sanctity of neighborhoods that are zoned for single-family housing and at the same time allow people to run short-term rental businesses in our single-family neighborhoods. Unfortunately, these are mutually exclusive goals.

I hope everyone understands that you can’t protect residential neighborhoods and still allow short-term rentals of any kind. Surely protecting neighborhoods should come first.

My second question is why then is Orem considering making short-term rentals legal now? Pressure from investors and those who promote investment in short-term rentals?

If Orem city legalizes short-term rentals, do you think we will have fewer STRs or more STRs in the future?

I discovered websites that encourage people to invest in short-term rentals in Orem. One website asks, “What kind of STR should I buy in Orem?” It lists the top operators in Orem and gives average monthly income projections.

This website treats our residential neighborhoods like an investment opportunity. It encourages homeowners to run a free address analysis on their property to get revenue projections, comp analysis, and ROI, so they can consider turning their home into a short-term rental. Is this what we want for Orem?

There are many problems with having short-term rentals in single family neighborhoods. Extreme examples are a man who was shot to death in Draper because he asked guests of an Airbnb not to throw beer bottles into the street at 3 a.m. We had a theft ring operating out of an STR one street over from ours.

More common, however, are complaints about noise, parking, and declining quality of life in residential neighborhoods. In addition, short-term rentals take properties off the market that might be acquired by young families, which means fewer children in our schools and neighborhoods. A quick Internet search yielded several university studies that conclude that STRs, especially the Airbnb type, have a clear link to increased crime rates because they disrupt the social fabric of neighborhoods.

From personal experience I can attest to the fact that STRs do not add to the community feeling of neighborhoods. I think it’s ironic that Orem is willing to consider keeping short-term rentals when they have been shown to contribute to rising crime rates and at the same time has proposed a tax increase because Orem city need two more policemen.

Our current city council has inherited a difficult situation. I can understand the council’s compassion for those who may lose investment funds because they invested in STRs, but the bottom line is that short-term rentals should not be allowed in single-family neighborhoods in any form. If legalized, short-term rentals will be very difficult to regulate or limit.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that a majority of citizens want STRs in their neighborhoods. The only people who want them are those who are profiting from them.

We need to respect our neighborhoods because our neighborhoods define the character of our city. If the city council legalizes short-term rentals, we will see long-term negative consequences like other cities are experiencing across the U.S.

City leaders created this problem in the past; we ask current leaders to fix it in the present. I urge our city council members to say no to all forms of short-term rentals in single-family neighborhoods.

Virginia Sokolowsky is a resident of Orem.