Name: Is San Diego's years-long stalemate over short-term rentals finally coming to an end?
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Is San Diego's years-long stalemate over short-term rentals finally coming to an end?

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Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | Breaking News AdvertisementAdvertisement A broad compromise that has the potential to end San Diego’s years-long stalemate over how to regulate short-term rentals will go before the city’s elected leaders on Tuesday.The proposal, which has won the support of Airbnb and other large home-sharing platforms, as well as organized labor, calls for an overall cap on the number of whole-home rentals that could be listed for more than 20 days in a year.The net effect would be to slash the volume of such rentals by as much as 30 percent citywide, based on city officials’ best guess of how many vacation rental listings there are in San Diego that fit that category.AdvertisementWhile the compromise brought forward from Council President Jennifer Campbell’s office would cover all types of home-sharing, including the renting out of a spare bedroom, its biggest impact would be on the more active whole-home rental listings that operate throughout the city, most notably in coastal communities.Campbell’s office estimates that under her proposed cap, the number of homes that could be fully rented out for such short-term stays while the owner or resident is not present would be limited to 6,500 citywide, which includes a carve-out for close to 1,100 such rentals in Mission Beach.For all but Mission Beach, short-term rentals of entire homes listed for more than 20 days per year would be capped at 1 percent of the city’s more than 540,000 housing units, or about 5,400. The Campbell proposal originally set the cap at 0.75 percent, but the San Diego Planning Commission in December agreed to support the proposed regulations, but with a 1 percent cap. For Mission Beach, which has a long history of vacation rentals, the proportionate allowance would be much larger, representing 30 percent of the community’s total dwelling units, or about 1,100.What becomes more complicated is calculating just how much of a reduction that represents from the normal whole-home, short-term rental activity that was typical before the pandemic dramatically curtailed travel.A detailed report released Friday by the city’s Independent Budget Analyst analyzed multiple sources of home-sharing data as of 2019 and concluded that the proposed cap could mean anywhere from 1,650 to nearly 2,800 fewer whole-home rental listings that would be allowed, with more than 20 days of activity per year. With that category of rentals capped at 6,500 a year, that translates to a 20 percent to 30 percent reduction, said fiscal policy analyst Baku Patel, who helped draft the Independent Budget Analyst’s report.Campbell Chief of Staff Venus Molina said she believes the reduction could be as much as 50 percent.“This ordinance does the job of balancing the needs of everyone involved in the STR discussion,” Councilwoman Campbell said in a statement. “San Diegans will have more homes to buy or rent, neighborhoods will see a reduction in STRs in their communities with real enforcement to weed out bad actors. This truly represents what San Diegans want to see: an end to the ‘wild west’ STR environment that has negatively impacted so many.”The new regulations, though, are not likely to mollify some homeowners who insist the city’s municipal code does not allow vacation rentals and they should be treated as an illegal use.The latest initiative to regulate vacation rentals arrives more than two years after Airbnb and Expedia, the parent company of HomeAway and VRBO, successfully mounted a referendum drive that killed far tougher restrictions approved by the council that would have barred the rental of second homes for short-term stays. The city’s effort to gain control over the mushrooming growth in home-sharing has been going on for at least five years, as proponents and critics squared off in multiple hours-long hearings.Airbnb, which had previously argued in favor of a slightly higher short-term rental cap than the 1 percent proposal, said Friday that it is now willing to support the proposal going before the council.John Choi , the Southern California policy manager for Airbnb, pointed out in an opinion piece for the Union-Tribune that while the proposed cap represents a substantial reduction in the city’s short-term rentals, it would still “enable more hosts to continue sharing their homes, protect millions of dollars in much-needed tax revenue to help the city recover from the effects of the pandemic, preserve an important customer base for small businesses and bring key stakeholders into agreement on a path forward.”Airbnb, however, does not support a recommendation by the Planning Commission that the City Council consider, in the interest of equity, divvying up the allocation of vacation rental licenses equally among the nine council districts.Molina said in an interview Friday that to implement such a system would most likely require revising the entire set of regulations, in part, because the city has no reliable data to determine how many such short-term rentals there are in each district. On top of that, she said, such a change would likely trigger concerns by the California Coastal Commission, which “has been very clear about allowing low-cost accommodations in the coastal zone.” To apportion the licenses by council district would mean far fewer vacation rentals in coastal communities, she said.Under the proposed regulations before the council, the governance of short-term rentals would be guided by a tiered system that imposes no limits on those hosts who rent out a home for no more than 20 days out of the year. Similarly, there would be no limits for individuals who rent out a room or two in their home while they are residing there. Still unknown is how much the city would charge home-sharing hosts for required licenses. The fee could potentially vary from $50 for someone renting out his or her home for less than 20 days a year to $1,000 for hosts renting out their entire homes for more than 20 days a year, Molina said. The revenue generated would go toward administering the short-term rental program and hiring additional code enforcement officers to address problem properties and unlicensed rentals.Councilman Chris Cate, who has previously supported less stringent regulations in favor of tougher enforcement, said he is willing to support the Campbell proposal, although he does not like the idea of a cap.“I’m at a point now where we need something. I’ve gotten married and had two kids since we started on this journey,” Cate said. " I wish the cap were higher but I want rules, I want regulations and I want certainty, which we’ve been advocating for the last 6 1/2 years.” Get U-T Business in your inbox on Mondays Get ready for your week with the week’s top business stories from San Diego and California, in your inbox Monday mornings. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune. 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Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | Breaking News AdvertisementAdvertisement A broad compromise that has the potential to end San Diego’s years-long stalemate over how to regulate short-term rentals will go before the city’s elected leaders on Tuesday.The proposal, which has won the support of Airbnb and other large home-sharing platforms, as well as organized labor, calls for an overall cap on the number of whole-home rentals that could be listed for more than 20 days in a year.The net effect would be to slash the volume of such rentals by as much as 30 percent citywide,...

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Lori Weisberg

The San Diego Union-Tribune, the region's leading news source since 1868. Follow our journalists, too: http://j.mp/UTstaff

Is San Diego's years-long stalemate over short-term rentals finally coming to an end?

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