Boulder has opened the door for more rental housing during the Sundance film festival next year. The city council approved an ordinance on Thursday that allows tenants to rent out their spaces during the event.
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In September, the city created a new festival lodging license that enables residents to rent their homes during special events. This ordinance expands that license.
“So what that does is it opens up many second homes. It opens up many ADUs. It opens up all corporate rental housing,” said Jill Grano, the statewide director of housing for Sundance. “It also does create a pathway for tenants to rent their homes as well, with landlord approval.”
Boulder is expecting roughly 90,000 attendees at Sundance in January, around one-third of whom could come from out-of-state. With only 2,900 hotel rooms in the city, Boulder hopes to significantly expand its housing options.
The ordinance aims to do that by allowing properties to hold both a long-term rental license and a short-term festival license. This allows renters to profit, as well as property owners.
“We really want the economic benefits of Sundance to apply to everyone in our city, and we want to expand housing stock, and we want to get people staying in the city rather than outside the city,” said Grano.
Renting with the festival lodging license is restricted to the ten-day festival plus several days before and after. The license fee is $75 for tenants and is valid for one year. The same license for owners is more expensive and lasts for four years.
During the April 2 meeting, city council members floated various questions and concerns, including how landlords and tenants would split the profit from renting to visitors.
Council member Taishya Adams asked if information on profit-sharing would be included in the license application process.
“As the only renter here, and hearing from a lot of renting people, I have significant concerns about not having any standards on what the split can be,” said Adams. “And I can see some abuses happening there.”
The ordinance does not address how a landlord would negotiate such details. Jill Grano, who gave public comment during the meeting, said that Airbnb does have some rules in place and that generally, other cities across the country report around 10 to 25% of profits go to the landlord.
According to Boulder Reporting Lab, the city expects to begin issuing festival rental licenses in May.
