Today, Monday, Oct. 22, in a 8 to 1 vote, the San Diego City Council voted to rescind the regulations they had imposed on short-term vacation rentals back in July. Those regulations would have ended the controversial practice of out-of-town investors buying up needed San Diego rental properties and turning them into profit-making vacation mini-hotels.
The original vote came on July 16 and was confirmed on August 2.
Facing the onslaught of push-back from the Airbnb-type industry, the Council backpedaled on the issue – except for Councilmember Lorie Zapf – who is facing a tough re-election campaign and couldn’t afford to upset her beach and coastal constituents – the ones mostly negatively affected by the vacation rentals. Councilmember Barbara Bry was also out front on the issue but is not facing any election this year.
Here’s the Council vote on July 16, 2018 to pass the regulations.
That onslaught included a petition campaign organized by several groups, including Airbnb, VRBO, HomeAway and Share San Diego that gathered 62,000 signatures to support a referendum to challenge the regulations. The groups also had threatened to sue the city under the Brown Act, claiming it revised its original proposal after hearing public comment.
Who knows what’s next. There are reports that City leaders now plan to fashion new regulations for rentals from companies like Airbnb and VRBO.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
gutless swine – typical of SD politicians – vote them out!!
OB has been decimated by these. I am starting to side with the voices that say “make life for these people hell”. we really have no recourse.
It seems unfair to ruin the vacation of out of town visitors but at this point you are right, there is no recourse. Plus you may get some comic relief in the process.
Well… now we need to push the city to enforce the current rules on the books.
Sad. Very sad but not surprising. I was truly hoping the July decision would hold but nope, just not to be.
Follow the money…
Time for a new City Council. Unbelievable. Hotel rooms belong in the hotels. Not next door to our homes.
Don’t think a new city council will make much if any difference. It will only be replaced new members following what their constituents want. SD seems to be evenly divided on this (most of the pro STVR people not actually living at the beach). As heartbreaking as this is to say, this is a battle we lost.
A new one is being built in the backyard of an already existing one just 10 ft away blocking all our windows. It doesn’t help that the owner was denied by the planning board. That along with our 3 rent raises in 18 months , we’ve made the decision to move out of OB and SD in the next 6 months to a year. So sad.
The whining about the Brown Act is ridiculous. It’s absolutely within the council’s authority to offer amendments within the confines of a noticed item, such as was done, trimming it back to only primary residences/parcels. Now if she wanted to add a soccer stadium to the ordinance, that would’ve be out of order and a violation of the Brown act.