SAN DIEGO — Online maps showing the locations of short-term vacation rentals in San Diego are causing a stir on social media over housing availability.
“We have a housing shortage. Why do we allow this?” said one online commenter on Reddit.
“Nothing to see here… it's only 1% of housing. It has no effect whatsoever on our housing prices and crisis,” said another online poster.
Jay Goldberg has been analyzing the city of San Diego's short-term rental locations for a year and a half. He posts maps on his website: niceneighbors.org.
“The concentration is surprising,” said Goldberg. “You're talking about 6.2 percent of all dwelling units in Ocean Beach currently licensed as short-term rentals.”
Goldberg generally agrees that vacation rentals are taking away housing options from San Diego residents. “It's feeding into the housing crisis, both in terms of supply of housing available and also the price of housing,” he said.
Not all short-term rentals are rented out year-round, so some of the addresses on the Reddit maps may not affect the housing crisis.
Goldberg said the real problem is loopholes in the city's ordinance that allow owners to license multiple units using the names of family members.
“The market has been overrun with corporate operators who run more than one property, who are doing this as an investment opportunity to capture the most amount of revenue they can,” said Goldberg.
Goldberg said he has also seen long-term tenants evicted from condo complexes or even apartment buildings so the properties can be converted to short-term rentals.
“There's no limit to the number of units in a building that an owner can convert to short-term rentals. Nor is there really a law that prevents an owner from evicting tenants to convert to short-term rentals,” he said.
The city of San Diego said in a statement there are more than 8,600 short-term rental licenses citywide.
The city’s Community and Neighborhood Services Committee is set to review the state of the short-term rental ordinance in July.
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