Sonoma County Board of Supervisors to think about 45-working day ban on new trip rentals when weighing supplemental polices

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will contemplate a 45-working day ban on new vacation rentals as it weighs added procedures and limits on short-term rentals in unincorporated components of the county.

Officers say the short-term moratorium on issuing permits is desired to respond to a latest surge of applications forward of the potential rules, which the board is established to vote on in August.

The proposed procedures include generating a process to license vacation rental attributes and imposing limits on the quantity of shorter-term rentals authorized in sure neighborhoods, as effectively as prohibiting new rentals in others.

County scheduling employees claimed the licensing process would assist tackle neighbors’ issues about parking, noise and public security by creating it less complicated to implement holiday vacation rental rules. The county would also start a 24/7 hotline to react to grievances.

The rental caps would restrict small-time period rentals to 5% of solitary-household properties in some communities wherever there are considerations about protecting obtainable housing stock and preserving “neighborhood character.”

Supervisor Lynda Hopkins reported she problems that with no a moratorium, a deluge of residence entrepreneurs could submit purposes to get forward of probable caps on holiday vacation rentals.

Presently, county officers mentioned they’ve acquired 50 holiday vacation rental allow apps considering the fact that asserting a March 17 general public listening to on the proposed modifications. The county typically gets all-around 10 programs a month.

“It feels like there is chum in the drinking water suitable now with the feeding frenzy,” explained Hopkins, who represents west county and the reduced Russian River, a popular area for 2nd homes, but where by lots of residents have issues about holiday rentals.

Marin County supervisors are established to look at a similar non permanent ban this thirty day period on holiday vacation rentals in West Marin, a tourist hub exactly where very affordable workforce housing is in short supply. A pandemic-period serious estate hurry has exacerbated the region’s housing crisis.

Claire Fetrow, a Forestville resident of 20 several years, reported four of the 8 homes upcoming to hers are now utilised as holiday vacation rentals. That means loud late-evening parties, vivid lights shining into her dwelling and rows of autos taking up parking on her sleepy neighborhood street.

“A human being living in a residence that they considered was their permanently dwelling and their piece of paradise now is getting taken away by these resort-like entities demonstrating up on their doorstep,” Fetrow stated.

Fetrow acknowledges that holiday vacation households have prolonged been a staple of the decrease Russian River space. But she explained the arrival of short-phrase rental listing internet sites these types of as Airbnb and VRBO have led to additional holiday vacation properties and a continual stream of renters, generating her neighborhood really feel increasingly more like a vacation resort than a neighborhood.

“There has to be a difference created that these are not the trip rentals of the previous,” she explained.

Some getaway rental operators, in the meantime, argue extra constraints could damage the regional tourism sector, as nicely as property entrepreneurs who may count on rentals as a essential source of revenue.

Frederik Norgaard, who owns two rental properties in Monte Rio, advised The Push Democrat in March that added county regulation would undermine a thriving aspect of the county’s tourism financial state. He’s involved the vacation rental opponents will abuse any technique for submitting complaints.

“You’re supplying this deadly weapon to folks who can complain, who did not like family vacation rentals in the 1st area,” he mentioned.

In reaction to neighbors’ fears, the Board of Supervisors past July directed preparing workers to update the county’s existing family vacation rental ordinance and achieve out to people for tips. Very last 7 days, the Sonoma County Planning Commission authorised the proposed adjustments, clearing the way for the regulations to come before the Board of Supervisors on Aug. 2.

County employees are continue to doing work to ascertain which neighborhoods could see a 5% cap as element of the up-to-date ordinance, nevertheless officers explained that could consist of sections of the lower Russian River region and Sonoma Valley. At first, staff had encouraged a 10% cap. If family vacation rentals in just one of individuals communities previously exceed 5%, no new permits would be issued there.

These kinds of limits would not implement to locations together the coast, where any boundaries on the quantity of vacation rentals would very likely have to have to be authorised by the California Coastal Fee. The coast would also be exempt from the proposed temporary ban.

Below the county’s present-day getaway rental law passed in 2016, new shorter-expression rentals keep on to be prohibited in precise unincorporated parts, such as communities in the Sonoma Valley, outdoors Healdsburg and Santa Rosa. Inside metropolis limitations, Sonoma, Healdsburg and Santa Rosa have enacted prohibitions for some neighborhoods.

If authorised by the board, the up to date ordinance could increase the permanent prohibition on new rentals to some particular neighborhoods zoned as a “low density residential district,” officers mentioned. That incorporates regions in Guerneville, El Verano in Sonoma Valley and the Mark West Springs space north of Santa Rosa.

The moves abide by an crisis ordinance authorised by supervisors in summer season 2020 that put a short term cap on holiday vacation rentals in the unincorporated county. Later that year, the cap was scaled again to implement only to a neighborhood in the Sonoma Valley and portion of the reduce Russian River. It is established to expire Aug. 6.

The new 45-day moratorium the Board is established to consider on Tuesday would also be an unexpected emergency ordinance, demanding a 4/5 vote to go. If authorized, it would go into impact quickly and expire in late June, officers claimed, right before the Aug. 2 vote on the new rules.

Bradley Dunn, plan manager with Permit Sonoma, the county preparing agency, stated component of the purpose for the up to date principles — notably prohibiting new rentals in extra neighborhoods — is to ensure homes aren’t “turned into family vacation rentals in the parts of the county that have affordable housing obtainable.”

A current economic analyze commissioned by the county identified an enhance in shorter-expression rentals experienced “little to no connection” with area single-family property prices. On the other hand, the research, authored by Sonoma Point out College economist Robert Eyler, mentioned the latest investigation reveals family vacation rentals can place strain on lengthy-time period household rental charges.

According to the examine, there have been an estimated 2,459 local short-phrase rentals in 2021, producing up 2% of the roughly 138,945 single-household houses in the county. About 1,485 rentals have been in unincorporated parts, the place the new principles would just take result.

You can get to Workers Writer Ethan Varian at [email protected] or 707-521-5412. On Twitter @ethanvarian.