Year-old law isn’t strong enough on Tier 2 rentals, hosts, enforcement, density and impact on long-term housing.
By Trudy Grundland / La Jolla Light Op-Ed/ April ,2024
The first anniversary of the city of San Diego’s short-term vacation rental ordinance is May 1. The ordinance is good but has several gray areas that need fixing sooner rather than later:
• Tier 2: the cheater’s tier [home-share rentals where the owner lives onsite]. It’s impossible to regulate and enforce. In my opinion, this is what hosts will use. San Diego has 650,000 housing units. Hypothetically, they could all become Tier 2’s. There is nothing to prevent this from happening. Tier 2’s are not counted in the quotas. They can be rented full time as STVRs for nine months of the year. There’s no way to enforce.
• “Hosts” enable grifters. One owner can use hundreds of “hosts” to run their STVR empire. No government ID is required. A fake name, fake email and fake phone number have been and will continue to be submitted to the city. One investor owns multiple properties on the same street. Each has a different host name/email/phone. Enforcement of STVR ordinance rules is difficult to implement.
• Too much density of STVRs is a real estate investor’s dream. The California Coastal Commission and the San Diego City Council need to cap the number of whole-house short-term rentals in any tier per street, block and neighborhood.
Not only do the noise and disruption caused by a constant revolving door of travelers ruin the quality of life for longtime residents, but San Diego is losing enrollment in public schools because families can’t afford to live (rent or buy) near where they work. Schools have lost significant funding.
How long can this trend continue before San Diego neighborhoods are permanently ruined? Where will workers live in the future? I asked the SDG&E guy working in my neighborhood (La Jolla/Pacific Beach) where he lives. Not Spring Valley. Not Lakeside. Lake Elsinore! He drives to Temecula and picks up the SDG&E truck. Vice versa at the end of the day.
• Love long-term California residents. The beach areas and 15 miles inland have become less affordable for people to buy, rent and live long-term or rent for a vacation.
It’s my opinion that the dramatic increase in short-term rentals removed a significant amount of long-term housing in the beach communities and downtown.
The ordinance capped Tier 3 STVRs [whole-home rentals totaling more than 20 days per year] at 1 percent [of San Diego’s housing] and Tier 4 [which applies exclusively to Mission Beach] at 30 percent [of its housing], but the majority of these are near water or downtown.
Tier 2’s are not counted in the 1 percent and 30 percent quotas but cause STVR enforcement problems.
Whole-house STVRs reduce housing suitable for families.
It’s easy to see with my own eyes who is a beach day tripper. Long-term residents of San Diego County drive in from all over, including Ramona, Alpine and other areas, to enjoy a day at the beach. They bring cooler chests, small barbecue grills, umbrellas, everything but the kitchen sink.
The people staying at STVRs on the Mission Beach boardwalk are from out of state: Arizona, Utah, Idaho. Occasionally I’ll see a multi-generational family at an STVR, but most of the time it’s a large group of young folks. Who’s benefiting? The listing sites. The wealthy property owners.
• Another day in paradise? Two men I know as locals invited me to join them on a bench at Tourmaline on March 29. We watched the surfers and chatted about this and that. I asked if they were ever bothered by people staying at a short-term vacation rental. “No,” one man said. “I live in my van.” “So do I,” said the other.
The STVR ordinance needs amendments this year on Tier 2, hosts, enforcement, density and impact on long-term housing.
Trudy Grundland is a resident of Bird Rock.
Amendments to the ordinance are necessary. However, the ordinances are useless without enforcement. Enforcement continues to be an issue.
The Mission Beach Town Council has several membership categories, resident, property owner, business in MB commercial district, which are all voting members, and a non-voting business membership. On any given issue addressed by the town council, there might be unanimity of vote or not. On the alcohol on the beach issue, there was tremendous division, for example. But there is one issue where one group, STR owners, virtually always votes, driven by money, as a block. This gives this group a disproportionate amount of power in Mission Beach, in part because, illegal STRs that increased rapidly from 2005 through 2017 displaced 2,500 to 3,000 of the residents. Short term rentals have no redeeming value, except for the owner, even compared to long term renters; especially compared to most long term renters. So, I believe a strong case could be made to put those with short term rental licenses not residing in Mission Beach into a new, non-voting membership category. If anything, they are taking away value in the community by not renting long term, plus they don’t live in Mission Beach. If the voting members still want you, then so be it, but first priority should always go to the residents.