Short-term vacation-rental owners hard hit by the new City ordinance\u2019s residence-only requirement for them feel “singled out” now that Mayor Kevin Faulconer\u2019s proposed “carve-out” of Mission Beach has gone down to defeat.
\nIn July, City Council nixed Faulconer\u2019s less-stringent short-term vacation rental proposal, voting 6-3 instead for tougher rules allowing primary-residence-only rentals with a six-month maximum.\u00a0
\nThe Council denied both Faulconer\u2019s “plus one” provision allowing people to rent out their own residence, and one additional place, as well as the mayor\u2019s proposed “carve out” exemption for Mission Beach.
\nMission Beach has the highest number of short-term rentals \u2013 more than 40 percent \u2013 along the coast. Existing Mission Beach rentals will also not be grandfathered into the new ordinance.
\nMission Beach vacation-rental owner Blaine Smith, founder of Save Mission Beach (savemb.org), is lobbying against the City\u2019s new rental ordinance, claiming it is unduly harsh and would be disastrous for rental owners.\u00a0
\n“The new ordinance will put more than 95 percent of rental owners in Mission Beach out of business, and 80 percent of operators citywide,” Smith said. “It will be hard for the industry to survive with regulations that wipe out such a huge chunk of it.”
\nSmith noted there was a good reason for Faulconer\u2019s proposed “carve out” exemption for Mission Beach, which didn\u2019t make it into the new ordinance.\u00a0
\n“No community in San Diego will be impacted by this ban more than Mission Beach, Smith said. “Mission Beach has always welcomed visitors and has always been a vacation destination and has the highest ratio of short-term vacation rentals in the city \u2013 44 precent. The effects would devastate our community, which has always been supported by visitors and short-term vacation rental accommodations.”
\nOf the new short-term rental ordinance, Smith said: “This is not a workable compromise. It\u2019s a de facto ban.”
\nJonah Mechanic, a spokesperson for Share San Diego, a local coalition of short-term rental operators, said the new ordinance will be overly impactful to the San Diego tourism industry and small-business owners who “just want to protect their property rights and don\u2019t like big government coming in and telling them what they can, and cannot, do with their property.”
\nMechanic argued the City\u2019s new rental ordinance is flawed.
\n“It doesn\u2019t define what primary residence actually means,” he said. “Primary only sounds good, but it will eliminate 95 percent of rental owners who\u2019ve invested in places like Mission Beach.”
\nMechanic contends the new ordinance was also passed without sufficient research data, such as how many hotel rooms are in the area, their occupancy and\/or affordability rates. “They blindly approved a ban without even realizing what the [ordinance] means,” he said.
\nMechanic also claims the City\u2019s sixth-month qualification in its new rental ordinance is discriminatory. “If you\u2019re a rental owner and you live in a house less than six months \u2013 you can\u2019t rent,” he said. “But if you live in one for six months and a day \u2013 you can rent it out for the other six months. That\u2019s absurd.”
\nSmith\u2019s website says there are approximately 1,560 short-term rentals in Mission Beach, claiming 98 percent of those include the entire home.\u00a0
\n“More than 95 percent would be illegal under the new ordinance, devastating local businesses, depleting money critical to San Diego\u2019s budget and punishing responsible property owners,” savemb.org claims.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Short-term vacation-rental owners hard hit by the new City ordinance\u2019s residence-only requirement for them feel “singled out” now that Mayor Kevin Faulconer\u2019s proposed “carve-out” of Mission Beach has gone down to defeat. In July, City Council nixed Faulconer\u2019s less-stringent short-term vacation rental proposal, voting 6-3 instead for tougher rules allowing primary-residence-only rentals with a six-month […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":268856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"New vacation rental ordinance would have huge impact for Mission Beach","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}