Annapolis swings ‘really big hammer’ with $5K fine for short-term rental violations

The Annapolis City Council voted Monday night to increase the maximum fine for violating city rules around short-term rentals from $1,000 to $5,000.

Annapolis has a long history of combating illegal short-term home rentals, and placed a one-year moratorium on licensing new ones in March. The historic state capital also has a rule that says no more than 10% of homes in a city block can be licensed short-term rentals.

Residents have long complained that short-term rentals — often booked through Airbnb or Vrbo — change the character of Annapolis, replacing neighbors with vacationers or empty properties.

At Monday night’s meeting, council members said the fine is not intended to punish people who violate the city’s rules unknowingly.

Council member Brooks Schandelmeier said most people who rent out their homes play by the rules, but there are some “loud, annoying schmucks who just do not care.”

Schandelmeier said he supported increasing the maximum fine because he “wanted to hit them with a really big hammer.”

Mayor Jared Littmann campaigned in part on getting short-term rentals under control, and passing the moratorium was part of his plan for his first 100 days in office. A report last year from the city’s Department of Planning and Zoning estimated that only half of the 560 or so short-term rentals in the city were properly licensed.

Mitchelle Stephenson, a spokesperson for the city of Annapolis, said there have been 59 code violation cases for unlicensed short-term rentals since the moratorium went into effect March 9.

As of Sept. 29, there are 376 licensed short-term rentals in the city, she said, including rentals that are exclusively for big, citywide events, such as the annual boat shows and the U.S. Naval Academy commencement.

Littmann said ratcheting the fine up to $5,000 came at the recommendation of city staff, who had expressed “a lot of frustration” that the existing fine did not dissuade people from operating unlicensed rentals.

A $5,000 fine is the maximum allowable by state law, Littmann said, and is meant to be an amount that exceeds what an unlicensed rental could earn.

He emphasized the fine was “up to” $5,000, leaving city staff “ample room” to determine how serious a violation is. The change to the fine is effective immediately.