The village of Plainfield is putting its hotel/motel tax on hold until issues regarding whether short-term rentals should also be taxed are resolved.

At Monday’s Plainfield Village Board meeting, village trustees unanimously voted to freeze the village’s 5% hotel/motel tax through April 30, 2027. Under the current ordinance, short-term rentals are not taxed.

The village budgeted $5,000 in fiscal year 2027 for hotel tax revenue.

At the March 23 Committee of the Whole workshop, The Plainfield Inn owner Justin Myers asked the hotel/motel tax be frozen until the issue was resolved.

“I’m asking the board and the village to evaluate the 5% hotel tax and freeze that for the Plainfield Inn until a decision is made on the situation with Airbnbs,” Meyers said. “I believe that competition should exist, but it should exist on the same playing field. I’m suggesting that the 5% hotel tax should be frozen until a decision is made on the Airbnb situation. That’s all I’m asking for right now.”

The village had budgeted $5,000 in fiscal year 2027 for hotel tax revenue.

“Staff is comfortable with doing so for FY27,” Plainfield Village Administrator Joshua Blakemore said in a memo to Plainfield Mayor John Argoudelis and village trustees about putting the tax on hold.

“As previously discussed, the Unified Development Ordinance will resolve pending issues with short-term rentals (whether they are permitted or restricted in some way),” the document said.

The village of Plainfield is updating its zoning and development regulations into a comprehensive Unified Development Ordinance. The new UDO will combine the zoning ordinance and subdivision code into a single document.

The ordinance the village board passed states that during the time the hotel/motel tax is put on hold “the village can assess the effects that short term rentals have on the local hotel and motel industry and consider ways to mitigate the same..”