WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) - Inside the Wichita City Council chambers on Tuesday, Kelli Reid is sitting and listening to the council debate an issue that will impact her directly.

They're talking about new rules and regulations regarding short term rental properties.

“When we first started out in 2018, there were there really was no policy per se," Reid said about getting her Airbnb's up and going. She added that she went "through the process of making phone calls to the city and to the county and to the state to find out how we go about doing this here in Kansas. It was cumbersome.”

The city of Wichita has been working this policy since 2021 after a fatal shooting at a house party at an Airbnb.

Two proposals were passed, one of them changed the zoning code to allow for short term rentals since right now, they are illegal under city code. Another change creates a licensing process for property owners.

"If we have over 400 that are not operating legally, it's important for us to make sure they're licensed and operate legally," Councilman Brandon Johnson told KAKE.

He said, "It's a business model that's been going on throughout this country for some time and we haven't modernized our zoning code up until today. So it was important for us to do that."

One change was delayed until December, the creation of a nuisance party ordinance. Council members say they want more feedback on the policy before going forward

"How can an owner keep control over that property? They're not out there all the time," said councilman Jeff Blubaugh. "There's, you know, they can invade their privacy but then I seen that expanded to the whole city. It wasn't just short term rentals. It was any property."

Reid says she isn’t happy with all the proposed changes but overall says there needed to be something for the city to enforce and for property owners to follow.

"That's why I'm here today, to say I'm very much in favor of having a policy so that we aren't out of compliance. You know, and and causing kind of those kinds of calls to come into the city unnecessarily.”

The regulations have to be voted on a second time to go into effect. Once they do, owners of short term rentals will have between 6 months and a year to get licensed and into zoning requirements.