AirBnB - Chattanooga

[Tim Stone]

Hi, 

I've been in Chattanooga for about a year now so I have a pretty good feel for the city. I group up in a vacation town that sees phenomenal returns through short-term rentals. The city of Chattanooga has quite a few hoops to jump through in order to legally operate a STR so I was wondering if any BP users are legally operating AirBnbs and would like to talk.

Some people are finding great success in Chattanooga with STRs and others choose to stay away. Let me know your thoughts.

[Heidi Rau]

@Tim Stone I have owned and operated AirBnBs in the Chattanooga area. The city of Chattanooga has been extremely wishy-washy about STRs, mostly looking to Nashville on how to regulate. At first they tried to make property owners rezone to R3 or R4 in order to operate, which caused a big stink with neighbors because they worried about multi-family being built next door to single family. The city then changed everything in which you need to go through an approval process (much easier if owner-occupied than non-owner occupied). The good news is that it is easier to get approval than it was prior (previously if one neighbor complained when they sent out the notices, you couldn't get approval - it is now 4). The best advice I can give is if there are currently active STRs on the street you are looking at, your chances of getting approved are better because they already had to go through the approval process (assuming they did it the legal way). However, I did speak with the land development office about STRs recently (I am working on getting mine approved back as a STR), and the City Council apparently is in the drafting stages of "doing away with" non-owner occupied STRs. Current owners would be grandfathered in, but new applications would not be approved. Take note this is still in the drafting stages, and with this being an election year I doubt they will make any movement on it until after the first of the year if they pass it.

Also, anyone interested in learning more about the approval process for STRs in Chattanooga can go to the city site here. There is also an interactive map on the site that you can use to verify whether or not an address that is within the city limits is in the designated STR district.