By Zach Friend, County Supervisor 2nd District
Over the last few years the County has been working to address concerns surrounding vacation rentals. Complaints of noise, parking issues and even neighborhood character are to be balanced with the interest of providing rental stock for visitors to our area. With the growth of second home ownership in our area (with many being used as vacation rentals), more rental platforms (such as Airbnb) and increases in housing costs (and decreased long term rental options) there has been more calls for increased regulation. Recently the County adopted additional changes to the vacation rental ordinance supplementing other recent changes. The following provides an overview.
What regulations are currently in place?
Within the greater Live Oak area and coastal Aptos area including Seacliff, Rio Del Mar and parts of La Selva Beach there are limits on the number of vacation rentals on any given block and in the general area. Specifically, the current regulations (adopted last year) limit the number of vacation rentals to 20 percent per block and no more than 15 percent overall in the coastal designated district in Aptos. In other words, if you have 20 homes on a block no more than 4 homes could be vacation rentals. The proposal does plan to provide exemptions for areas of Rio Del Mar (such as Beach Drive) where over 20 percent of the homes are already vacation rentals.
In addition, it sets a time horizon (length of permit), signage and contact information for the public, registration/tax paying requirements, and the ability for complaints should violations arise. Units have maximum guest limits, hours of noise as part of the conditions. More specifics can be found via section 13.10.694 of the County Code (available on the County’s website).
What new regulations were approved by the Board of Supervisors?
In addition to the above regulations the Board of Supervisors recently updated the ordinance with the following: the new regulations will prohibit more than one vacation rental permit on a single parcel, modify the provision regarding expansion of vacation rental homes to require a new permit, rather than an amendment to an existing permit, provide specifics about the number of children (non-related) allowed. This provision was proposed because some traveling sports teams were using the homes to house their entire team (as they fell under the age by which someone was counted as a “person”) – therefore some reported over 20 kids in a home with a max capacity of 6-8 people.
Other changes include revisions to the zoning district uses charts to indicate that vacation rentals of greater than four bedrooms will be processed as a Level 5 public hearing use permit for greater public input and specifying renewability/permit expiration during sale of the property.
While it’s important to review regulations to make sure they are meeting current needs, I believe these regulations help meet an important balance. They maintain the current vacation rentals that are compliant with the ordinance, allow for a responsible increase in the current number of vacation rentals and work to preserve neighborhood character and integrity by setting caps on the total number of vacation rentals on a block/neighborhood.
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As always, I appreciate hearing your thoughts. Please feel free to call my office at 454-2200.