First town hall on vacation rentals looks at impact on quality of life
First of two parts.
Avalon city staff led the discussion about short term rentals at a town hall meeting that was held both in-person and on Zoom and Facebook.
A one-hour video of the Tuesday, Aug. 22, meeting is available on the city’s Facebook page.
Because of space limits, the Islander will report on the first town hall in two parts.
Background
The City Council recently imposed a moratorium on issuing short-term rental licenses. The moratorium will expire on Sept. 15 unless the council extends it for 10-and-a-half months. Three license applications were in the pipeline for consideration before the moratorium went into effect. Those applications will be allowed to go through the approval process.
Meeting
City Manager David Maistros said this was the first of what they hoped would be at least three town hall meetings on short-term rentals, also known as transient rentals.
Maistros said they were hoping to hear from residents as much as possible.
According to a slide shown at the start of the meeting, these were areas of concern to be discussed:
- “How do we address the number of STRs? Hard cap — %Cap — Don’t set limit”.
- “Quality of life issues? Noise — Garbage — Vehicles —Crowds”.
- “Impact on long-term housing? Reduces # of available long-term Rentals? Regulation does not guarantee increase of LTR [long-term rentals]?”
Maistros said the city had to regulate smartly. He said regulations do not guarantee long-term success.
- “Financial impact for businesses and the City? STR TOT [transient occupancy tax] $2,416,013 + associated wharfage/admission tax/sales tax.”
Maistros said short-term rentals were probably the second largest generator of revenue for Avalon behind hotel transient occupancy taxes.
There were reportedly sound issues on Zoom.
The next slide summarized vacation rental history:
- The city is historically a destination for vacation and transient visitors.
- The city is a second home or vacation home for many families
- Originally, three-month, nine-month rental cycles were driven by the peak summer season
- The proliferation of online booking sites has changed how units are marketed and rented.
The renters used to be known users, according to Maistros: family and friends.
“Now what you’re getting is essentially unknown users for the most part to the to property owners and long-term renters living next to it,” Maistros said.
The next slide identified three objectives: Protect quality of life for residents, develop common-sense regulation on the number of short-term rentals allowed, and consider the impact of STRs on long-term affordable housing for Avalon.
Maistros said he would like to focus on protecting residents’ quality of life.
One of the things regulations to consider was limiting STRs to one per person.
Maistros then looked at the roadmap to developing regulations.
“The first thing we did was the moratorium,” Maistros said.
“So we have a bit of breathing room. We can do this and start putting some things in place that make sense,” Maistros said.
“We’re going to hold these community forums and then we’re going to put out a community survey to both property owners and residents to get their feedback,” Maistros said.
“Coming out of that, we’ll prepare draft regulations and forward them on to the Planning Commission and City Council for their review, and get more community input with those draft regulations,” Maistros said.
“Once everybody has an opportunity to review those, we will present regulations to the council for final adoption,” Maistros said.
He predicted that not every person interested in the issue would not be satisfied with the regulations that would be proposed.
“We need ideas from residents about what is going to work,” Maistros.
He encouraged the participants to keep an open mind.
He started with people in the council Chambers.
Kate Rodden said she thought that a lot of new owners had bought into Catalina in the last 10 years. “I think the community has become transient from the standpoint there’s no touch point with the renter that’s coming onto that Island, onto our Island,” she said.
“There’s lock boxes, people get dumped off at the property,” she said.
“There’s no communication with the rental company in the past,” she said.
“You used to come in, you got your keys to your rental property, they went over the rules, they showed you how to drive the golf cart, and I think we need to get back to that,” she said.
She said she thinks renters need to look in the eyes of the property management company.
She also said there was a lack of process for making a complaint.
She also called for an on-site inspection of the property.
She said the people who get rental permits need to be conscious of the rules and regulations.
She said there were some fast, short-term solutions that don’t involve regulation, but involve more of a personal touch.
Maistros said that as people were commenting, staff was taking notes.
George Cormick said they had talked about how so many housing units have become short-term rentals and decreased long-term renting and that eventually there would be fewer residents in the community.
“Teachers can’t stay on the Island because there’s no affordable housing,” Cormick said.
He also said workers have to come over from the mainland.
“We’ve had a minimal increase in long-term rentals in Avalon,” he said.
“Is there a way for the city of Avalon to find Federal or state funding?” he asked.
“How do you keep people living here, working here, and being part of the community?” he asked.
Maistros said he thought Cormick hit the nail on the head. “We as a community, we as a city have to look at creating housing,” Maistros said. “Creating affordable housing that’s controlled; that’s not going to go the direction of short-term rentals because I think you run into so many property rights questions telling property owners what they can and can’t do with the property,” Maistros said.
He said affordable housing is what’s needed.
“The Island company owns the vast majority of developable property on the Island but not all of it,” Maistros said.
“We’re looking at ways to be creative with both funding and building methods” for workforce housing and affordable housing for non-city employees. Maistros said.
Not quite 24 minutes into the meeting, Maistros asked for online participants to comment. At that point, no one had their virtual hands raised.
In response to a comment from someone in the Council Chambers, Maistros said YouTube was stuck.
Steve Johnson joined the meeting on a speaker. He said it was his personal opinion that short-term rentals doesn’t take away from housing.
“I mean, these homes we buy are a million to $1.5 million and they’re costing six to $8,000 a month,” Johnson said.
“This is not taking away affordable housing,” he said.
“Now, I do think it shouldn’t be allowed to buy an apartment building and I know recently that what happen was there’s been two or four units and turn all the four units into short-term rentals,” he said.
“At that point, it becomes a mini hotel. So, on the flip side, I think that kind of stuff should not be allowed,” he said.
He said properties that are sold that don’t become short-term rentals are going to become second homes for someone and those second homes are going to be empty and that does not do anything for the city.
“It doesn’t increase transient occupancies, it doesn’t increase the revenue back to the city,” he said.
As far as personal contact with guests, he said he had two properties with permits. He said he reminds guests that they live in close quarters.
He pointed out that houses in Avalon are on top of one another; there is no setback.
According to Johnson, some guests object when told they can’t smoke on the patio or directly into the window.
He said he had cameras at the entryway and ingress point. He said he sees the guest arrives and he counts the number of guests.
To be continued in part two.
The next transient rental town hall meeting will be held at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 30, in the council Chambers and on Zoom. The subject: financial impacts and sustainability.
Due to the Islander’s production schedule, the story about that town hall meeting is expected to be reported in the Sept. 8 issue.
