Part one of two.
The Avalon City Council on Aug. 5 unanimously introduced an ordinance updating the rules for short-term rentals.
The ordinance will return to a future meeting for adoption.
Thirteen individuals spoke to the council about the issue prior to the vote. Many public comments were critical of the ordinance. Due to space limitations, the Islander will look at those comments in detail next week.
Background
The following is not a transcript but highlights from the meeting.
The moratorium on short term rentals ended on July 30. Recently, the Avalon City Council discussed short term rentals. The city’s law firm, Best, Best & Krieger, LLP, city staff and City Manager David Maistros worked through what Maistros called a number of modifications.
City Attorney Scott Campbell, participating remotely, briefly went through the changes in the proposed ordinance. “I think the important one is that the council had asked for penalties for violations of the terms and conditions of approval of the ordinance,” Campbell said.
He said there was a state ordinance that says transient occupancy ordinance violations are to be penalized severely if a city pursues criminal court action.
“We can also pursue a civil path. For the criminal path, those would be fines of up to $5,000,” Campbell said.
He said the Avalon ordinance imposes a $1,500 fine for the first violation, $3,000 for the second, and $5,000 for the third. He was referring, according to the staff report, to violations related to threats to public health and safety. (“Violations that do not constitute a threat to the public health and safety are punishable by fines of $100 for the first violation , $200 for the second violations and $500 for each additional violations that occurs within one year of the first violation,” wrote City Manager Maistros in the staff report.)
“Those are the state penalties,” Campbell said.
He said the city has added notification by email. He said the city added the provision that when there is a hearing for a short-term rental license, the property owner must either attend the hearing in person or virtually. “Next thing is, we set the limit at 410 units,” he said.
According to Campbell, that will include transient occupancy licenses, permits, CUPs, and grandfathered.
(Later, City Manager Maistros said the city would be close to reaching the 410 unit cap within the next six months.)
Other changes
“One concept may be to have an annual transient license day where we have, OK, we have 10 spaces open,” Campbell said.
“We then accept applications and if applications are complete, then we do a drawing or some kind of determination from those applications,” Campbell said.
“We’re just thinking about the concept but I think rather than having a rolling wait list like we do with the vehicle permits, doing this all at once makes sense to us,” Campbell said.
“But ultimately, we’re going to bring that back to the City Council,” Campbell said.
He said that under the changes in the ordinance, a short-term rental license is a residential use rather than a commercial use. “That’s important under state law and under your Municipal Code because if it is determined that an applicant has five residences or five residential units and is using for of those five as transient rentals, the Planning Commission can determine that that person is using this as a business as a related use to their residence,” Campbell said.
He said that if a transient rental license or CUP is revoked, in most cases that will be a permanent revocation.
Campbell said the next owner of the property would be able to apply for a license.
He said Avalon encourages the use of the units at least 10 times a year. He said that was because the California Coastal Commission wants Avalon to grant access to visitors.
Campbell then discussed the three violations rule, which means that the three violations have been adjudicated by the Planning Commission, the City Council, or a the court, and the property owner has accepted a penalty and paid a fine.
He said if you’ve been through three of those proceedings and you’re still in violation, the city must revoke the CUP.
According to Campbell, the city is requiring short-term rentals with an agent respond to complaints within 30 minutes.
He said they would come back to the council to with wait list policy if the city needs one.
He said staff would come back to the council every year to determine if the restrictions are correct or they need to be adjusted. He said the ordinance would go into effect 30 days after the next meeting.
Mayor Anni Marshall asked if the “banked” units that are currently occupied by year-round tenants were included in the 410 unit limit.
Maistros said yes. “We contemplated not including those because we want to obviously encourage that and we do encourage that, but to not include them I think would not give us an authentic number of what the cap is,” Maistros said.
Councilmember Mary Schickling asked for examples of violations related to public health and safety.
Campbell listed loud parties, which he described as violations that damaged the health and general welfare of the city.
Councilmember Yesenia De La Rosa asked what data would be used for that.
Maistros said that was what the live 24/7 monitoring system was for.
Campbell said the language was in state law. “It exists already,” he said.
Councilmember Michael Ponce asked if there is a complaint and the matter is resolved within 30 minutes, does the rental get a strike?
“I don’t think we would view that as a strike,” Maistros said.
“That’s my issue, when they don’t respond, they don’t solve it,” Ponce said.
Campbell said the purpose of the fines was to gain compliance with the conditions of approval.
According to Campbell if property owners don’t fix problems three times, that is when the city looks at revoking the permit through due process.
Councilmember Yesenia De La Rosa asked if the property owners could appeal a complaint.
“It’s just a complaint at that time,” Campbell said.
“We can issue a citation, but it’s just a complaint until it’s acted upon,” he said.
He said you can always appeal to the City Council.
A woman in the audience asked what would happen if a property with a CUP is sold. Because of previous changes to short-term rental rules, the CUP does not transfer.
Maistros said the new owner would have to apply for a transient rental license.
Campbell said that the reason the city implemented TRLs was because under the CUP system, the short-term rental automatically ran with the land and the city had no right and no say in who that new owner was or whether that new owner would be a good landlord.
That said, Campbell said there was no change in the transfer of property to a trust or to family members.
