The City Council on Tuesday night set a moratorium on new non-owner occupied short term vacation rentals through next Jan. 9.
The moratorium was to have started effective March 22, but it was decided to move it to the date of final passage.
Councilwoman Jenny Hill moved to make it a month after final passage, but that was voted down.
She said, "The surrendering of housing stock to lodging will change the fabric of our community."
Council members said there have been a number of concerns expressed about the STVRs owned by an individual or group who does not live there.
After the vote, several speakers told the council the current process is working.
Lisa Brown, who has two STVRs at the MLK neighborhood, said out of over 40,000 residences just 301 are non-owner occupied. She said 137 of those are in R-1 neighborhoods.
She said one group found 936 units were being actively rented in Chattanooga. She said there are 405 legal units, so that means 531 are operating illegally.
Ms. Brown said the city does not have the manpower to regulate all the wildcat rentals.
She said just Airbnb alone brought in $3.5 million in revenue in just a year in Chattanooga.
Brad Wardlaw, a real estate investor, said the STVRs are not negatively affecting the lack of affordable housing.
He said, "There are a tremendous number of boarded up houses" and investors who want to rent them to visitors are fixing many of them up. He said the moratorium "will make investors take their money elsewhere."
Joe Riley said the moratorium "will leave a lot of people exposed" who are in the middle of investing - sometimes their life savings - in STVRs.