The Yardley Borough Council voted to advertise their short-term rental ordinance for commercial zones at their Tuesday meeting. The ordinance will allow residents to use their homes for a source of income while providing regulations that limit saturating the area with short term lodging.
Over the course of almost a year and a half, the council developed a short-term rental ordinance trying to balance the Yardley community’s thoughts on the issue – specifically in regards to Airbnbs. The final draft of the ordinance will be advertised to the Yardley community before the council votes on the ordinance on May 25. The ordinance will be published in a local newspaper for public review.
“The general consensus is that Airbnbs really screw up neighborhoods and me personally, I don’t want to see that happen to Yardley,” said Yardley resident Brad Levine during public comment, a concern also shared by others.
Council member Don Carlson presented an overview of the council’s process and key requirements of the ordinance. In September 2023, the Community and Economic Development Committee was tasked with reviewing short-term rental regulations which which set the council in motion to create an ordinance. The council agreed to develop a short term lodging (STL) ordinance only in their commercial zones at their meeting on January 21, 2025. In the past two months, the council made changes to their second draft and received comments from the Planning Commission.
The ordinance will require a licensing process allowing up to 10 STL licenses to be granted for the year. Each applicant will have to submit a floor plan which limits two guest per bedroom maximum, identifies bedroom safety equipment, and identifies all parking spots. The lodging will be subject to inspection during the initial application and annually. The applicants have to provide proof of paying Lodging Taxes and will be required to have $500,000 minimum Property/Liability Insurance.
The ordinance will not allow license approval for abutting properties and the council will review each year to determine the number licenses to approve. Council member Carlson noted the ordinance does not allow for short-term rentals in residential and industrial zones.
There are two commercial zones with residential homes. The main commercial zone is C-1 which runs along the west side of the Delaware Canal from the South Main Street. intersection to the Yardley-Makefield Fire Station. The area is Yardley’s downtown scene with a number of restaurants, businesses, and homes. There are a number of businesses and a home operating as a short-term rental in the smaller commercial zone, C-2, running alongside the Delaware River and up East Afton Avenue.
Council member Uri Feiner questioned the ordinance’s impact on the two existing short-term rentals. Carlson explained the existing short-term rentals, who are operating in the legal commercial zones, would be “grandfathered in” and would not count toward the 10 permit limit.
The grandfathered rentals would not have to follow the ordinances requirements, but would still be subject to existing ordinances regulating noise level. Solicitor Andrew Griffin added that the existing short-term rentals would get priority for licensing if they were to apply.
“All of those feedbacks both from Council, the mayor, Manager Johnson, and the public, and our Code Enforcement Officer, our Chief of Police, they all got boiled down into what we have now,” Council President Caroline Thompson said.
Members of the public were asked for comments or questions on the ordinance. Comments from residents were mixed. A couple residents opposed the ordinance altogether and wanted short-term rentals banned from Yardley. One resident thanked the council members for respecting the residents’ wishes to keep short-term rentals out of residential areas.
“I really think that short-term rentals in residential areas will greatly diminish the quality of life of the neighborhoods,” Sharon Abbott said.
Colin Burke, a resident on South Main Street in the commercial zone, said, “As a long-term renter, I think that Airbnb is a threat to people like me living in the Borough.”
Another resident had questions about protections against possible loopholes and how the ordinance would affect existing short-term rentals. Paul Mencel, resident of Yardley, asked about the ability for an apartment owners using units as individual short-term rentals.
“I was making sure that they could not do that because as we all know, we are in a severe housing shortage in general and the last thing we would want to be doing is pulling away from long-term rentals to create short-term rentals,” Mencel said.
After some discussion, the council concluded the owner would have to obtain four separate licenses to operate multiple units.
The public will have time to look over the outlined ordinance and make comments before the vote at the May 25 meeting.
