Need a room? Prices at Alexandria Airbnbs are skyrocketing during inauguration weekend.
The inauguration of Donald Trump as president will take place at the U.S. Capitol — just a few miles down the Potomac River from Alexandria.
Airbnb
Alexandria’s been seeking public feedback on proposed short-term rental regulations and has started to make changes to the proposed regulation based on feedback.
Namely, city staff said in a presentation that the proposed requirement that an operator/local agent live within 15 miles of the city has been removed.
Alexandria’s City Council will be weighing up new regulations on short-term rentals this fall, and the City is collecting public feedback on what shape that should take.
Proposed regulations include:
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The City of Alexandria could be moving forward with regulations on short-term rental properties like Airbnb this fall, but a staff report on the topic revealed interesting statistics on who rents in Alexandria.
There are around 725 short term rentals operating in Alexandria. There are 460 registered with the city and another 265 are probably unregistered units — either not registered with the city or granted an exemption. That’s 0.88% of the available housing stock, which the report said isn’t enough to affect housing prices.
For as much controversy as there can be around short-term rentals — businesses like Airbnb that rent out homes to visiting guests — a city report said there have been relatively few complaints about them in Alexandria.
In a report to the City Council last week, Land Use Services Division Chief Tony LaColla noted that there are 460 short-term rentals registered in Alexandria and 265 estimated unregistered units.
Tessa Read and Boyd Walker own six Airbnb rentals in Alexandria and had 20 cancellations last week.
Airbnb sent out an email on Saturday to hosts explaining that its extenuating circumstances policy is in effect until April 14, meaning that guests can cancel reservations for full refunds and without paying penalties.
City Phone Service Restored — The City of Alexandria’s non-emergency phone lines are working again after service was restored Tuesday night. A cut to a fiber optic line caused the outage, a city spokeswoman said. [Twitter/@AlexandriaVAGov]
House With George Washington Connection on Airbnb — “George Washington may have slept here, and now so could you… in the heart of Old Town Alexandria in Virginia, where a house that once belonged to the first U.S. president is available to rent. The George of Old Town is a 6000-square-foot townhouse on Cameron Street, and it is available on Airbnb.” [WTOP]