After recent discussions about short-term rental activity in the area, specifically during the previous Maryville City Council meeting, Heiland said he wanted to provide a greater understanding of the issue during the Jan. 26 meeting.
Maryville voters approved the transient guest tax in 2017, which Heiland said places an additional 5% tax on hotel and motel rooms, short-term rentals and temporary housing of the like.
“It does go toward funding the tourism department, as well as partnership with Northwest on the (Carl and Cheryl) Hughes Fieldhouse, so that’s where those funds are allocated since 2017,” Heiland said. “In 2019, we did approve the short-term rental ordinance, and so we’ve been working through that process over the past several years.”
Heiland said all short-term rentals are required to be registered, and some must operate under a special use permit if they are in a residential area.
However, Heiland said the existence of hidden short-term rentals has made it a challenge for the city to receive its proper taxes.
“Of the registered ones, we’ve also found out not all of them (short-term rental owners) understood what the transient guest tax was,” Heiland said. “When you look at the…owner side of the Airbnb contract, there’s language in there that makes it look like Airbnb is automatically collecting that (transient guest tax) — it is not.”
While the short-term rentals still collect the appropriate city sales tax and remit it to the city, Heiland said they are not obtaining the additional 5% tax.
Heiland said Maryville Assistant Finance Director Cheyenne Murphy has sent out 15 letters to the known short-term rental owners about this. Already, seven or eight are now aware of and paying the tax, and Heiland said some have offered some back pay.
“We’ve had a great response,” Heiland said. “A lot of these Airbnb owners, short-term rental owners, are very compliant, and just like, ‘Oh, wow, I didn’t realize that was the issue.”
Additionally, Heiland said Airbnb has agreed to send out the city’s ordinance to all of its listed short-term rentals in Maryville.
There is software the city can utilize to identify all short-term rentals within the community, but Heiland said that would cost about $8,000, and he said he’s hesitant about how necessary it would be. As of now, city staff will go through each travel site manually to keep track of each rental.
Councilwoman Erin Allen asked how including the additional 5% would work for some of those unregistered Airbnb properties. Murphy said, from her understanding, that Airbnb would give its hosts the option to add the tax to their listings.
“It doesn’t have to come from your (hosts’) revenue, but it’s on the host to do that themselves,” Murphy said.
Other City Council Business
Fluid Equipment/Cogent, Inc. is replacing variable frequency drives for the East Lift Station to the Wastewater Treatment Facility. Public Works Director Matt Smith said this station is the most operationally critical and is essential for regulating wastewater, but damage to the VFD panels requires the replacement of multiple VFDs. Fluid Equipment/Cogent, Inc. quoted $97,041.18 for the replacements and fixing the cause of the damage, which was found to be corrosion caused by migrating hydrogen sulfide gas. The Council approved redirecting $50,000 currently budgeted for the addition of a third pump at the Southwest Lift Station, as well as allocating $50,000 from reserves to fund this. Smith said the additional pump at the Southwest Lift Station is still necessary, but can be deferred without near-term consequences, unlike the East Lift Station.
For the Downtown Pedestrian Alleyway Project, three local artists were hired to paint murals. These are Ashton Markt, who has created many murals for the city before, Maryville-native Jacklyn Anderson, and Doodle Dood, LLC. This is included within the Missouri ARPA Community Revitalization Grant Program, of which Maryville is a recipient, and Maryville Tourism Director DeAnn Davison said these projects directly align with the city’s comprehensive plan.
This story is brought to KXCV-KRNW by The Northwest Missourian, the campus newspaper of Northwest Missouri State University.