Alexandria's New Short-Term Rental Regulations Cover Parking, Occupancy, More

ALEXANDRIA, VA — Stricter guidelines are coming to Alexandria short-term rentals after action by the Alexandria City Council Saturday.

Short-term rentals are rentals for less than 30 days often through third-party websites like Airbnb and Vrbo. City staff had proposed zoning ordinance amendments in response to resident complaints about short-term rentals, such as noise, parking and trash issues from guests. The city has received 62 complaints about short-term rentals since 2018 through the 311 reporting system, with 32 reported in 2024 alone.

The new guidelines do not ban short-term rentals but will now require a short-term rental permit, occupancy and parking requirements, notifications of a new short-term rental to neighboring properties, and distribution of a "good neighbor guide" to guests.

Tony LaColla, the city's land use services division chief, noted that Alexandria is the last of its neighboring localities to add short-term rental regulations.

Scroll down to the last section of the article for a list of the new short-term rental requirements.

"We welcome short-term rentals in Alexandria," said Councilmember Kirk McPike during City Council's discussion Saturday. "We recognize that they provide a different option for people who wish to visit our beautiful city...and that they have a value to our community, but they also have impacts on our community, that we have had situations with particularly certain locations where we've had multiple complaints over the last couple of years."

He continued, "And what really drove this effort is to try to find a way to maintain the opportunity for people in Alexandria to have short-term rentals, for our city to have that revenue and that option available, but also to eliminate the negative externalities that can come from a poorly-managed short term-rental, and instead of just relying upon the vendors, we as the government representing the people want to step in and say, these are the standards that we have for our community."

Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley made the motion to approve city staff's recommended guidelines with one change. The change was related to parking arrangements in enhanced transit areas when required parking cannot be provided on site or on the street. Instead of only allowing alternate parking within 500 feet of the short-term rental, Bagley amended it to allow other parking arrangements approved by the planning and zoning director.

Councilmember Canek Aguirre disagreed with the change to parking, arguing that 500 feet is enough distance to provide a parking arrangement.

"To put it into a little bit more context, 500 feet is about the distance from Taco Bell here on King Street to Chipotle and it's not just that one street, right?" Aguirre said. "We're talking about a radius. So now you're opening up all the other streets around you to be able to find a parking space."

Councilmember John Taylor Chapman acknowledged that parking options may be available within 500 feet. But the city has some parking lot owners that are restrictive with parking users.

"We've been...for probably about the last decade or more, trying to get certain parking lot owners to be nicer about public parking or share agreements and they don't want to," said Chapman.

Bagley's motion also opted to use a city staff recommendation over a planning commission recommendation on which neighbors to notify about creating a short-term rental. The city staff option in the approved guidelines requires notifications to abutting properties. The planning commission option would have required notifications to properties within a 100-foot radius.

How Much Should Short-Term They Be Regulated?

City Council heard from several public speakers who outlined the economic benefits of the rentals and warned about the impact of more regulations.

City resident Jordan Wright said she and her late husband became Airbnb hosts nine years ago and rely on the rental income to remain in her home. Wright said she is rated as a Superhost based on the quality of guest experience and lives on the premises of the rental.

Wright pointed to the importance of tourism spending, particularly with significant amounts of firings of federal workers.

"Shouldn't the city turn its focus to consider how many residents are losing their jobs or need to move away from the city, and how many office spaces will be empty of daily workers who spend their shopping and dining money out in the city?" Wright said. "Even if these residents were to remain in the city, they will worry about spending since many will be on unemployment, at least in the short term, thousands will be jockeying for the same positions, meaning opportunities for quick employment will be limited. This translates into a loss of revenue for local businesses and services."

Boyd Walker, another Airbnb Superhost, said the new parking requirement could prompt many Airbnb rentals to shut down. Walker and his partner rent four off-site parking spaces for their Airbnb rental, but they are often not occupied, as guests may fly in, take Uber and ride Metro.

"If those eight units are full time renters, that would mean eight cars on the street," said Walker.

"Old Town was not designed with modern parking needs in mind," said another speaker, Cassidy Jones. "As one of the most walkable neighborhoods in the region, its charm comes from its narrow streets, historic row homes and pedestrian-friendly design. Requiring dedicated parking for short-term rentals would create an undue burden on the homeowners, many of whom live in historic properties without street parking."

Walker said Airbnb rentals provided $3.2 million in revenue to the city on top of property tax revenue.

"If you're not prepared to raise the tax rate, I suggest that you not try to restrict Airbnbs and discourage them from locating in Alexandria," said Walker.

Councilmember Jacinta Greene acknowledged that the public speakers included "responsible and very responsive" short-term rental owners. However, Greene said she lives in a neighborhood where the short-term rentals are "party houses."

"As you can imagine, I get a lot of knocks on my door about it, and actually going through and campaigning knocking on doors, it was probably one of the top five things issues that did come up," said Greene.

