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Residents press council on Airbnbs and traffic-calming; propose license suspensions after repeated calls
Summary
During public comment residents urged the council to address late-night parties and parking tied to short-term rentals and requested speed humps on local blocks. Speakers proposed suspending short-term rental licenses after repeated police calls and pointed to limited enforcement capacity.
Residents used the public-comment period to urge the council to take stronger steps on neighborhood safety and code enforcement, focusing on speed-calming measures and repeated disturbances tied to short-term rentals.
Greg Parish of Oak Forest (providing his address on the record) said his subdivision has several short-term rental units and called the neighborhood's experience "unacceptable." "Right now, there are a total of at least 5 in our neighborhood," Parish said, and he described repeated late-night noise and a large number of vehicles arriving at one address. "On 27, we have at least 20 cars there parked up and down our street between the hours of 2AM and 4AM," he said, and proposed that the city suspend or revoke a short-term rental license after a defined number of police calls within a set period.
Other speakers asked the council to add speed humps on the 200 block of Jay Crest and Old Hill and to expand traffic-calming in Oak Forest. A resident said the city has a process for traffic-calming requests and that staff would follow up with contact information and a public-works referral; staff told several callers that follow-up would occur.
On enforcement, a resident and other commenters said ordinances exist on paper (including an established penalty that can lead to license suspension after multiple violations) but that enforcement is hampered by staffing and record-keeping. A staff speaker acknowledged the city has two code-enforcement positions, one currently filled and one vacant, and said staff would check and report back on enforcement status and next steps for callers who provided contact information.
Council and staff did not adopt a new short-term rental policy at the meeting; they instructed staff to follow up on the complaints and to provide contact and next-step information to the residents who raised concerns.
