brentwood city seal
By David Walsh

By LANDON WOODROOF

A bill that would ban local governments from prohibiting short-term rentals has been revived on the state level and drew strong rebukes Monday night from some members of Brentwood’s City Commission.

The latest version of Senate Bill 1086 allows for municipalities to put in place certain regulations regarding short-term rentals such as those offered by Airbnb, but it does not permit municipalities to ban them outright, as Brentwood currently does.

Last year the counterpart to this bill, HB1020, was passed on first consideration by the Tennessee House of Representatives. That bill only pertained to Nashville, though. SB1086 would be applicable to the whole state.

The bill was scheduled to appear before the State Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, chaired by Sen. Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, last Tuesday, Feb. 20.

Action on the bill was deferred, though, at that meeting.

The bill was placed on the committee schedule for Tuesday, Feb. 27, but City Manager Kirk Bednar said he learned late Monday afternoon that the bill would once again be deferred this week.

The city remains adamantly opposed to the bill.

“The message we’re sending is that really this is a local land use issue and those decisions are best made locally by people like yourselves who are elected to represent the community,” Bednar told the City Commission Monday night.

Bednar spoke against the proposed legislation on Capitol Hill in Nashville on Feb. 20. He said that a diverse array of cities are joining Brentwood in their opposition to SB1020. Those cities include such popular tourist destinations as Gatlinburg, Bednar said. That city prohibits short-term rentals in a specific zoning district.

Several City Commissioners lambasted the state legislation Monday night.

“I am worn out fighting this thing,” City Commissioner Anne Dunn said. “It’s like bedbugs, they will not go away.”

Dunn framed the legislation as an attempt by state legislators to usurp local power.

“Our state legislature is full of people who are decrying big government,” she said. “They advocate small government, small government, let people rule themselves, but at every opportunity to snatch some power away from local government they want to seize it.”

She said state legislators were moved to support this legislation at the goading of the travel industry.

“It is governed by greed,” she said. “The Airbnb industry is behind this. We know this. You don’t hear residents pleading for it, begging for it, and I am just tired of having to contact residents and say get on the phone, get on your email, go down to the state capitol and they are tired of it, too.”

Mayor Jill Burgin stressed that the City of Brentwood was not trying to tell other cities what to do. Rather, local officials just want to be able to decide land use issues themselves.

“We’re not asking them to ban it statewide,” she said. “We just ask them to let us be able to make our decisions for our community.”

Bednar said that if the legislation gets through the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee then it would go to the Senate floor for a vote. If it passed there, then the House could either choose to pass the bill or the bill would go to a conference committee.

The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee has nine members. Bednar said that the city was focusing its efforts on securing five votes to stop the legislation there.