Councilmember Abdel Elnoubi shared concerns with parking requirements in enhanced transit areas and wanted to explore exceptions for areas based on location and parking availability.

"We're trying to strike the right balance here and find the sweet spot, but we also don't want to over regulate," said Elnoubi. "We're trying to make sure that we maintain quality of life, but we also don't want to drive operators out. We don't want to decrease the amount of people coming to visit Alexandria and live in Alexandria."

LaColla told City Council that many parking complaints come from neighborhoods that have larger single-family houses

"You might have eight or 10 adults staying there, and they're all bringing a car," said LaColla. "It's a significant impact on the neighborhood. So I don't have any heartburn about eliminating the requirement for properties within the enhanced transit area, but outside the enhanced transit area, that's where we hear the majority of the complaints related to the impact of parking in those neighborhoods."

Mayor Alyia Gaskins asked how the city staff will address enforcement with new guidelines in place.

"In some of our single family unit homes, that's where we have received a lot of the noise complaints," said Gaskins. "It's been that it's one o'clock in the morning, it's two o'clock in the morning, and I think what's ended up happening is then they become all calls to the police, which also isn't a great way to enforce these policies."

LaColla noted that a majority of noise complaints measured by noise inspectors do not violate the city's noise ordinance. If an operator does receive a noise citation, LaColla says the third-party services can be notified to remove the guests from the platform.

City Manager James Parajon said the city budget being proposed on Tuesday includes an additional noise inspector. In addition, a short-term rental manager for the city would be covered by short-term rental fees.

The new guidelines include a permit requirement for properties used as short-term rentals for more than 10 days a year. City staff said the third-party service would provide mailings on the city's new regulations and encourage them to apply for their short-term rental permit. LaColla says the city won't be able to approve permits for the city's estimated hundreds of short-term rentals immediately. It will have a phased approach to permit approvals.

"In the beginning, it will be gentle enforcement, just lots of reminders," said LaColla. "But once we have the vast majority of short term rental operators permitted, that's when we will probably be a little tougher and make sure that someone who's operating is operating legally."

The New Short-Term Rental Guidelines

Occupancy

Rentals are limited to two people per bedroom plus two additional people at all times. That limit excludes children 3 and under.

No more than 10 people would be permitted in any short-term rental, regardless of bedrooms.

Proposed occupancy limits apply to gatherings. For rentals in commercial, office and mixed-use zones, events beyond the occupancy limit would only be allowed if events are permitted as an accessory to the short-term rental use. Renters would also need to follow rules on hours, delivery and pickup hours, outdoor food and materials storage, and trash removal.

Parking

Rentals would be required to provide 0.75 parking spaces per bedroom in non-transit areas and 0.25 spaces in transit areas. Rentals in an enhanced transit area zone would need to provide one parking space for one bedroom, two parking spaces for two or three bedrooms, three spaces for four bedrooms and four spaces for five bedrooms. Rentals outside the transit area would have to provide no spaces for one bedroom and one space for two, three, four and five bedrooms.

Required parking in enhanced transit areas not provided on site may be provided off site through a parking arrangement approved by the city's planning and zoning director.

Accessory Living Units

A 120-day limit per year on using accessory dwelling units as a short-term rental is being removed. However, the city is banning use of the main home and accessory dwelling unit as a short-term rental listing at the same time.

Guest Rules

Short-term rental operators need to provide a "good neighbor guide" to guests. The guide would inform guests of rules to respect neighbors, including occupancy limits, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. quiet hours, a request to keep noise levels to a minimum at all times, following proper trash and pet waste disposal, parking rules and locations, and local transit information.

To address complaints, operators or their property managers must be available by phone 24/7 to address complaints. A quick response within one hour is required for quality of life violations like occupancy, large parties or events and noise ordinance violations.

Permits

A short-term residential permit application is needed for properties used more than 10 days per year as short-term rentals. The owner would need to provide contact information, if the property is owner occupied, occupancy, parking locations, and more.

Operators who run a rental without a permit and receive two or more zoning citations would not be able to apply for a short-term rental permit for one year.

A permit may be revoked with 30 days notice due to an incomplete application, false or misleading information, three or more violations of the same city law in the permit year from a short-term rental operation, five or more violations of separate city law sections in the same permit year from a short-term rental operation, or a violation of city law due to a short-term rental operation with a health and safety risk to guests or abutting property residents.

Neighbor Notifications

Operators would also be required to notify neighbors of their intent to create a short-term rental. This applies to neighbors in abutting properties.

Noise and Trash Violations

City staff are not proposing any new guidelines on noise but say city code regulates noise. However, a noise violation confirmed by a noise inspector can count toward the three or more zoning citations that can lead the city to revoke the short-term rental permit. Similarly, trash and recycling is covered under city code, but city staff are proposing short-term rental operators post information about waste disposal.