WHEREAS, Philadelphia has seen continuing year over year visitor and hotel night growth and added less than 2,000 hotel rooms since 2020; and
WHEREAS, The World Cup, Semiquinncentential, and MLB All Star game are expected to add 550,000 additional visitors in a less than two month period; and
WHEREAS, Exploring ways for residents across the Ccity to financially benefit from this historic confluence of events while insuring their continued homeowner protections should be a northstar for the Council of the until recently poorest big City in America; and
WHEREAS, Room nights and short term rentals taken in the suburbs and/or neighboring states decrease the total economic impact of these historic events on our City; and
WHEREAS, Other municipalities have allowed for short term rental rule relaxation around events as diverse the US Naval Academy Graduation, The PGA Tour and the Super Bowl; and
WHEREAS, The time limited duration of the events in question could allow for both an experiment in a different way of regulating short term rentals and have a hard cap to the disruption to neighbors and others; and
WHEREAS, We as a City should work to ensure that our visitors have the best experience of Philadelphia possible, to encourage return trips and deeper future involvement in this City of Brotherly and Sister Love; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the Philadelphia City Council Committee on Legislative Oversight be authorized to hold hearings considering how Philadelphia will handle over half a million extra visitors during 2026 and the feasibility of allowing short term rental rule holidays as other cities have done around large scale events.
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