By Gary Wonacott
Mission Beach is shrinking but the City is not using this fact in issuing licenses for short-term rentals (STR). This addresses two issues related to the 2020 census data, not yet included in SANDAG Data Surfer, but everyone else in the world has access to it.
Upon examination of the 2020 census data, there is one piece of information that jumped out at me.
While the housing in the majority of San Diego has been growing, in some areas by leaps and bounds, the number of housing units in Mission Beach has decreased, substantially.
The relevant census tract for Mission Beach is 76, which divides in to 76.01 and 76.02. Tract 76.01 is South Mission Beach while 76.02 is north Mission Beach plus De Anza, Campland and Briarfield. In the two images, Tract 76.02 housing has decreased by 25.7 percent while housing in 76.01 has decreased by 21.6 percent.
In order to get an accurate count of housing for Mission Beach, it is important to subtract out the three neighborhoods, De Anza, Campland, and Briarfield.
Since Data Surfer does not include the 2020 census data, Development Services used 2010 census estimated for 2020. The estimate for housing units for Mission Beach based on the 2010 census is 3,602, and if multiplied by thirty percent, the answer is the 1,081 being used by the Short Term Rental licensing office.
If however, Development Services did just a little more digging, they should have used the much more accurate 2020 census data. When this is done, the total for both of the relevant tracts from the 2020 census is 3573 housing units.
But again, this includes the count for the housing units in the three neighborhoods outside of Mission Beach. When the housing units for the blocks in these neighborhoods is added up, the total is 397. If one then subtracts the 397 from the 3,573, the number is 3,177 housing units as the total housing units for Mission Beach.
The effective date for the STR regulations is in 2021, while the census is 2020 and therefore the relevant data that should have been used by Development Services to calculate the number of licenses for Mission Beach is 3,177 housing units. The number of STR licenses is then 953, not 1,081 (a 128 difference).
This needs to be changed by Development Services and the STR Office, given the higher number is not going to survive a legal challenge. There is no two year prior for this initial number; it is what it is. In X years, the number will be reassessed and if greater, then the number of licenses could increase over the initial 953.
Gary Wonacot is a resident of Mission Beach