Legislation filed to create a Virginia-wide registry of short-term rentals

There are now less than four weeks before the next session of the Virginia General Assembly begins. The inflow of new legislation remains a trickle but will accelerate between now and the first fall of the gavel in both the House of Delegates and the Virginia Senate. Here now is a quick review.

Localities all across Virginia have struggled with the appropriate way to regulate short-term rentals. To assist with efforts to enforce rules, Delegate Lee Ware has filed legislation in HB1557 that would create a registry of all of the places that offer short-term rentals and how much they charge.

“The Department shall provide to the commissioner of the revenue or other assessing official for each locality access to the registry and information contained therein for all short-term rentals located within the jurisdiction of the commissioner of the revenue or other assessing official,” reads a section of the bill.

The bill also states that nothing in legislation should be construed to take away a locality’s ability to prohibit short-term rentals.

• HB1553 from Delegate Wren Williams (R-47) would remove a requirement that a copy of a notice of an appeal to the Court of Appeals in a criminal case be mailed or delivered to the Virginia Attorney General’s office.
• HB1554 from Delegate Williams is related to the amount of funding that must be provided to localities to cover the costs of deputy sheriff’s. Currently the requirement is one deputy per 1,500 per persons and this bill would add that calculation to be one deputy per 25 square miles.
• HB1555 also from Delegate Williams would require the Virginia Department of Health to establish a program called the Health Care Regulatory Sandbox Program to allow for the temporary testing of “innovative health products.”
• HB1556 from Delegate Williams would give the Attorney General’s office the authority to initiate and conduct criminal prosecutions in cases involving criminal sexual assault or commercial sex trafficking.
• HB1558 from Delegate Paul Milde (R-64) would ban possession of tobacco and hemp products by people under the age of 21.
• SB748 from Senator Barbara Favola (D-4) would direct a new stakeholder group to study the Uniform Statewide Building Code to require owners and operators of Group R-2 apartment buildings to install devices to allow cooling below 77 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and above 68 degrees in winter.
• SB749 from Senator Tammy Brankley Mulchi (R-9) is related to sports participation in public schools as well as institutions of higher education. Under this bill, a doctor would have to sign a statement affirming the participant’s biological sex and those deemed to be male would be prohibited from being on a woman’s team.
• SB750 from Senator J.D. “Danny” Diggs (R-24) would make it a crime to knowingly allow an unlicensed minor from operating a motor vehicle.
• SB751 from Senator Diggs would allow a Virginia court to issue a preliminary protective order to someone who is already under a Military Protective Order.
• SB752 from Senator Favola would direct the Board of Psychology to convene a work group to study the possibility of allowing clinical psychologists to obtain and utilize the ability to prescribe certain medications. Currently that’s only limited to those with doctorates in medicine.
• SB753 from Senator Favola would allow Standards of Learning and Standards of Quality tests to be administered in languages other than English.
• SB754 from Senator Favola would amend the Virginia Consumer Protection Act to prohibit sharing of information related to someone’s reproductive health or sexual health information.

There are also three joint resolutions calling for amendments to Virginia’s Constitution:

• SJ247 from Senator Jennifer Boysko (D-38) is a constitutional amendment guaranteeing reproductive freedom.
• SJ248 from Senator Mamie Locke (D-23) is a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote if a person is qualified.
• SJ249 from Senator Adam Ebbin (D-39) is a constitutional amendment repealing the provision against same-sex marriage and prohibiting localities from denying a marriage license sought between two adult persons.

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