Update, Sept. 15, 2026: This ordinance was removed from the City Council’s Sept. 15 agenda Tuesday afternoon and was not taken up at the meeting. It is expected to return at a later date; no date has been announced. Read our follow-up.
Buried at the end of a 156-page City Council Agenda for Tuesday’s meeting — that is, the one this week, on the 15th — is a new ordinance put forward by Mayor Smith. Times being what they are these days, I wonder if it’s time to talk about tax increases. Truth be known, if it passes, changes won’t take place until February of next year. However, I’m sure they have given this a lot of thought. Some people might feel that every time we find a way to make an extra dollar, someone always wants a piece of it. So, let’s simplify all the legalese that’s in the new document. What it says, who it says it to, and what it doesn’t say.
First, the name
The file in the agenda packet is called “Amendment — Single Room Rentals.” The ordinance’s own title says it establishes license fees for short-term rentals. Read the title and you’d think this is about Airbnb.
Then you get to page 152. There, in Section 14-395, the ordinance reaches every owner in Opelika who rents out a house, an apartment, a condo, a room, a dorm space, a mobile home, or a tiny home — the ordinance lists all of them by name. Not short-term. Regular, year-round, month-to-month renting. Page 153 does the same for commercial landlords: stores, restaurants, offices, warehouses. And a whole second article, starting on page 154, is about self-storage buildings.
So it is a short-term rental ordinance the way a grocery list is a bread list.
What it says, in plain words
If you rent your place for less than 30 days — an Airbnb, a VRBO, or just the spare bedroom — here is what changes:
- You need a city business license first, and the license number has to appear in your online ad. No license number, no listing.
- You must post inside the unit the name, phone and email of an adult who lives in Lee County. That person answers the phone 24 hours a day during any stay. If a city employee calls, that person has to be standing at the property within one hour.
- Before your first license, the house gets inspected by the Fire Official and a licensed home inspector. The inspection fee can run up to $100, and a fresh one is needed at least every two years. At renewal you sign a sworn statement that nothing has changed.
- The license fee is 1.5% of that unit’s gross receipts for the year, with a $100 minimum. Gross receipts means all the money that comes in, not what you clear.
- On top of that comes the lodging tax. The ordinance sets it at the same rate the city already charges hotels under Section 14-122, and that rate is 7 percent. It is due by the 20th of every month, with a report even in months you rented nothing. Pay late and the penalty is 10% of the tax or $50, whichever is bigger.
- If Airbnb collects the tax for you and then doesn’t send it to the city, the ordinance says plainly that you still owe it.
- Two violations on the same unit inside 12 months, and your license can be sent to the Council to be revoked. Police officers are specifically authorized to enforce all of this.
If you’re an ordinary landlord, page 152 sets your license at 1.5% of gross rent, $100 minimum, due every February 15 — and you must file a property-by-property list: each owner’s name, each address, the rent collected at each one, subtotals, totals. Turn in the money without the list and the city doesn’t count it as paid. Hire a management company and they can file for you, but you’re still the one on the hook if they don’t.
If you own commercial property, your license is one fortieth of one percent of gross revenue, $100 minimum. If you run a storage place, there’s a 1.5% monthly rental tax, a 1% tax on wages you pay, and your rental contracts must warn customers in bold type that you can put a lien on their belongings and sell them for back rent.
Now, what it doesn’t say
This is the part I’d want the Council asked about out loud on Tuesday.
It does not cap how many short-term rentals Opelika can have. It sets no limit by neighborhood, no rule that the owner must live on site, no minimum distance between rentals. If the worry is one street turning into a hotel row, this ordinance does not address it. It licenses and it taxes. It does not restrict.
It does not change zoning. It says follow the zoning we have.
It does not say what the money is for. There is no fiscal note — no estimate of how many rentals exist here, no projection of what this raises, no statement of purpose. And the existing lodging tax law, Section 14-131, sends that money to the general fund “for any lawful purpose of the city.” Not tourism. Not code enforcement. The general fund.
It does not spell out an appeal if your license is pulled, beyond the referral to Council.
And fairly: the 7% lodging tax and the license requirement for lodging are already on the books today. What’s genuinely new is the machinery — inspections, the one-hour local contact, revocation, police enforcement — and the 1.5% gross-receipts license quietly extended to every landlord in town.
One more small thing, and I mention it only because it’s easy to fix before a vote: the draft has two paragraphs both lettered (f), a stray “(4)” dropped into the middle of another, and two sections that point readers to “section (3) above” when the thing they’re describing is in section (5). Clean copy matters in a law people can be fined under.
It takes effect February 1, 2027. Hosts already operating legally get 30 days from that date to get licensed — not a phase-in, 30 days.
So, what do you think? Should we discuss this more? Citizens can always speak at Council meetings. Should this pass now, or be tabled for review and discussion?
Thanks to the Opelika Observer for bringing this to the attention of voters, and to another local business owner downtown who shared it on Facebook. We just wanted to put it into plain English.
