Cleveland Heights City Council is closing in on new rules for the city's short-term rental market, which now includes more than 200 known units — about 140 of them listed on Airbnb. Council gave an updated version of the long-debated legislation a fourth reading last Tuesday, and members say a final vote could come within the next month.
The city currently has no short-term-rental legislation on the books, according to Cleveland.com, despite years of resident complaints about the properties scattered — and sometimes hard to track — throughout the city. Officials cite an average rental rate of 83 nights per year for these properties, and the newest version of the ordinance would require owners to register annually with the city at no cost, so long as they can show proof of at least $1 million in liability insurance coverage.
Complaints about short-term rentals in Cleveland Heights, and city plans to address them, date back to at least 2020. At a meeting last year, residents described ongoing problems tied to some of the properties. “And especially that Airbnb — the noise, the litter and the people that come there are atrocious at times,” one resident said at the time, per Cleveland.com's earlier reporting.
A Long Road to a Fourth Reading
The push for regulation has moved in fits and starts. Council member Tony Cuda asked committee chair Sarah Stone to revive legislation that had been tabled after three readings back in January 2024, and Cuda has been a vocal presence in the debate since. He has said he received dozens of Airbnb-related complaints while serving on council, and told colleagues the list of resident complaints doubled after he stopped compiling it himself. At one meeting, he brought 15 resident quotes to share with the rest of council.
Cuda has framed the issue as one that needs a fix but not an overreaction, saying short-term rentals should be regulated without being punitive. Stone, who chairs the housing and building committee, held a public input meeting on September 15 as part of the effort. She has said the proposed ordinance tries to balance the needs of owners, neighbors and guests, and that the city's goal is to regulate short-term rentals in the least intrusive way possible.
What the Proposed Rules Would Actually Do
Beyond registration and insurance, the proposal sets an occupancy limit of two people per bedroom plus three additional guests, and it ties short-term-rental enforcement directly to existing city codes. Stone explained the reasoning behind that approach, saying, “we wanted to directly align violations with city codes so that we're very cognizant of what nuisance standards exist.”
The list of violations under the proposed ordinance covers a wide range of behavior: noise and parking ordinance violations, occupancy-limit breaches, uninvited guests showing up on other properties, failure to register, violations of the city's fair housing laws, and failure to pay property taxes or nuisance abatements. Penalties escalate with each offense. A first violation carries a $250 fine payable within 30 days; a second adds a six-month registration suspension; a third results in a one-year suspension; and a fourth terminates registration entirely and bars the owner from re-registering.
The city’s implementation plan would make registration visible to both officials and guests: owners must include the assigned registration number in online listings and display the certificate inside the rental. The city also requires a Cuyahoga County contact who can respond around the clock to emergencies. These steps are part of the proposed system, not a substitute for the existing noise, parking and housing codes. Cleveland Heights’ registration guidance sets out those requirements and says initial registrations are due Dec. 15, 2026.
Under the ordinance, the short-term-rental classification applies only to stays of 29 days or fewer — anything 30 days or longer falls under the city's existing landlord-tenant law. Earlier drafts of the ordinance ran into trouble because the original penalties aimed at landlords could have faced court challenges, and the legislation was revised as a result.
Police Calls and Platform Pressure
Stone has said she learned that the police department had fielded incidents at short-term rentals involving overdoses, shots fired, large parties and noise complaints, and that both the police and housing departments receive complaints tied to these properties. The proposal also anticipates cooperation from booking platforms: Airbnb and Expedia Group are expected to pull registrations for the most egregious problem properties once the city's penalty system is in place.
Not everyone on council is convinced more rules are the answer. Council member Susan Miller has questioned whether the regulations are even necessary, while Jinida Dorsey cautioned against piling on another layer of rules. On the other side, David Stokley, president of the Northern Ohio Short-Term Rental Association, has endorsed the legislation, calling it sensible and describing the process behind it as transparent.
How Neighboring Suburbs Handle It
Cleveland Heights' approach stands in contrast to two of its neighbors. Both Shaker Heights and Richmond Heights have opted to prohibit short-term rentals outright rather than regulate them. Cleveland Heights officials have cited those prohibitions in their own deliberations, even as the city moves toward a registration-and-penalty model instead of a ban.
The neighboring bans have also been reinforced in recent years. Shaker Heights enacted a 2025 ordinance expressly barring rentals of less than 30 days across several types of residential property, including rooms and accessory structures. Richmond Heights’ code likewise prohibits short-term rentals in residential districts and defines them as stays under 30 days. The contrast is not simply between regulation and no rules: nearby cities have chosen prohibition, while Cleveland Heights is considering registration and escalating penalties. Shaker Heights’ 2025 ordinance and Richmond Heights’ code spell out those approaches.
Cleveland is taking a licensing route rather than banning the rentals: City Council passed its short-term-rental ordinance June 1, 2026, with an effective date of Nov. 28. The measure requires licenses and establishes rules for rentals in residential neighborhoods, including a density limit and a local contact. That puts the larger neighboring city on a regulatory track, though its rules and timetable differ from Cleveland Heights’ proposal. Cleveland’s enacted ordinance records its passage and effective date.
Ohio law includes language suggesting the state legislature intended to limit how local governments can regulate the rights and obligations between landlords and tenants under rental agreements covered by state code, though how that provision might bear on a short-term-rental ordinance specifically has not been established. For now, Cleveland Heights council members appear focused on finishing the ordinance they've been refining since it was first tabled in 2024, with a vote potentially landing within the next several weeks.
