It is important to highlight that the Clark County Short Term Rental "Lottery" today will serve no purpose other than to merely establish the order in which all applications will be reviewed by the County. This is not what will ultimately determine who will get a license.
It is another unnecessary and wasteful step in the already convoluted and disorganized Short Term Rental Licensing Process created by Clark County; a process which stil lacks answers to the many questions applicants have raised for months about the process itself and most importantly lacks an actual firm date of when exactly applicants will receive a license.
See Clark County's official process timeline here.
There are still several requirements and restrictions that applicants will still be subjected to, even after being selected by the “lottery.” It is as if the County is making up the process as it goes.
The lottery was completely unnecessary and a waste of taxpayers' money especially since less than half of the 2,800 licenses, the County is offering, applied. None of the other municipalities, like the City of Las Vegas, City of Henderson, or North Las Vegas used a lottery. It was simply a “first come-first serve" application process, as it should have been in the County.
Clark County copied San Diego’s use of a lottery system which also turned out to be a failure and a waste of taxpayer’s money in that City. Clark County’s own estimate of between 9,000 to 10,000 STRs make this entire licensing process a complete failure as hosts have no faith or trust in the County.
This is largely due to the fact that Clark County has for years been engaged in a “war” against these Las Vegas homeowners issuing them fines of $1,000 per day and by placing huge liens on these private property owners‘ homes for the simple crime of renting their home for less than 31 days, which we believe is in violation of the Nevada and US Constitution, State law, and the County's own Code. These fines are currently under litigation in two separate lawsuits. One in District Court and the other on appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court.
However, despite the County's unlawful actions over the years it has failed to bully and shut down the vast number of STR homeowners. The County's Code Enforcement officers simply do not know where all these rentals are located. So when they were asking homeowners to first register for the STR pre-application process by disclosing their identity and property location with no guarantee of being issued a license, most homeowners opted to not apply.
This failure by the County will only lead to the vast majority of these STRs to continue operating in the shadows and the County will continue to waste even more taxpayers‘ money for a failed licensing scheme and enforcement action which for years has failed to shut down the thousands of STRs in the County this is due to the fact that the vast majority of these rentals operate without any issues and the ones that do get reported are turned in simply because Clark County has been telling residents that if they “suspect their neighrbor of renting their house for less than 31 days” to report them, even when no nuisance is occurring.
In fact, STRs cause very little to no issues that Clark County even had to redefine the definition of what a nuisance is in the County Code by including “renting one’s home for less than 31 days” or “short term renting" as part of the definition of nuisance. This was done so they could continue to push the false narrative that STRs are a “nuisance” under the Code and to fine then even when there is no actual nuisance occurring.
Clark County has wasted millions of taxpayers’ money over the years and continues to waste even more money trying to stop homeowners from renting their home for less than 31 days, to please the resort hotel industry and the culinary union, under the guise of stopping nuisance in the County by sending code enforcement officers on daily drives throughout the valley looking for STRs or responding to “nuisance” calls; as well as sending Metro police officers on “wild goose chases” instead of allowing our police officers to focus on investigating and solving actual crime and sending code enforcement officers out to inspect and resolve actual nuisance issues and code violations in the County.
This is why we will continue to fight for a system that’s fair, clear, streamlined, and more importantly lawful so that homeowners in Clark County aren’t subjected to government actions that violate State law and the Nevada and US Constitution.
To get the STR Number Generator results, click here.
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