The City of Buffalo Common Council enacted a shared housing ordinance on October 29, 2019, which regulates short-term residential activity in the City of Buffalo.
This legislation impacts owners and operators of vacation rentals properties listed on sites such as Airbnb, HomeAway, VRBO and Booking.com. Please take a moment to review the information below.
Fees
Owner Occupied
To qualify as owner occupied, you must have 2 pieces of mail and a "drivers license" with the property listed address. This can be a single or multi-family property and currently is written to share a "roof". This applies to home-share as well.
To qualify, look at the map in the document below (pg 17) and make sure your property is not designated in the N-4-30 or N-4-50 zones. If so, you will need to join the registry ($25 or $50 annually), and apply for a certificate ($150 first year, $75 subsequent years). Permits and inspections will then inspect your property ($75 fee) and are primarily looking for interconnected smoke/co in each sleeping area, and a fire alarm in hallway/living room (specifics may change slightly) for the first floor and 2nd floors.
Basement and 3rd floor will have a higher level of scrutiny. As long as you are not in N-4-30 or N-4-50 this is the essence of the process.
Additional notes:
The inspection and special permit fees apply once to an entire parcel (regardless of whether you rent one room or 2+ apartments on that parcel).
An owner or manager must be a resident of Erie County to obtain a certificate.
Properties that are currently prohibited are apartment building and townhouse condos that may have exclusions in their HOA.
Non-Owner Occupied
For non owner occupied, you will need to do the above and follow the special use permit process in the document below (pg 18-20). Again a problem if you are in the N-4-30 or N-4-50 zones. This is a standard process across the city for special use permits and will take 3-6 months to process. They are not trying to shut down short-term rentals businesses with this process, but they want us to follow the rules.
Fees are ($25 or $50) for registry, a certificate fee of ($250 first year, $150 subsequent years) plus a $75 inspection fee.
A special permit for non-owner occupied properties in N-2R and N-3R areas is also required (see map to see where your rental is located. They are light pink and light orange areas)
N-4-30 or N-4-50 Zones (Single Family Zones)
If your property is located in zones N-4-30 or N-4-50 (marked light and dark yellow on the map) you will need to seek the above plus a zoning variance, which has a public hearing and allows for community input.
These zones are, for the most part, comprised of single family residential homes. Homeowners on these streets generally purchase in these zones with the expectation that they wouldn’t be next to a business. This is why it’s more difficult to operate a short-term rental business on these particular zones within the City of Buffalo. See figure:
Zoning Variance
If you happen to have property in N-4-30 or N-4-50, you will need to seek the above plus a zoning variance, which has a public hearing and allows for community input.
Additional Resources
Ordinance Amendment
Chapter 264. Rental Dwelling Unit Registration
The Common Council of the City of Buffalo hereby finds and declares that the rental of dwelling units constitutes a business which impacts upon the public health, safety and general welfare of the people of the City of Buffalo. The intent of this chapter is to regulate the long and short term [offering for] rental of dwelling units to protect the public health, safety and general welfare of the people of the City of Buffalo and to further achieve the following purposes:
Occupancy Checklist
City of Buffalo - Code Section 129-9 (Additional Provisions) - Requires all multiple dwellings to renew their certificate of occupancy every 3 years.
The following is a general list of fire/safety requirements that are checked for compliance during a certificate of occupancy inspection.
Zoning Map
City of Buffalo, Unified Development Ordinance. This map is used to determine which zone your short-term rental is located.
Click image to zoom into map
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