Argyle town officials want to determine how to deal with an issue other cities are facing: short-term rentals.

The matter was discussed at the May 15 council meeting.

What are short-term rentals?: Short-term rentals, or STRs, are housing options that provide shorter stays than apartments, which usually offer the typical 12-month agreements. STRs can be found in already established homes.

Background: A Town Council agenda memo stated staff investigated the option of setting up a registration program for STRs, as staff had received inquiries about this matter and discovered there are several homes within Argyle that are listed on short-term rental websites.

Staff consulted with the town attorney and learned short-term rentals may not be regulated from a land-use perspective, but for taxing purposes these rentals are considered hotels and would be required to pay the hotel occupancy tax as required per Article 11.04 of the Town’s Code of Ordinance. To track the properties for taxing purposes and investigate possible code violations appropriately, the memo stated, many towns and cities in North Texas have established a registration program, with Denton being one of those cities.

Some common specifics found for these programs are registration fees, hotel occupancy taxes and restrictions, such as a maximum number of occupants and vehicles.

What happens now?: “They were just talking about moving forward with developing a policy, and so they just asked Nabila [Nur, director of community development] to look into it a little bit further,” Town Administrator Erika McComis said. “She’s already researched some with other cities, and so she’ll continue doing that and put a policy together, and just bring it back to workshop it [with council].”

The policy would set up registration rules so people who are hosting rentals are conforming with various regulations, McComis said. She added there are three or four places in town that have these rentals.

“So, it’s not a huge percentage of this area that’s doing it,” she said.

What else?: In another agenda item, council approved amending the name of the proposed law enforcement facility from the Don Moser Law Enforcement Facility to the Donald G. Moser Law Enforcement Facility. Moser, a former mayor of Argyle, died in April 2022.

The next meeting is scheduled for June 26.