2022 map of STVRs
There’s a great article in the most recent Point Loma-OB Monthly by Tyler Faurot which encapsulates the recent problems and issues identified with the new short-term rental ordinance, including the scandalous ability of slumlord Michael Mills to acquire more than 100 short-term rental licenses. [Faurot was able to get it published just as it was announced the PL-OB Monthly was sold to the hedge fund.]
Faurot focused not only on Mills but also on complaints by Ocean Beach leaders about threats to the community’s housing stock and even the vitality of the community by short-term rentals.
As many of us know, San Diego’s short-term rental ordinance was authored largely by City Councilwoman Jennifer Campbell with assistance from her chief of staff, Venus Molina. And when Faurot interviewed her, Molina had quite a mouthful to say.
In response to questions about the Mills’ situation and about his tenants being evicted to make way for short-term rentals, Molina said the city bears no responsibility for people being displaced from their homes to make way for short-term rentals. She told Faurot:
“When people call and say they were displaced from their homes because it’s being converted into a short-term vacation rental, that is a private matter. If you want to change your house and rent it long-term, or if you want to make it a short-term rental, that’s your prerogative. … That is between you and your tenants. That is something we are not involved with.” [Our emphasis.]
When Faurot questioned Molina on requests by the OB Town Council’s advocacy committee for the city to limit Tier 3 licenses by neighborhood and that the ordinance be amended so licenses are limited to a percentage of the units at one property, Molina responded by saying the city does not intend to rewrite the ordinance at this time, pointing to the bureaucratic process it would need to go through again. She said:
“If we change the ordinance, it has to come back to [the City] Council and it has to go back to the [California] Coastal Commission for approval. It would take another two to three years.”
Molina said officials need to “let the dust settle” before making adjustments to the law, plus:
“People have been waiting for an ordinance like this for 15 years. I’ve always said this ordinance is not perfect. … We just need to let this work itself through. … We want to see what else comes up.”
Faurot also quoted OB leaders on the problems and consequences of the short-term rental quagmire.
Andrea Schlageter, chairwoman of the OB Planning Board, said problems have arisen since the council first passed the ordinance in February 2021. She said:
“When we were going through this, we were specifically told by the powers that be that this would reduce the numbers of short-term rentals. The mayor looked me dead in the eye and said this would reduce the numbers, but it’s allowed people to enter the market that had no interest before.”
And Tracy Dezenzo, chairwoman of the Ocean Beach Town Council’s advocacy committee and treasurer of the OB Planning Board, commented:
“Michael Mills is not the only property owner doing this, but it is the most egregious example in Ocean Beach.”
In a letter to Mayor Todd Gloria and all members of the City Council in February 2021, the OB Planning Board recommended license caps for individual neighborhoods rather than general areas. Dezenso stated:
“The way [Campbell] wrote it, she said that if 100 percent of the license requests come from Ocean Beach, 100 percent of licenses would go to Ocean Beach. What we were trying to push for was a limit by community planning area. We knew most of the requests for licenses would be coming from beach communities.”
Schlageter said there is a significant impact on the community by short-term rentals.
“I continue to hear people say that this impacts only a negligible amount of housing in San Diego, [but] I think anyone who has been kicked out of their house by Michael Mills would disagree with you.” …
“600 fewer units [in Ocean Beach] is not negligible. It affects people’s very life and the way they live day to day if they are housing-insecure. Even the removal of just one unit of housing is not negligible.”
Andrea also hit upon a theme the Rag has enunciated for years, as Faurot reported:
Schlageter said the fallout from the [STVR] situation threatens the vitality of the community.
“If there are no more residents in Ocean Beach, there is no more OB Christmas Holiday Parade, there is no more street fair, there is no more Oktoberfest or St. Patrick’s Day, because they’re run by volunteers in the neighborhood who are trying to keep their neighborhood alive,” Schlageter said. “If we continue to allow the tourism industry … to hollow out and take over San Diego, the things that make it attractive will no longer exist. It only exists with people in their neighborhood that love it and want to make it the best.”
Faurot also reported on the deal involving an abandoned apartment complex in OB on Abbott.
A deal is in motion for Wakeland and the city of San Diego to buy a 13-unit apartment building at 2147 Abbott St. in Ocean Beach from the OB Community Development Corp., or CDC, to use as housing with supportive services for homeless people.
The property, appraised at about $4.5 million, has been owned by the CDC since 1997 and is zoned for low-income housing. It has been vacant since January 2022.
“It’s kind of a win-win for the community because it will provide much-needed low-income housing,” said Mark Winkie, president of the Ocean Beach CDC. “If you know anything about Ocean Beach and Point Loma, there is hardly any low-income housing at all in our community. Also, the revenue generated by the sale will go back to the CDC, which we can use for a lot of the community enhancement and development initiatives we have on our list.”
Among those are redevelopment of Veterans Plaza and installing a playground and fitness area at Saratoga Park.
Here’s more of the report:
Campbell’s chief of staff, Venus Molina, said such amassing of licenses was addressed through administrative regulation. The city treasurer’s office, which awards and regulates STVR licenses, sent notices to the people whose names were listed on license applications requiring additional notarization and proof of compliance training.
“When we wrote the ordinance, we left kind of like a piece to say ‘OK, this is the bones, and all of the meat will be done through administrative regulations,’” Molina said. “We’re working with the city attorney’s office and the city treasurer’s office to figure out how to prevent something like this from happening and what we can do to mitigate things that we didn’t anticipate.”
The ordinance groups short-term rentals into a four-tier licensing system:
- Tier 1: Home-share (a room or rooms) or whole-home rentals totaling 20 days or less per year
- Tier 2: Home-share rentals totaling more than 20 days per year
- Tier 3: Whole-home rentals totaling more than 20 days per year
- Tier 4: Special tier for Mission Beach, which allows whole-home short-term rentals in a manner consistent with recommendations from the Mission Beach Town Council
Whole-home rentals for more than 20 days out of the year are capped at 1 percent of the city’s more than 540,000 housing units, or about 5,400. However, in Mission Beach, which has a long history of vacation rentals that predates the rise of online home-sharing platforms, the cap is 30 percent of the community’s total dwelling units, or nearly 1,100. …
As of June 28, more than 5,100 licenses had been issued across San Diego for the short-term rental of entire homes where the owner or permanent resident does not live onsite. Ocean Beach had 497 whole-home licenses, plus 103 of other types of STVR licenses, for a total of 600. Only Mission Beach, Pacific Beach and La Jolla had more whole-home and overall licenses.
For perspective, Ocean Beach has fewer than 200 hotel rooms.