The San Diego Planning Commission this week endorsed a plan to cut short-term rentals by 50 percent.
It still needs to be approved by the city council but the plan marked a major milestone in the city’s efforts to reach an agreement on Airbnb-style rentals.
The decision was based on residents complaining for years about loud vacation rentals next to their homes. However, the vacation rentals are also a major source of revenue for the city through transit occupancy taxes.
Q: Should San Diego City Council approve proposed regulations that would cut the number of short-term vacation rentals by 50 percent?
Reginald Jones, Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation
YES: Residential zoning should be restricted to permanent housing, as opposed to allowing vacation rentals. Beyond the disruption the short-term rentals bring with a revolving door of strangers, they destabilize neighborhoods and reduce needed permanent housing supply. San Diego hotels offer a range of accommodations — from single rooms to mini residential suites — all situated in the city’s desired vacation spots. Limiting vacation rentals is a good first step. They should ultimately be banned from residential areas.
Lynn Reaser, Point Loma Nazarene University
YES: The proposal seems to be a reasonable compromise, balancing the benefits of property owners receiving vacation rental income versus the harms that may be imposed on homeowners experiencing disruptive behavior. Those homeowners also argue that vacation rentals convert residential to commercial zoning, undermining their home investments. While the city may lose taxes on home vacation rentals, those losses should be offset by higher hotel bookings. Resolution, rather than ongoing uncertainty, over this issue would be a clear positive.
Kelly Cunningham, San Diego Institute for Economic Research
NO: Balancing needs of both property owners and residents is a challenging task. The Planning Commission proposal seems like a reasonable compromise for both sides of the contentious issue, although cutting the number of short-term rentals by 50 percent and allocating them by lottery is fraught with problems. Whichever way the city council decides, the regulation will likely be challenged in court. The citizens of San Diego will need to vote to explicitly amend the city charter.
Gary London, London Moeder Advisors
NO: This is a simple problem in search of a complicated solution. Why not just add a user fee to cover the costs of dedicated policing, which would enable the city to respond to noise and parking violations? Those are the core problems. Conversely, such regulation would be economically shooting ourselves in the foot: Short-term rentals do not negatively impact hotels. They bring in more tourists. They provide income to homeowners. And re-introducing this housing into full time inventory would not put a dent into solving our housing crisis.
Phil Blair, Manpower
YES: This seems like a reasonable compromise that will avoid residential family neighborhoods from turning into party sites. It should also be reviewed annually. I do however care less about the number of houses that are open to Airbnb then the minimum length. A one or two night minimum is an invitation to party time. A five to seven day commitment is families looking to have a vacation with the kids near the beach.
Alan Gin, University of San Diego
YES: Reducing the number of short-term vacation rentals would have two positive results. First, it would reduce some of the negative aspects of those rentals, such as noise, less stable communities, etc. Second, it would make more long-term housing available, which would help in terms of housing affordability. Any revenue the city may lose from the transit occupancy tax would be made up for by revenue from increased hotel occupancy when that is allowed again.
Bob Rauch, R.A. Rauch & Associates
YES: Short-term rentals have some “negative effects,” including on the housing market, livability, social cohesion, safety, and a level playing field for other providers of such accommodations. Fifty percent is a fair and reasonable number to allow some short-term rentals given that some owners of real estate use this income to support themselves. This new approach would not allow for multiple units, which would create a business model of a hotel without any regulation.
Austin Neudecker, Weave Growth
YES: There is a difficult balance to strike between not disrupting neighborhoods and incentivizing tourism and accommodating large events. Tourism is one of the largest economic drivers of the city, funding our local restaurants, activities, etc. The proposed regulations seem measured and appropriately targeted at full-time rental properties (although it proposes random distribution). If they operate like hotels, being similarly regulated makes sense. The existence of many full-time rentals also drives up housing and rental costs.
James Hamilton, UC San Diego
NO: Where does this 50 percent quota come from, and whose interest does it serve to use a lottery to allocate it? If parties and noise are the problem, I say address those directly. Temporary rentals should require a license that prohibits parties of more than eight people or excessive noise from the guests. Any violation of those terms should result in a big fine for the owner and possible revocation of the license.
Chris Van Gorder, Scripps Health
YES: I believe the council should approve. Vacation rentals should be restricted to certain areas so the purchasers of property in that same area understand what they are getting into when they purchase. Most neighborhoods want more continuity in their neighbors and most likely fewer parties and less noise. Both can work with a good plan, appropriate zoning regulations and enforcement. A homeowner’s right to rent their property shouldn’t come at the expense of another homeowner’s right to quiet enjoyment of theirs.
Norm Miller, University of San Diego
NO: The property and free markets maven in me cringes at arbitrary supply constraints. This is definitely going to create inequities and affect legitimate investor property values, retrospectively and unfairly. At the same time, I do understand and sympathize with the negative externalities affecting permanent resident neighborhoods. It seems that what is fair is to limit short-term rentals, of any kind, to established tourist zones and tolerate some rental time minimums within established neighborhoods, but without arbitrary percentage limits.
Jamie Moraga, IntelliSolutions
NO: This has been a contentious issue for several years. On one hand you understand that there needs to be regulations, especially for the rentals that are consistently noisy, host loud parties, or are destructive. But on the other hand, the city shouldn’t infringe on a property owner’s ability to rent their property either on a long-term or short-term basis. Instead of restricting the number of rentals available, the city should focus more on enforcement as outlined in the measure. This brings the focus more on the bad actors by either fining them or revoking their licenses.
David Ely, San Diego State University
Not participating this week.
Ray Major, SANDAG
NO: Not as currently written, but yes, short-term rentals should be regulated. San Diego residents who rely on rental income to make their mortgage payments should be allowed to rent within a set of reasonable guidelines. Companies, and out-of-state investment firms that care little about a community’s character, should be prohibited or severely limited in the number of units they can operate. Any allocation cap the city might impose should go to San Diego residents first.
Have an idea for an EconoMeter question? Email me at phillip.molnar@sduniontribune.com.
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Should San Diego approve limits on the number of short-term vacation rentals? - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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