SHORT TERM RENTALS
Just 6 months after taking office, I championed the first-ever short-term rental ordinance in Placer County.
We received unanimous support of the Board in November, 2019. Becoming effective in January 2020, and modified since, the ordinance:
- Established fees that funded 5 full-time code enforcement staff.
- Established higher penalties including loss of permit for repeated violations.
- Established a cap on the number of permits.
- Established turn-over of permits at time of sale.
- Required health and safety inspections.
- Required bear bins for trash.
- Required adequate on-site parking.
As we continue forward on adjusting the regulation on Short-Term Rentals, I support:
- Continued modification of the ordinance to address community concerns.
- Reductions in the total number of permits through careful application of legally sound and enforceable policies.
- Consideration of other limitations or management efforts to address community concerns.
While STR’s have been part of the Tahoe area landscape for decades they have increasingly been seen as contributing to current issues that affect our local population. Housing shortages in the Tahoe area might also be alleviated if more of the short-term rentals (or other vacant housing stock) were converted to long term rentals. So when I took office this was one of the first things I took on to make a difference. The ordinance was passed after many meetings with the community including residents, owners of short-term rentals, and property management companies.
I remarked at the time of adoption, that the ordinance would have to continually be revisited and adapted as we gained experience with the program. In fact, two updates have already been approved since the program first took effect.
I support a formalized and inclusive process to take input, find best practices, and implement changes to the ordinance. To this end we created a stakeholder group to begin the process of collecting data and discussing options. The first stakeholder group to be created after the ordinance was adopted did not arrive at a consensus or clear recommendations, so we have restructured the stakeholder group and recently accepted applications for membership. I expect this group will look at ordinance models from all over California and other resort communities, and bring recommendations to the Board that we can implement without threat of litigation. This might include: limiting the number of days in the year a unit can be rented, geographic buffering, elimination of corporate ownership of multiple short term rentals, and other measures.
In studying many other jurisdictions I realize our situation is unique, and it will take a focused, collaborative effort in order to arrive at what we can enact both legally and practically.