City of Buffalo could temporarily ban new applications on short-term rentals

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The Buffalo Common Council is voting Tuesday on a proposed temporary ban on new applications for short-term rental spaces.

The vote comes as Buffalo lawmakers continue to look for ways to balance the preservation of neighborhoods along with the growing number of Airbnbs in the city.

Councilman Mitch Nowakowski was one of the five councilmembers who co-sponsored a resolution calling for a moratorium on permits issued by the city for non-owner-occupied short-term rentals.

He said the resolution comes after countless complaints from neighbors along with a study conducted by the city to see how many there are.

“The City of Buffalo paid about $80,000 for an application to search all of the internet on multiple platforms on short-term rentals that are being rented and been being marketed on the internet,” said Nowakowski. “We’re roughly thinking about — maybe there might be a thousand, but about 100 folks throughout the course of a few months have come in to get applications, so we’ve seen the surge.”

Nowakowski hopes to avoid an increase of neighborhoods without permanent residents.

The new moratorium seeks a complete ban on non-owner-occupied, short-term rental permits that would reside in residential and single-family zoned neighborhoods across Buffalo.

Nowakowski said the majority of them are in Elmwood Village, Allentown and the lower west side.

“A lot of neighbors are saying we live in a residential neighborhood that’s becoming less residential,” he said.

He added that the areas encompassing these short-term rentals have seen an increase in 311 and 911 calls and complaints.

According to the resolution, the moratorium looks to “balance the preservation of neighborhoods with the need for short-term lodging within the city.”

“It’s a balance of where we put this in, so hopefully we will see more Airbnbs in commercial uses if they are helpful to commercial areas,” Nowakowski said. “But this is really to promote neighborhood harmony because neighborhoods are facing a lot of flack and a lot of disunity when it comes to these permits.”

If passed, the ban would be in place until March of next year. It wouldn’t affect owners who live in their short-term rentals or non-owner-occupied rentals if the owner lives within 1,000 feet of the property. Residents can also renew a permit if they already have one.

“We need our zoning and planning departments in our Green Code to really lay out how do we interpret this and handle this from a code perspective because councilmembers are now becoming the arbiter for every single item when it comes to short-term rentals and brokering deals between residents and the applicant or just denying them, so, it’s really become a kerfuffle,” Nowakowski said.

The measure is currently in the hands of the Legislation Committee and will be discussed further at its next meeting on Tuesday.

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Dillon Morello is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has been part of the News 4 team since September of 2023. See more of his work here and follow him on Twitter.

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