AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Over the next couple of months, the city of Austin will collect public input on proposed changes to short-term rental (STR) regulations. "As you may recall, this overhaul is needed because recent court decisions have made the cornerstone elements of the City’s STR regulations unenforceable," the city's Development Services Department (DSD) wrote in a memo Friday. Court rules Austin short-term rental ordinance unconstitutional That includes a 2023 lawsuit a Houston couple filed over Austin's ordinance prohibiting people from operating a STR without living at the property, which the couple said unfairly prevented them from listing their Austin home, KXAN previously reported. A judge sided with the couple saying the ordinance was unconstitutional. What are the proposed changes? There are several short-term rental ordinances city staff are putting before the public and city council. The city defines a STR as somewhere that is rented out "for periods of less than 30 consecutive days." City of Austin to tackle short-term rental regulations early next year Those proposed changes include: Shuffling STRs from their current place in the Land Development Code (LDC) to an accepted accessory use in all zoning districts, which essentially allows the city to clean up its LDC and shuffle short-term rental regulations into business code The city's business code would be updated to make it so that to operate a STR on a property that has three or fewer units, the license holder must be an individual -- and if that individual wants to operate more than one STR in Austin, they need to have the rentals spaced apart from one another by at least 1,000 feet The changes would require platforms to collect the same tax hotels do, called Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) "One of the elements of the ordinance is that the platforms will require hosts to provide the license number in the advertisement, and will de-list properties that are not licensed upon request from the city," said Daniel Word, the assistant director of Austin's Development Services Department. The city said existing STRs will not be impacted by the new rules as long as the properties are not a nuisance and ownership remains the same. That only covers STRs that are currently permitted with the city. There are roughly 2,200 of those right now, Word said. You can read more about those proposed changes here. KXAN has reached out to several major short-term rental companies to understand their perspective on the proposed changes. We will update this article when we hear back. How can you share your feedback? You will get another purple slip in the mail from the city notifying you of the proposed changes. The city said those notices will go to more than 725,000 Austin residents. The city is hosting several public hearings on this, the schedule is as follows: Tuesday, February 4 at 1 p.m. (Joint Planning Commission and City Council meeting) Tuesday, February 11 at 6 p.m. (Planning Commission meeting) Thursday, February 27 at 10 a.m. (City Council meeting) The city is also hosting information sessions this month, the schedule for those is as follows: Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. via Zoom  Wednesday, Jan. 22 at 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Montopolis Recreation and Community Center   Thursday, Jan. 23 at 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the city's Permitting and Development Center  Monday, Jan. 27 at 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Austin Central Library  You can RSVP for those information sessions and learn more on the city's public input page here. "We're certainly looking to find out from the community how this proposal might impact them, in terms of, if they're a short-term rental operator, does this make the process easier to comply with the additional enforcement tools we'll have in place?" Word said. "We're hoping that those that have been impacted negatively by short-term rentals will see an improvement in compliance...and also interested in hearing from both the short-term rental platforms and related businesses as to whether this will simplify their process in helping us achieve compliance." Preservation bonus changes On your purple slip, you will also see proposed changes tied to the city's HOME Part 1 initiative -- specifically, the preservation bonus. In late 2023, Austin City Council approved the first iteration of the HOME initiative, which in-part allowed up to three units to be built on a single-family lot. It also created what's called a "preservation bonus" in an attempt to slow the demolition of existing homes. ‘What are we getting?’ We pulled the data from 264 HOME initiative applications "Specifically, these provisions allow a property owner to exclude the square footage of the existing home from the floor-to-area (FAR) calculations (i.e. how a property owner calculates the site’s maximum square footage limits) in exchange for preserving an existing structure. Currently, the two new units are limited to the greater of .55 or 3,200 square feet...the Resolution requested a code amendment to allow two new units to achieve the greater of 0.65 or 4,350 square feet," the memo says. Those proposed changes will be discussed starting in April.