Wilmington’s City Council appears ready to move on new regulations for short term rentals, like Airbnb. They’ll discuss it next week, but staff are offering recommendations, and we already know what those are. Essentially, homes would have to be licensed, there would be limits on the numbers, and there would be restrictions on how close together two such homes could be.
Last year, Raleigh debated the same thing. I wrote about it then, and all the same principles apply in Wilmington now. In short,
Cities should, as far as is possible, preserve the rights of property owners to use their property however they see fit. Leaving this particular issue to provisions that already exist – criminal law, noise and nuisance ordinances, and HOA covenants – would do just that.
