The city of Columbia hosted a second round of public information meetings today to gather opinions about a possible five percent tax on short-term lodging services, like Airbnb.
The first round of meetings gave mixed feedback, according to Megan McConachie, the Strategic Communications Manager for the Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“We had both those two public meetings and then we also had an online survey that we’ve pulled some of those results from,” McConachie said. “We’ve of course had a lot of questions. Some of the feedback, it was really very mixed.”
This second round of meetings focused more on the owners, or renters, of the short-term rentals.
Meeting attendees spoke up about how they wanted more regulations with Airbnb, especially in single resident areas.
Columbia Resident Tootie Burns said she was glad she was able to come and listen to others opinion and have hers’ listened to as well.
“I think Columbia is handling this the right way, recognizing that it’s not necessarily a problem, but it’s an issue and it’s something that’s in our community and the city is tackling this head on and involving the community in that discussion,” Burns said.
The next public meeting will be held on Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Walton Building, 300 S. Providence Road.
The Convention and Visitors Bureau plans on combining previous survey results and open comments and feedback from both rounds of meeting. It will also research short-term rentals in other destinations and provide a report with recommendations to present to City Council for feedback and discussions.
Correction: A previous version of this article mentioned that speakers at the meeting noted that the total revenue for Airbnb for 2017 was $2,821,971. After publication, a representative of Airbnb said Airbnb hosts in Columbia earned about $1.1 million in 2017.