Residents urge council to bar short‑term rentals in single‑family neighborhoods

Hundreds of residents from neighborhoods across Birmingham told the City Council on March 10 that short‑term rental properties are eroding single‑family neighborhoods and urged the council to ban STRs in those zones.

"One of our primary concerns about short‑term rentals is the fact that Birmingham is a city in decline," said Valerie Abbott, who identified herself as a resident of Glen Iris Park. Abbott told the council she and neighbors had counted what she described as a very large number of short‑term rentals and said the conversions remove housing from families and children, contributing to school closures. "When you take housing out of the picture, you also take families and children out of the picture," she said.

Other speakers described neighborhood disturbances and public‑safety risks. "We had one party that was about 70 or 80 young people…when I called in the noise complaint it got louder and the police had to go get the owner to bring her there to get them out of the house," said Anna Brown of North Birmingham. Brown said party‑related parking blocked a street used by Station 13 fire trucks, creating a hazard: "That could cause somebody to have a loss of property and even worse life."

John Borncastle, who said he has lived on 20th Avenue South for 43 years, and other residents described a pattern of investors buying starter homes and converting them to rentals, which they said has led some families to leave the city. "By the purchase of these homes by investors, not only have we suffered the consequences of gunshots and parties and limited parking, we have turned over homes that originally young people bought," Borncastle said.

Several neighborhood leaders — including representatives from Bush Hills, Forest Park, Westchester and other districts — told the council the problem is citywide. Zwaledine Streeter, president of the Bush Hills Neighborhood Association, said: "We're asking you all to consider strongly, to protect us, to continue to be a neighborhood and not an error in the resident area."

Abbott also accused local realtors of political influence, saying realtors "brag that they have the city council because of the $10,000 campaign donations they made to 8 of 9 of the councilors." The claim was raised during public comment and not addressed on the record during the meeting.

Council members heard the speakers' list to conclusion. The council did not vote on a policy change at the March 10 meeting; public comment ended and the meeting was adjourned.

Next steps were not announced during the meeting.