The Howard County Council voted Wednesday to hike the civil penalties for paid house parties that residents say are disrupting otherwise quiet suburban neighborhoods this summer.
Although the vote was unanimous, council members backed down from raising the fines from $250 to $5,000 and instead opted for a tiered structure of $2,500 for a first offense and $5,000 for subsequent offenses.
They acknowledged that their emergency legislation, which was introduced and passed in a little over a week, raises complex questions about the county’s quickly evolving — and unsanctioned — short-term rental industry.
“We’re certainly moving into a space in 2025 [where] you can rent a fenced yard for your dog, a pickleball, basketball or sports court, pools,” said Councilwoman Christiana Rigby, a Democrat representing District 3. “We’ll have to determine what is permissible.”
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Trouble erupted recently in Columbia, where neighbors say one house on Llanfair Drive’s cul-de-sac regularly attracted large crowds via ticketed events promoted on Instagram and Eventbrite. The parties, they said, brought litter, congested streets and unruly behavior.
For-profit fêtes violate the county’s zoning laws, which forbid short-term rentals and other commercial activity in residential neighborhoods. Enforcement is typically complaint-based, meaning some rentals have long flown under the radar while others created impossible-to-ignore nuisances.
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Howard County is the latest jurisdiction to consider harsher punishments for homeowners renting their properties out by the day or hour to third parties, who then advertise public, ticketed events. The Montgomery County Council raised its penalties this month to $5,000 — a direct response to an unruly paid house party in Potomac that upset neighbors in 2024.
More than 20 neighbors from Llanfair and surrounding streets packed Howard’s emergency hearing Wednesday wearing red T-shirts in support of the higher fines. During deliberations, some held signs that said “Let’s not wait until someone gets hurt.”
Still, several residents testified in opposition to the council’s measure and pleaded for a more nuanced approach.
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Cooksville homeowner Sabera Husain said during the meeting that she began renting out her backyard pool on the short-term private pool rental website Swimply during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although such rentals are not permitted by Howard’s code, Husain said she’s built meaningful relationships with her repeat customers, many of whom are Muslim or Jewish families seeking private swim settings for religious reasons. Other guests are immunocompromised and consider pools open to the public to be hazardous to their health.
Some like Gregg Greenberg prefer Husain’s pool for an autistic family member, who was a target for bullying by other swimmers. The Howard County father said he rents Husain’s pool often and uses Swimply almost daily.
“My son’s not much of a partier,” Greenberg told council members.
Rigby offered to share resources with Greenberg and mentioned the Autism Society of Maryland’s partnership with the Columbia Association’s Macgill’s Common Pool, which is sensory-friendly and staffed with lifeguards who are specially trained to work with people on the autism spectrum.
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At public pools, Greenberg said other children have pointed and laughed at his son. Other parents who watched a violent outburst “grab[bed] their kids in horror.”
“It’s not that Howard County doesn’t have nice resources,” he said. “For a family of a child with severe issues, being able to simply relax and let your heart rate go down—”
“You don’t have to act,” Rigby said, finishing his thought. “This is a one-off pool party. It is no substitute for your daily therapeutic swims with your son. I completely agree.”
Yona Meissner, who heads operations and community for Swimply, joined the meeting remotely to ask council members for a more nuanced approach to the bill, which contained no limits on noise, parking or times of day. He said he worried the code could infringe on residents who are using Swimply to provide opportunities for people doing good things for others.
Council members paused the public testimony to ask Meissner whether Swimply ensures its users are complying with local zoning laws and how it confirms hosts are following the guidelines they’ve put in their profiles.
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Meissner deferred the questions to Swimply’s legal team and said he attended the meeting to convey the good that his company provides to the community.
Councilwoman Deb Jung, who represents Columbia and sponsored the emergency legislation, pushed back.
At least one problematic party house had appeared on Swimply, she said. And when bad actors host public events at these rentals, the company loses all control.
Clarksville resident Louis Cardona said his inbox on the Swimply app is full of inquiries from people offering him $1,200 a night to host the sort of blowouts that sparked Jung to act.
“The temptation is real,” said Cardona, adding that he’d rather rent to people who would use his backyard as a Chuck-E-Cheese over “intergalactic keg parties that destroy neighborhoods.”
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The homeowner developed his own criteria for vetting and weeding out third-party vendors after he had to chase out a renter for bad behavior a few years ago. He focuses on family events and banned alcohol for a time, though he said he’s since eased up if someone wants to have a couple of friends over to drink wine.
Cardona estimated he’s made $10,000 renting out his pool, which he said would go unused otherwise. He watched the hearing without testifying, but said he’s opposed to increased fines.
Even as council members warned people in the room that short-term rentals like Carndona’s already run afoul of zoning laws, they said the testimonies identified weaknesses in the county’s code and left the door open for future changes to the law so that no one is unfairly affected by the fines.
Cardona didn’t stick around to see how the final vote shook out.
“They’re not going to come and infringe on a family birthday party,” he said. “Provided I can maintain my home comfortably or safely, they should not be coming after me.”
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