Map of Airbnb rentals, 2022
Monday, May 1st is fast approaching. It’s the City of San Diego’s deadline for complying with the new short-term rental regulations. But there’s been a lot less licenses issued than the city anticipated.
Remember this whole plan? It was concocted by Councilmember Jen Campbell and her staff in the great “compromise” with a billion-dollar home-share corporation and a local union that represents hotel service workers. It was going to be the end-all arrangement and a final solution to the “wild west” atmosphere that permeated the STVR crisis at the coast for years.
The new plan for vacation rentals was going to fund itself and provide city staff and resources for its enforcement. And that was the crucial element, right? Enforcement. All the words on paper and in policies are great, except when it gets down to ensure the law is kept by those folks and companies who rent out their units in the Airbnb plus market. It’s the enforcement – it always has been.
And the city expected that demand would be so high it would have to conduct a lottery for doling out licenses. But that didn’t happen (except for Mission Beach) because STVR landlords aren’t biting.
For some reason, or multiple reasons, home sharers and those STVR companies have not rushed to the city to get their licenses.
Were the original estimates of vacation rentals just off by a quarter? Has the market changed in the meantime, and now owners are opening up their rentals for long-term leases?
Are the numbers of “bad-actors” — as Campbell likes to call them — increasing, you know, the scofflaws who skirt the regulations and rent their places under the wire, so to speak. Is there a large and increasing “black market” in vacation rentals?
Are landlords who’ve been skirting the rules all along and haven’t been caught, just continuing to do what they’ve done? What’s going on?
So, now with a budget at three-quarters of what it was supposed to be, the city is all set to begin the program on May 1.
Lori Weisburg, at the U-T, [paywall exists] reports:
As of April 12, the city had issued 4,586 two-year licenses for those hosts operating whole-home rentals, according to the City Treasurer’s office. …
The City Treasurer reports on its website that there are still 1,915 licenses available citywide, except for Mission Beach … For the rest of the city, 3,504 licenses were issued for whole-home rentals, bringing the grand total to 4,586. Hosts must pay a fee of $1,000 for a two-year license.
While licenses are also required for home-sharing and for those part-time hosts who operate rentals for less than 20 days out of the year, the number of such licenses is unlimited, and the fee is far more modest, ranging from $100 to $225. In all, 1,766 such licenses were issued for those two categories.
The big problem, of course, is that because of the drop in actual licenses issued was “much lower than originally predicted,” as Weisburg says, the expected revenue from the fees also is much lower. Weisburg reports:
In its report to the council committee, the Treasurer’s Office states that such revenue now totals more than $5.2 million, falling short of the $7 million city officials said last year they hoped to get for administering and enforcing the new regulations, including filling as many as nine code enforcement positions. To date, the city has incurred expenses of $1.7 million in connection with implementing the new regulations, the Treasurer’s Office said.
Eight positions for enforcement have already been funded in the current fiscal year budget, including five zoning investigators, a budget total of nearly $949,000.
A point to clarify. The Mission Beach “exception.” Mission Beach is and has been an exception and for a 100 years has had a high number of vacation rentals. So, in terms of licenses, it has a separate cap. Weisburg: “Demand for licenses there was predictably high, and a lottery was conducted for the allowed 1,082 licenses. A total of 1,290 applications were submitted.”
Yet, Rag roving reporter in Mission Beach, Gary Wonacutt, insists the city is using the wrong demographic data to determine numbers of rentals.
So, coastal residents will have a new program in less than a week. Everything’s been solved. Now, hopefully, the city will send out representatives to explain it all to us.