Clark County announced Tuesday that it intends to step up enforcement on violations of short-term rental rules.

“We’ve been reactive in our enforcement up to this point,” Jim Andersen, code enforcement manager, told the Clark County Commission. “We want to start doing proactive enforcement.”

Recent changes include implementing a lien system to recover fines and entering into a contract with a company to search rental listings and identify short term rental homes that aren’t licensed, he said.

The latter is a “significant tool to gaining compliance,” Andersen said

A county team, STREET, has nine staffers who investigate illegal rentals. Since its founding in 2018, it’s launched 5,724 probes, Andersen said. He said 93 percent of the cases are closed without fines. There are 590 investigations pending.

“We really strive to get voluntary compliance through education,” Andersen said.

Owners who continue to operate illegally can be fined between $1,000 to $10,000 per illegal rental day, according to the county.

Now, those fines can be recovered through their liens on their property, Andersen said.

Legal challenge to continue ‘very soon’

The county has issued 174 licenses since August, after it ironed out its regulatory procedures, according to Vincent Queano, Clark County’s director of business licensing. He said 141 licenses have been denied, and 515 others were pending.

The county said 169 denial notices were sent out a week ago due to distance restrictions. There can’t be two short-term rentals within 1,000 feet of each other, Queano said.

The licensing and regulations processes for county short-term rentals, which was legalized through the Nevada Legislature, has faced pushback from the Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association.

The organization sued the county in District Court, which granted a preliminary injunction finding that portions of the ordinance were unconstitutional. The association appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court in 2023 claiming the judge hadn’t addressed the entirety of the group’s claims, association president Jacqueline Flores said at the time.

Flores told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Tuesday that the higher court had requested the association to add individual plaintiffs. She said the association was going to be refilling the lawsuit “very soon.”

The association wasn’t told about Tuesday’s discussion, according to Flores, who said the county had assured it that it would inform it of any new developments.

“We’re going on three years now,” Flores said about the legal battle. She said under 200 licenses had been issued in the county, leaving hundreds more homeowners in limbo.

Commissioner Justin Jones requested Tuesday’s discussion. He instructed staff to push for short-term rental platforms to obtain business licenses. Jones said the county had received pushback from some companies, which he did not name.

The county said it would give the companies a Sept. 1 deadline to comply.

Queano said the county licenses an average of six short-term rental homes a week; it would take more than a year to process the remaining applications.

The chosen applicants were processed through a lottery. Queano suggested the county switch to first-come, first-served and relax insurance and sewer requirements.

Currently, property owners must provide proof of $500,000 in liability insurance and the home’s connection to a municipal waste water system when they apply for the permit. Queano proposed for those requirements to be due at the time of the applications’ approval.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.

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