The City Council’s Housing Committee has delayed recommending regulations on short-term rentals to the full council until it has clarified issues raised at its meeting Wednesday.

Committee Chairwoman Jill Duson said at the beginning of the meeting that she would consider sending the council three options for regulating rentals such as those provided through the Airbnb website.

But after two hours of deliberation and testimony from the public, Duson conceded the committee had more work to do.

“I think at this point we would be sending a muddle,” Duson said.

The committee is going through a shake-up after the election of two new city councilors. Its membership is dropping from five councilors to three. Duson and Vice Chairman David Brenerman are joined by District 3 Councilor Brian Batson on the new committee. Outgoing members are councilors Belinda Ray, Spencer Thibodeau and Nicholas Mavodones.

The city has been working on rules for short-term rentals since summer. Some housing advocates are concerned the rentals take full-time housing off the market, drive up prices and change neighborhood character. Short-term hosts argue their properties give visitors extra lodging options and bring tourism dollars into the city.

Since October, the committee has developed some baseline rules, including annual registration, safety requirements, and a definition for short-term rentals.

Committee members differed on fees and whether to put a limit on the number of short-term rentals per building, and city staff created two different regulatory options based on those differences.

Ray and Thibodeau developed a third proposal that incorporated caps on the number of short-term rentals per-building, created different structures for owner-occupied and non-owner-occupied buildings and included graduated fees to keep the numbers of short-term rentals in check. The Ray-Thibodeau plan would also allow non-owner-occupied single family homes to be used as short-term rentals for a $5,000 annual fee.

But some members of the public said they oppose allowing non-owner-occupied rentals in residential zones and questioned why the city hasn’t enforced current zoning violations. Others said the committee should reconsider establishing a city-wide cap on the number of short-term rentals or limiting the number of units a single entity could own. Short-term hosts suggested grandfathering existing rentals and setting up a three-month registration period to see how many short-term rentals Portland has and where they are located.

Several committee members said they wanted to discuss the suggestions further and take another look at limiting short-term rentals in the city.

Brenerman said the body would need at least one more meeting, and maybe two, before being able to make a clear recommendation to the council.