CAIRO — A new ordinance that allows short-term rentals through services such as Airbnb was approved Monday night by the Cairo City Council.

The new ordinance, set to take effect March 23, amends existing city codes to allow residential lodging spaces to be rented out for periods of up to 30 days. Property owners acting as hosts would be subject to local hotel/motel tax regulations and would have to pay a $75 fee to begin operations.

Council members have stated as far back as September that constituents expressed interest to them in allowing short-term rentals through Airbnb, an online marketplace that allows property owners to rent out space similarly to hotels. A draft ordinance on the matter was prepared in January, and council members fine-tuned the language of the draft in meetings since then before approving its final form Monday night.

As part of his research in preparing to draft the ordinances, city attorney Thomas Lehman reviewed the regulations of nearby municipalities such as Thomasville and Bainbridge, and also for major cities such as Seattle, New York and Washington, D.C., which just passed its own Airbnb ordinance last year.

The concept of amending the city’s ordinances to allow for short-term rentals was first suggested in September by former Grady County commissioner Charles Renaud, who appeared before the city council to request that they consider allowing the practice.