Short term rental properties have sprung up across the state, usually through companies like Airbnb and Vrbo.

Many cities had to work quickly to determine how to regulate these properties.

A Western Kentucky senator filed a bill to limit local regulations on short term rentals, and some city leaders aren't happy about the legislation.

Our Emily Sisk is back, as she caught up with a Covington reporter to learn how the city could be impacted more, and our Reporter's Notebook segment.

Joining us now is David Rosenstein, a reporter with the Northern Kentucky Tribune who has done extensive reporting about the presence of short term rentals and Senate Bill 112, which has to do with how cities regulate those short term rentals.

And, David, we want to open it by asking you, what have you found in your research and your reporting about the presence of these short term rentals, or maybe Airbnb specifically in Covington?

Just how prevalent are they?

Sure.

Thank you for for inviting me, Emily.

So in the in the reporting that I've done, which began in late 2025, I've been looking into how Covington regulate short term rentals and what the impacts to Covington's neighborhoods are by these short term rentals.

Through an open records request, I received, table that shows the city having 100 and 136 active short term rental licenses.

Out of those, 136, 42 of those are host occupied, meaning that, the host actually lives on site and manages the property.

And then the remaining 93 are non host occupied.

So to talk about Senate Bill 112, because this has to do with, like I said, how cities regulate these short term rentals.

It kind of takes some of the authority away from local government and makes it easier for these types of properties to exist.

There's less regulations.

And you were actually able to speak with the sponsoring senator, Craig Richardson, a Republican from Hopkinsville, about this bill.

What did you learn from him about his mission or his purpose behind the legislation?

What Senator Richardson's bill proposes to do is is absurd.

The property owners rights, in other words, it's a property rights bill.

He wants to eliminate the regulation of all short term rentals, except for issues that revolve around health and safety.

He thinks that the way that cities like Covington regulate short term rentals is an infringement on individuals property rights.

Just to get a better picture for this.

How would a bill like this play out in a city like Covington?

What kind of restrictions does this Covington have right now on these short term rentals that this bill could take away?

So Covington experienced an explosion of short term rentals during the Covid pandemic.

And in the couple of years after after the Covid lockdowns ended, Covington took a deep look at how the short term rental market was playing out in the city and what the neighborhood concerns were towards the short term rentals.

The short term rentals were creating, noise and crime nuisances in residential neighborhoods.

They were adding to an already, precious supply of on street parking in these residential neighborhoods.

And they were eroding the the stock of available housing in Covington's neighborhoods.

Covington laid out, neighborhood by neighborhood set of restrictions on the number of short term rentals per neighborhood and the number of short term rentals on specific block faces, let's say in the main Strawson neighborhood, which is the the Main Street area.

The the number of short term rentals would be limited to to say three per block face.

So based on all of that, lots of work that's gone into making those regulations, it seems like city leaders, especially in Covington, are pretty adverse to this legislation.

To Senate Bill 112.

I know you've spoken to some of them.

What is the basis of their argument against this bill?

So first off, it it erodes and strips the local government of control over things that are happening and happening in its city.

So when you when you place a blanket law like this across the entire Commonwealth, you're treating Covington the same way.

You're treating Florence, Paducah and many other different communities that have different populations, different economic settings.

And the concerns that I've heard from community leaders and from city officials is stripping that local control would introduce some of the same problems that the city faced, right after the Covid pandemic, when they were first battling the the the infusion of short term rentals.

The other thing that that Covington leaders, expressed concern about is the cost.

So there's a back end cost.

The the cost to study and then regulate short term rentals, which is something that's already been paid.

And then a potential future cost the cities like Covington will face, if they have to revise their zoning codes to, to deal with, the limitations placed by this, by this bill.

Well, it's certainly a very complex issue.

There's many entities at play here with the legislation and then what's currently going on in the cities, we know that will keep following this.

And we appreciate your in-depth reporting in the series that you've been doing about it.

David wrote in saying with the Northern Kentucky Tribune, thank you so much for breaking this down for us.

Thank you for having me.

And thank you, Emily.

Senate Bill 112 has not yet been assigned to a committee.

A spokesperson with the Senate Republican Caucus told us that Senator Richardson is still working on the bill.

We'll have more coverage of the presence of short term rentals in the coming days, as we talk with those in favor of and against the bill.