The city of San Diego is trying to hide its embarrassment as applications for short-term rental licenses have fallen way short of its expectations. The city was going to conduct a “lottery” on December 16 to see which STVR hosts get licenses, thinking the city would be swamped with applications from the estimated 16,000 whole homes that were being used as short-term rentals for more than 20 days per year.
But, as of the day before today’s deadline to apply, there were “less than 5,400 applications,” according to Venus Molina, chief of staff for Councilmember Jennifer Campbell. Which could mean the city won’t have to hold a lottery.
There’s different ways to spin this development.
Either, as Molina surmises many people were not aware they needed a license, despite the city and local media’s repeated announcements. Or, maybe many hosts just didn’t think they needed one as the city didn’t have the enforcement mechanism in place yet. Actually, enforcement of the new short-term vacation-rental rules won’t begin until May 1, 2023. That’s 6 months away.
Or maybe, there just weren’t that many “good actors” — hosts that were never cited by the city for violating its STVR rules or who didn’t receive complaints. Or, perhaps hosts just became complacent over the last several years — they got away with renting out their place, and they can continue to do so. Licenses? We don’t need no stinkin’ licenses!’
Or maybe, the dampening down of the economy has hurt the home-share business.
But for those whom enforcement catches, the city can issue warnings, citations of $1000 or civil penalties of up to $10,000 for violating the rules.
Campbell, Molina and the city all expected thousands of applicants (the deadline is today at 5pm) and they were going to reward the good actors with a license, good for two years.
Perhaps Campbell and Molina can just announce that the short-term rental issue has been solved. ‘See, all that worry about the loss of housing can not now be blamed on short-term rentals.’ Their original goal was to limit the number of short-term vacation rentals in the city to 1% of the 540,000 housing units.
But now, the narrative from Campbell’s office is, ‘Hey, this is great. Now everyone who applies can get a license.’ Even if they weren’t good actors.
“Well, right now, our applications are not as high as we thought, so everybody might be able to get a license,” Molina said.
7SanDiego: “Prior to the new rules, the city auditor had estimated there were approximately 16,000 whole homes that were being used as short-term rentals for more than 20 days per year. The city planned on limiting the number of licenses for short-term vacation rentals for more than 20 days per year to 5,400.”
Molina — supposedly the architect of the whole plan to make an agreement between the city and the homeshare companies — told 7SanDiego:
“We have a housing crisis in San Diego. It’s very expensive, and we don’t have a lot of houses for rent or to buy, so we wanted to make sure that we put housing back on the market for people who want to live here. We wanted to control this particular platform because it was out of control, you know? People were just doing whatever they wanted, so we wanted to make sure there was some control.”
IN truth, Molina, we don’t have a housing crisis; we have an affordable housing crisis. Come down to Abbott Street in Ocean Beach, Venus, and check out all the former affordable housing and apartments that have been turned into short-term rentals, and then tell us you have it under control.
So, dear reader, what’s your favorite spin on this? Tell us.