By RAUL A. CAMPILLO

Allow me to begin with a quick COVID-19 vaccination update. Currently, anyone who is a healthcare worker, is over the age of 65, or is an employee in a school, education or childcare setting, a non-medical emergency first responder or worker in the food and agriculture sectors is eligible for vaccination. I encourage folks to check their eligibility online and make an appointment at bit.ly/3bskvl5.

At the March 2 City Council meeting, I was proud to make the motion to create a new emergency rental assistance program for struggling San Diego families funded with $83 million and another $9 million for outreach and communications to ensure that we are able to make our most vulnerable neighbors aware of all of the benefits available to them. To read more about the new program, visit bit.ly/3rt4nVV.

Also at the March 2 City Council meeting, I was pleased to second Council President Campbell’s motion to create a new ordinance governing Short Term Vacation Rentals (STVRs) in our City. This ordinance will finally give us the ability to regulate STVRs appropriately and hold bad actors accountable, as our previous inability to do so posed a public safety risk. This ordinance protects our neighborhoods while continuing to provide critical options for San Diego property owners and visitors. Under the new policy, hosts will be required to educate their guests about local requirements in order to ensure that they are good short-term neighbors in the community they are visiting.

Lastly, I would like to thank all of the residents who have made our office aware of the incidents of exhibitions of speeding and racing on the city streets in our District. Both my office and the SDPD take this issue extremely seriously, and we request that residents continue to report these violations to SDPD immediately when you witness them. Once you have made the report to SDPD, please feel free to make our office aware of your report so that my relevant representative can follow up with the police department for an update on any enforcement actions that have taken place as a result of the report. An enforcement action that resulted in multiple arrests and vehicle impounding was recently taken on Mission Gorge Road as a result of a District 7 resident’s report.

Thank you again for affording me this opportunity to serve. As a reminder, you can always reach my office any time by emailing [email protected]. For a Del Cerro-specific issue, please reach Jared Miller-Sclar at [email protected]. For an issue specific to Grantville, Allied Gardens, or San Carlos, please reach Sanna Loando at [email protected].

The new STVR ordinance details

• Caps the whole-home STVRs at 1% of the City’s housing stock per the San Diego Planning Commission (based on SANDAG’s annual Demographic and Socioeconomic Housing estimates), which would equate to 5,400 today.
• No limits put on home-sharing STVRs.
• Allows part-time STVR operators to obtain a license at lower annual fees to accommodate high visitor events such as Comic-Con, Pride or December Nights.
• Allows STVR owners a maximum of one license, per person.
• Creates a detailed Good Neighbor Policy along with strict enforcement guidelines, a fine structure for violations, and a license revocation standard.

The short-term rental issue is scheduled to return to the City Council in October 2021 for final review and refinement.

— Raul Campillo represents District 7 on the San Diego City Council.