SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — The long-running effort by the City of San Diego to regulate short-term rentals hit a milestone on Wednesday night, when the California Coastal Commission granted approval to the new rules with a 12-0 unanimous decision.
“We have to hire code enforcement officers who can work to make sure that any properties that are nuisance properties are held accountable,” said Mayor Todd Gloria. “It’s a privilege to operate a short-term vacation rental in the City of San Diego and that privilege will be revoked if you’re a bad actor.”
Under the new regulations, whole-home rentals will be capped at 1% of the city’s total 540,000 housing units.
Mission Beach would be carved out with a 30% cap, which is about 1,100 STRs for that area. Altogether, about 6,500 licenses will be available.
For some people living in Mission Beach, a unanimous vote from the Coastal Commission was totally unexpected.
“To go 12-0, did the commissioners even read what was presented to them?” said Klaus Mendenhall, 52-year resident of Mission Beach.
One-by-one over the years, his neighbors have converted their homes to short-term rentals.
“On this court, you have 34 residents from the street to the bay, and of those, only about nine are permanent residents now,” said Mendenhall, as he pointed out the STRs on his block. “The others are all rentals.”
Klaus and other people in the area are frustrated that Mission Beach would be carved out at 30% and they don’t think it’s fair.
“Why is it even that high when the rest of the city only has 1%? It’s unbelievable,” said Mendenhall.
“I’m happy to see that they finally got something done,” said STR owner Rob Brown. “We’ve been hearing about regulation on vacation rentals since I moved down here in 2005.”
Brown owns a vacation rental on the boardwalk in Mission Beach and lives next door to it. He thinks overall that the new rules are a move in the right direction.
“I think it’s good to finally have some rules that can have enforcement, deal with the quality-of-life issues while still protecting property rights for people that are doing a good job with vacation rentals,” said Brown.
Two-year licenses will be allocated through a lottery system with only one allowed per person. The new rules could go into effect as early as this fall.
WATCH RELATED: Chula Vista City Council approves new rules for short-term vacation rental owners (December 2021)