Megan Navarro
WIMBERLEY — The city of Wimberley is looking at how it manages and zones short-term rental (STR) properties.
Currently, property owners who wish to operate an STR must apply with the city through the conditional use permit (CUP) process that is established in the zoning ordinance. The process then includes neighbor notifications and a public hearing before both the Planning & Zoning Commission (P&Z) and Wimberley City Council; ultimately, council makes the decision on the issuance of the permit.
In July 2025, P&Z chair Anne Ulfelder asked member Vance McCracken to assemble and oversee a committee to research the current STR — properties used for transient lodging for stays of 30 consecutive days or less — situation in Wimberley and produce a report of its findings. The STR Committee was then established and comprised of the following members: Helena Hauk, Courtney Mecklenburg, McCracken, city council member Rebecca Minnick and P&Z vice-chairperson Ben O’Kane, with Nathan Glaiser — assistant city administrator and Development Services director — providing city support.
Later, in October, following much deliberation, P&Z passed a motion to recommend that council approve an STR CUP for a property zoned R-3 — primarily detached, single-family residences on lots not less than 100 square feet, according to city zoning regulations — on River Road.
Additional discussion and public input prompted council to enact a 120-day temporary moratorium Nov. 6 on STR applications that require a CUP, pending findings of the committee.
At that time, Minnick, who was the council member who initially requested the item on the agenda, stated that citizens were concerned about the current situation surrounding the rentals, but also, council’s position on the applications has seemed inconsistent with no policy in place in commercial areas and they have been considered infrequently, as previously reported by the News-Dispatch.
The moratorium was set for 120 days, bringing it back to council at its March 5, 2026, meeting, ultimately leading to an extension to remain in effect through July 4, 2026.
Now, while the moratorium is still in effect, the STR Committee brought forth several recommendations, as well as a full report with STR history and data, for council’s consideration at its Thursday, May 21, meeting.
There is not a hard number for residential STRs in Wimberley — this is made worse through individual residents who may or may not make their units available for rental at any given time — and some may be dormant for years. According to the report, city records indicate that there are 72 properties that have CUPs qualifying them as STR2s, which are not owner occupied, and 28 as STR1s, or owner occupied; however, they are not all active.
The committee also highlighted the following:
• 26 properties were grandfathered in 2016, allowing them to make STRs without a CUP
• Eight properties are zoned L1 — lodging for up to 15 units — that do not require a CUP, but are still paying hotel occupancy tax
• One property is zoned PR1, or participant recreation, that does not require a CUP, but is paying tax
• 70 STRs have paid tax within the last year and have CUPs
• 40 STRs have paid tax within the last year, but do not have CUPs
Hotel occupancy tax collections in the city’s fiscal years of 2024 and 2025 "suggest that the annual contributions to the local gross domestic product [GDP] of short-term rentals were $10.53 million and $10.41 million, respectively. There are no statistics for the gross domestic product of Wimberley, but by extrapolating the calculations of the Federal Reserve of St. Louis for the 2023 per-capita GDP of Hays County to Wimberley’s population of about 2,900, the short-term rental revenue appears to comprise about 7% of the town’s GDP,” the report stated.
However, downsides to residential STRs include parties, beer-drinking, noise and indecency, as well as occupants being out of control and leaving trash everywhere. The more common problems would be parking and trespassing issues — especially on the riverfront — and renters being unable to reach the homeowner or representative during an emergency or malfunction.
Glaiser noted that when he first started in his position as assistant city administrator and Development Services director, he fielded a few complaints in 2020-2022, but since then, he has not received as many related to STRs.
Due to the various reasons laid out in the report, the STR Committee has found that there is an adequate supply of STRs in Wimberley to meet demand, but some of the issues can be alleviated by “modestly restricting the opportunities” for new rentals.
“As far as an occupancy standpoint with hotels, we, the committee, feel like we are at a pretty good place with short-term rentals right now. In other words, we don’t need more of them,” Glaiser said.
This has led the committee to request STR2 be removed for the smaller, single-family zoning categories R2, which are 0.5-2 acres, and R3, which are under 0.5 acre, explained Glaiser. This would ease some issues that occur because of the proximity of R3 lots to each other, along with those that came with septic, parking and overall density, for example.
To compensate for that, he continued, the committee wants to allow for short-term lodging in general for commercial properties.
“Right now, if you have a commercial property — C1, C2, C3, we have some office zoning, things like that — you have to apply [and] get a conditional use permit for a short-term rental or to have any lodging on those properties,” Glaiser said. “The committee recommends that we make it permitted use by right on those properties up to 30 units, so … short-term rentals that are zoned commercial, that’s a permitted use by right. If you were to adopt this, however, for the small lot, single-family residential, you could no longer apply for it.”
Along with the zoning changes, the committee proposed city staff to conduct an annual survey, either by mail or online, of all residential STRs, as well as solicit information on any problems, record all public complaints and report to P&Z on a regular basis.
The committee’s recommended zoning changes will go before P&Z and city council, with the necessary public hearings, for consideration for approval later this month.
