No compromise on home vacation rentals
Chris Cate’s argument for continued support for short-term vacation rentals (STVRs) in residential zones (“Time for council decision, clarity,” Aug. 20) is based on future effective enforcement of profound noise violations created by renting vacationers.
Noise complaints are, understandably, a very low priority for police. Police arrive hours late in responding to STVR noise complaints, long after “vacationers on steroids” have ruined a neighborhood’s day or night or both. STVRs are unenforceable.
Cate states that all future revenues (taxes and fees) collected from STVR owners would only pay for new STVR enforcement measures. He then questions how we pay for police, parks and libraries without the revenue collected from STVRs. Good question. Which will it be? Millions for new STVR enforcement instead of current city services? Unlikely.
Whole-home STVRs will damage, if not destroy, working and tax-paying residential neighborhoods. Who will it be? Them or us?
Catherine Robbins
Pacific Beach
We can illegally ignore our zoning code and allow “granny flats” and “vacation rentals” and with a few protections still protect our quality of life in our “single-family residential neighborhoods” is the contention of some of our elected officials. Quite a nifty trick if you believe in fairy tales.
What about the need to increase public services created by all these extra people — including those pesky things that we currently don’t have like adequate policing, fire protection, schools, parks, road repairs and code enforcement? What about adequate street parking in these neighborhoods? Maybe vacationers don’t drive.
Councilperson Lorie Zapf (“Protecting integrity of neighborhoods,” Aug. 20) was closest to getting it right when she correctly predicted that coastal neighborhoods will disproportionately bear the brunt of density increases and service demands in the highly desirable coastal areas. The contention that rules will be enforced is pure poppycock. We can’t afford to enforce the rules on the books now.
Keith Behner
Point Loma
Don’t punish everyone for bad rental owners
Barbara Bry’s plan (“Long-term solution for home sharing,” Aug. 20), allowing property owners to short-term rent a single-family dwelling for just 90 days a year will not “consistently collect transient occupancy tax” of the $18 million currently collected. How can it when a number of homeowners who make a living from a vacation rental would be forced to cut back?
And there aren’t enough granny flats now, or in the near future, to make up the dollar difference. Why should we shoot ourselves in the collective foot making ordinances that make things harder for vacation-rental hosts who also have property-owner rights, and paying tourists who can’t easily pay exorbitant hotel rates, plus turn our back on $18 million annual TOT revenue to boot?
I say cull the irresponsible hosts. Support Chris Cate’s plan. Ding those hosts whose guests create a disturbance or make a mess. Don’t cut the whole tree down to make it healthy.
Lee Fullbright
Mission Hills
Short-term rentals don’t cover their costs
Councilman Chris Cate advocates for virtually unlimited use of properties as short-term vacation rentals (STVRs) and, ostensibly, justifies this on the basis of transient occupancy tax revenue.
Cate neglects the real cost of STVRs exacerbating the lack of housing for all San Diegans, impacting the ability to attract tech workers, and increasing commute times. For example, on Monday, in Pacific Beach, there were more than 1,000 whole-home STVR listings on online rental sites, but only 236 long-term rentals on Craigslist. Also Monday, in Cate’s district, Clairemont has 93 STVR listings, compared to 97 rentals for residents.
Residents displaced by conversion of rentals to STVRs displace others unable to afford rising rents to inland areas. They then commute further, negating the City Council’s efforts on the Climate Action Plan.
You don’t have to be a genius to do this math.
Sue Hopkins
Clairemont
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