California Free Press

San Diego Vacation Rentals Take a Hit

From Voice of San Diego:

Councilwoman Barbara Bry at the San Diego City Council meeting July 16. / Photo by Adriana Heldiz

In a dramatic shift, the San Diego City Council voted 6-3 Monday to allow only residents who live in homes in San Diego to rent them out to visitors up to six months every year. Councilmen David Alvarez, Chris Cate and Scott Sherman voted no.

It was a huge win for Councilwoman Barbara Bry, who first proposed a framework like this last year but got very little support from colleagues, besides Councilwoman Lorie Zapf. The tide changed with Councilman Chris Ward’s decision last week to switch his long-held more liberal position on the matter. Ward recommended that residents with accessory dwelling units, aka granny flats, should also be able to rent those out.

That will have to come up later.

The Council rejected a carve-out for Mission Beach. And existing Mission Beach vacation rentals were not grandfathered in.

The Council decisively rejected Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s proposal that people be allowed to rent out their own place plus one other. Faulconer had also proposed the Mission Beach carve-out. The policy vastly changes what someone has to go through to rent out a home they own to visitors. Unless they find a loophole, it will eliminate all vacation rentals owned as second homes or investment properties.

City Attorney Mara Elliott cheered the move in a tweet. “Congratulations to the mayor and City Council for stepping up to regulate short term vacation rentals, an issue that dragged on 11 years.”

But it Depends on Enforcement …

Councilman Chris Cate said, in a written statement, a compromise would have provided resources to regulate the industry.

“Instead, the Council chose a path that is not only unenforceable and subject to legal challenge, but would drive the activity underground, resulting in the loss in millions of dollars in revenue that funds public safety officers and the repairing of city streets,” he wrote.

The mayor was optimistic: “As I’ve said repeatedly, the most important thing is that we have an established set of rules that protects neighborhood quality of life through increased oversight and enforcement.”

The losers: HomeAway, one of the platforms people use to rent out to visitors, said in a written statement it was “extremely disappointed” and hinted it may consider legal action.

Former City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, who was hired by vacation rental advocates to review the proposed regulations, argued Monday the city could face a fight in court over its decision to treat people with second homes in San Diego differently than those who spend more of the year here. The Constitution requires that all people be treated the same. Elliott had previously raised similar concerns and recently reiterated some of them.

Deputy City Attorney Shannon Thomas has said the City Council can apply different regulations to people but it must describe a legitimate purpose for doing so.

Last hurdle: The new vacation rental rules could face another major roadblock too. The California Coastal Commission, which has rejected multiple cities’ regulations, could take issue with a measure that significantly curtails rentals along the coast.

The City's Doing the Homelessness Money Shuffle, Again

From Voice of San Diego, May 9, 2018

 

Homeless people line up their belongings alongside Fault Line Park in East Village. / Photo by Adriana Heldiz

City leaders all seem to agree that key to solving the homelessness crisis is building lots – and lots and lots – of new housing.

That’s why many of them are wary of pulling money meant to fund permanent housing and diverting it to fund temporary solutions. But the city is looking to do just that – for the second time in six months.

The city is expected to tap San Diego Housing Commission funds meant to support permanent housing to finance short-term solutions.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s team is pledging to quickly replenish the funds to support more permanent solutions but the latest fund-shuffling move underscores the lack of certainty surrounding new funding and the lack of a strategy to address an urgent problem.

So what are the city and county’s plans to address homelessness? The answer: They don’t have an overarching strategy.

The Regional Task Force on the Homeless, a countywide group coordinating the regional response, last year paid a Sacramento consultant to produce a plan. (Here’s a cheat-sheet version.) The goal was to get local governments and homeless-serving agencies rowing in the same direction.

Gordon Walker is CEO of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless. / Photo by Vito Di Stefano

But the plan for that regional plan has changed in the past year. Task Force CEO Gordon Walker says the group has since decided against having the outside consultant produce a more detailed regional strategy. The Task Force is, however, working on overarching suggestions laid out in the initial report that advocated a housing first approach. (Translation: Housing first means focusing on quickly housing the homeless rather than demanding they enter temporary programs first.)