The Avalon City Council recently adopted new rules for short term rentals. The vote was unanimous.
This was a Consent Calendar item. Consent items are voted on collectively, without discussion, unless a council member pulls one or more items for further discussion. This item was not pulled.
Mayor Anni Marshall asked the city manager to address the issue of the complaint procedures.
The council discussed the proposed changes in July. (See “Council looks at short term rentals” at thecatalinaislander.com.)
On Sept. 2, City Manager David Maistros said the general tenor of the comments received were about how the city would really vet and verify complaints that came in. “I’m sure council recalls when we were discussing this, a number of residents had a concern of, well, if my neighbor simply doesn’t like it and makes complaints, and files three of those, does that get my permit pulled?” Maistros said.
“The answer to that then and the answer to that now is no,” Maistros said.
“The city still has to go through and verify the complaint. We’ll have a much better way to do that now with Host Compliance, being able to follow up with it in real time,” Maistros said.
“But the information that we receive does have to be just treated like any other evidence, any other complaint against somebody,” Maistros said.
According to Maistros, the city must determine it is a real complaint about a violation of an existing code, rather than just someone saying something is happening.
“We’ll be able to do that much better. But, no, just simply the phone call made to Host Compliance does not trigger the valid complaint. It has to be verified,” Maistros said.
According to Maistros, audio or video of an incident is always significant help to show the validity of a complaint. “That’s a huge help. We have that mechanism now and when we received those photographs or the short video and the complaint form, it’s a big benefit to be able to verify that,” Maistros said.
Councilmember Mary Schickling asked how you reported a complaint.
Maistros said he had complaints recently where the video was 2 to 3 minutes long and the city had to make other arrangements because the video was “so long” but they’ve been able to do that.
Schickling asked how do you make a complaint with Host Compliance or is there an online presence with them?
Maistros said the complaint is made by phone call because then a live person verifies the address of the complaint. That person immediately calls the on-Island representative for that property.
Schickling urged anyone at the meeting to record an incident in some fashion for follow up.
Maistros said the city has received complaints about, for example, parking violations and received photographs that were six months old. Maistros said the city was verifying if the city is receiving an actual complaint.
Background
Avalon’s 24-month moratorium on issuing transient rental licenses ended on July 30.
“City Staff have proposed an amendment to the Article 3 of Chapter 1 of Title 3 of the Avalon Municipal Code (AMC) Modifying the Transient Rental System. If adopted regulations will go into effect 30 days later,” Maistros wrote in his report to the Sept. 2 City Council meeting.
“During the moratorium period, City Staff worked to cull through more than 40 years of short-term rental historical documents in order to create a singular, short-term rental database,” Maistros wrote.
“City Staff has completed efforts to identify and revoke any existing, inactive or otherwise noncompliant short-term rental properties granted by either grandfathered status, Conditional Use Permit (CUP), or Transient Rental License (TRL),” Maistros wrote.
“Though initially 94 properties were brought before the Planning Commission for revocation, 31 properties challenged the revocation process, and two properties were found to have been previously revoked,” Maistros wrote.
“Fourteen properties from the initial revocation list were able to come into compliance either by providing proof of long-term lessee in the unit, or otherwise curing,” Maistros wrote.
According to the report, 77 short-term rentals have been revoked.
As of July 15, Avalon had identified 386 short term rental properties. Of those, 91 were grandfathered in; 267 had conditional use permits, and 28 had Transient Business Licenses, according to the report. Twenty-three of those CUP properties were inactive. One of the TBL properties was inactive, according to the report.
“Amendments to the ordinance were based on feedback gathered from community meetings, an analysis of other municipal ordinances, a community sentiment survey, and concurrence with the Planning Commission. Specifically, the City focused on addressing quality of life issues for residents, financial benefits and impacts to the local economy, and other sustainability and affordable housing impacts associated with transient rentals,” Maistros wrote.
“Community feedback cited a need for a better regulatory process for short-term rental properties,” Maistros wrote.
Utilizing the new database of rentals, in May, the City expanded its short-term rental monitoring contract with Host Compliance to establish a 24/7 call center to support and provide oversight of short-term rental complaints,” Maistros wrote.
“The support line will provide a live notification system for property managers as well as track property manager responsiveness, and the number and nature of complaints filed for each property. City Staff is currently working with Host Compliance in the development of the call center,” Maistros wrote.
“It is anticipated the 24/7 call center will be activated by Fall 2025,” Maistros wrote.
At the July 15 council meeting, the council told staff to set a 410 unit limit on transient rentals, according to Maistros’ report.
“Pursuant to Government Code §39000(a) certain violations related to threats to the public health and safety, can be punishable by fines of $1 500 for the first violation $3,000 for the second and $5,000 for each additional violations of it occurs within a year of the first violation,” Maistros wrote.
“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. The proposed ordinance incorporates these provisions,” Maistros wrote.
“At the August 5 meeting, the City Council modified the language of the proposed ordinance to provide that if there are three adjudicated violations of the transient rental provisions or conditions of use within a year, the transient permit or license must be revoked,” Maistros wrote.
Applicants will have to attend council meetings in person.