Lehi delays short-term rental ordinance after staff raises coverage and prosecution concerns

An unidentified staff member asked the Lehi City Council to postpone consideration of a draft ordinance addressing short-term vacation rentals and "marketplace facilitators" so Lehi city legal counsel can review the language, the staff member said.

The staff member said the original draft did not clearly cover marketplace facilitators — third parties that list or manage short-term rentals on platforms such as VRBO — and worried the language could either miss the primary offenders or inadvertently criminalize hosts who completed required training. The speaker asked the council to delay further action until the city attorney reviews two referenced "LC" numbers and revised language is drafted.

The staff member said, "we have 2, l c numbers that, 1 of those you don't have," and urged a postponement so "we're gonna get Lehi counsel to take a look at the 2 l c numbers." The speaker described marketplace facilitators as intermediaries who allow guests to check in without seeing a person and argued that, as written, the ordinance might not capture those facilitators: "that's the short term vacation rentals. And also the marketplace facilitators, which are the third party that rents these things that gets these folks into the, into the VRBOs, if you will."

At the same time, the staff member cautioned the council against drafting language that would "inadvertently prosecute somebody that, unbeknownst to them, has taken the training that this bill is gonna require, and then send them to jail because they didn't know." The speaker said the goal was to craft an "umbrella" broad enough to "catch all of these offenders" while including a knowledge or intent requirement so compliant hosts would not be subject to criminal penalties.

No formal vote or mover/second was recorded in the provided transcript; the action in the meeting was a staff request to postpone the item until the next meeting for legal review. The staff member closed by adjourning the meeting and saying they would "send you a message on our next meeting tomorrow."