By Gary Wonacott
Congratulations Councilmember Campbell and supporting cast:
You have taken a small beach community, allowed an unrestrained proliferation of short term rentals from 2010 to 2020, a time period that coincidentally correlates with a loss of almost twenty five percent of our population. Then you legalized it solidifying what is now an area surrounding Belmont Park that is, in my opinion, a STR ghetto.
Some of you have already concluded that these properties were chosen because they support Belmont Park. Wrong. Investors have learned that these areas in particular show greater return for STRs, because they have been allowed to slip in many cases into disrepair.
They can continue to demand high STR nightly rates in the current conditions rather than improve the properties for long term rentals.
Of course, you could make it worse.
The City has been sued by the STR Alliance of San Diego, using legal terms like discrimination, equal protection, with an objective of eliminating regulations all together, although my guess is that they will settle for elimination of any limits on density of STRs in Mission Beach.
This is going to be a bit difficult for you to grasp, but the Mission Beach community is held together, its glue, by the long term residents. I don’t know if you can imagine what happens when there is not enough glue, but someone there needs to figure this out and takes some steps to stop the cancer from spreading further. We have had residents beaten up by STR visitors when they are emboldened by their numbers, by their density.
Hello, is anyone in there? Look at the chart; is this “equal protection” for long term renters and owner occupied properties in the ghetto area?
Gary Wonacott is a Past President of the Mission Beach Town Council and Mission Beach resident since 1974.