By Gary Wonacott
In November of 2022, I submitted a story to the Rag that was published about a shrinking Mission Beach and the incorrect basis for the calculation of Tier 4 short term rental licenses by the City of San Diego.
At that time, I had an attorney send a demand letter to SANDAG, the STR Office with the City, the mayor and other officials requesting that the correct 2020 census numbers be used. The SANDAG estimates are 3,607 housing units in Mission Beach, compared to a number that I confirmed of 3,177.
Fast forward to today. SANDAG has released its revised estimates supposedly based on the 2020 census according to a SANDAG employee, Dr. Cindy Burke, in a letter in response to the demand letter. In fact, SANDAG has released housing units and population for 2020, 2021, and 2022 in their on-line resource, Data Surfer. I communicated my concerns back to SANDAG to a staff person I’ll call “employee #1,” who I presume passed them along to SANDAG employee #2, who will also go nameless. I feel a need to protect their names because #2 is something of a whistle blower.
Employee #2 did a couple of things that I believe revealed his frustration with the process. First, he passed along the final 2020 census numbers of housing units at 3,188 and population of 3,354. The difference in housing units between the 2020 census and the SANDAG/STRO is 419. So, SANDAG/STRO are telling us that the census people missed counting 419 housing units in Mission Beach out of a total of 3,188. This would be a 13.1 percent error in their count.
I am not even going to go into their population numbers for the three years, which, were inconsistent and ignorant of the history of STRs in Mission Beach. SANDAG employee #2 made another comment about the quality of their published data. He communicated in an email to me that I should contact the STR Office to gain more insight into the quality and source of the SANDAG published data. Effectively he was saying that ownership of the SANDAG published number of housing units and population belonged with the STRO, not SANDAG.
So, apparently, the City is willing to misrepresent the data to ensure not only that their starting number of housing units and therefore STR licenses for Mission Beach is intact, but that there will be an increase going into 2022. District 2 Councilmember Jen Campbell now has a dilemma. She can continue to misrepresent the SANDAG data and risk a possible injunction, or correct the earlier mistake and reduce the number of Mission Beach Tier 4 licenses, or change the percentage of STR licenses for Tier 4 from 30 percent to 33.9 percent.
The latter approach would require a change in the ordinance, which opens up a whole new Pandora box of problems with the California Coastal Commission, now taking a very different approach to STRs in the coastal zone. This is a path that the City does not want to go down.
In summary, apparently, the STRO has pressured SANDAG to falsify their Data Surfer housing units and population for Mission Beach. SANDAG personnel have become frustrated and at least one has turned whistleblower. The correct and only defensible number for housing units in Mission Beach is 3,188, which yields 956 Tier 4 STR licenses. I believe that the time has come for an independent auditor to review all of this data.
Gary Wonacott is a Past President of the Mission Beach Town Council and Mission Beach resident since 1974.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
An outside Audit needs to be done on that whole game, City wide. In reviewing the City’s website for over 3 yrs. until they made is so complex you have to had an address now to find what’s being built. But it used to be, you could go to DSD and run a report for all of SD, in the Permits Applied for webpage and you’d be surprised at the Permits Applied for a granny flat, ADA, ADAJ, Artist Loft with kitchen, studio, guest quarters, in-law quarters, room addition with kitchen, garage conversion, STR’s, etc. My guess is someone in the Permits end of the City was monitoring only those that said STR’s and all the other cute names for the same thing slipped on by. And that was City wide, not just in MB. Audit the entire thing, because most of the Permits were given to the North Park area early on. Now other communities have to deal with it.
There ya go again Gary! Hammering STRs (although you owned rentals yourself). If you consider a 30% of your redone number would be a couple dozen tier 4 licenses. Why don’t you aim your anger at the ADU travesty that will dwarf STRs shortly,
What I believe is interesting is the smaller and smaller response from the short term rental community to my kinds of statements. The SDSTRA barely requires sufficient members to stop the letter from going forward. It is ironic that this action may be the end of STRs in Mission Beach, or at result in far fewer licenses.
Gary, these StR owners are business people and have better things to do particularly with something that was decided well over a year ago. When it get serious they will turn out, i,e, the crushing vote against any change in recent MIssion Beach Counsel vote.
Finally someone is speaking up for balance… They additionally need an independent audit of the ??ADU/multi dwelling permits being issued on the coast. I believe the all investment property needs to be audited more rigorously as it is now DRIVING housing narratives. This is the most egregious assault on our American freedoms??
We are fortunate that in the City of San Diego, there exists an outstanding,
smart, and independent AUDITOR, namely,Andy Hanau, MPP, CIA, CFE.
No need to hire an outside, and needlessly expensive auditor. He is no
friend of Jennifer Campbell and her fellow crew of Todd Gloria sycophants sitting on the San Diego City Council. He and his staff are objective & fair.
Then, where exactly can investigators access Andy Hanau’s audits that the public is so fortunate to have? Where can the public marvel at the “Auditor’s” work?