A divided Niagara Falls City Council approved a request from Mayor Robert Restaino to extend the contract of a company hired to monitor compliance with the city’s Short Term Rental (STR) ordinance at its meeting Wednesday night.
Council members voted 3-2 to extend, for one year, the contract with Granicus, a Denver, Colorado, consulting company. First hired in February 2022, it enforces the regulations and tax collection requirements contained in the Falls STR ordinance but has come under fire for not meeting those obligations.
Acting City Corporation Counsel Thomas DeBoy aggressively pushed back on the complaints saying criticism of Granicus is being led by a business association of STR operators who want “no enforcement” of the regulations. But DeBoy also admitted that the city’s Code Enforcement Department has frequently failed to act on information provided by Granicus.
In comments made to the council members, Cherish Beals, a leader of the STR association, repeated a charge that Granicus’ website “was down for 8 to 12 months” during its prior contract period, “so they weren’t even operating and we paid for a year while their site was not operating.” Beals said the company has frequently misidentified properties as STRs and questioned the $36,907 cost of the contract.
Granicus’ previous three-year agreement with the city required the company to provide enforcement services including, among other things, providing the city with “address identification, compliance rental activity monitoring, tax collections and a 24/7 web and phone hotline.”
DeBoy took issue with the claim the company’s website was inoperable for close to a year.
“I have never had any complaints about the site being down,” he said.
When Council Member Donta Myles (D) charged that Granicus had failed to shut down “any illegal STRs”, DeBoy said an almost 100% turnover in Code Enforcement staff had led to a breakdown in the department acting on the information provided by the consultant.
“We are paying for them to give us data that we can’t do anything about,” Myles replied.
Before the Granicus contract was extended, Council Member Brain Archie (D) said city administrators needed to explain how they would use the information the company provides.
“We should get a plan for what Code Enforcement plans to do,” Archie said.
“We’re here spending tax dollars on this and you’re wondering why (residents) are up here at the podium screaming at us,” Myles said.
The contract extension was approved on a 3-2 vote, with Myles and Archie opposed and Council Chair James Perry (D), and Members Traci Bax (R) and David Zajac (R) in favor.
The 2022 STR zoning code ordinance modified the way short-term, vacation and transient rental properties are regulated in the Falls. The ordinance imposed limits on where short-term rentals could operate, required new permits for current STRs and added a yearly fee for operators along with yearly inspections. It also required STR operators to collect the same taxes that currently apply to hotels, motels and bed and breakfast inns.
Under the terms of the law, the yearly fee was designated to be used to hire a specialized “STR compliance service provider or vendor” to manage the new regulations and tax collection requirements.