OCEANSIDE, Calif. — A contentious fight is brewing over the rules pertaining to short-term vacation rentals in Oceanside with strong feelings on both sides of the issue.
“They tear down single-family houses, and they build 8 to 12-bedroom mini hotels,” said Jeff McDermott at an Oceanside Planning Commission meeting on February 26. “If this was Marriott or Hilton, the City Council would stop them in their tracks.”
McDermott and six other homeowners gave an earful to the Commission about STVRs where they live on South Pacific Street during non-agenda public comment.
“It’s been completely transformed, it’s not a residential zone any longer,” McDermott said.
He and his wife, Ashley, bought their 5-bedroom, 4-bath, 3,553 square-foot, beachfront compound for $7.45 million in 2020, though the home has technically been in their family since 1957. After living next door to a short-term rental for about 4 years, they started an advocacy group, Neighborhoods for Neighbors. A number of the group's yard signs are posted in front of various homes on the street.
“I don’t want to sleep in my house if my husband’s not there because there are so many sketchy people renting these houses overnight all around me,” said Ashley McDermott. “I want my daughter and my granddaughters and children to be able to walk up the street and get ice cream, and not have a bunch of scary guys hanging around. They’re not neighbors, I don’t know their names.”
CBS 8 spoke to Jeff McDermott but he declined an on-camera interview.
The vacation rental next door at 2031 S Pacific Street is owned by Dr. David Fischbach and his Beachfront Only vacation rental business.
“This is the kitchen, this is the living room, this is the view,” said Sully Sullivan, Director of the California Short-Term Rental Alliance, as she gave CBS 8 a tour of Dr. Fischbach’s beachfront vacation rental.
Sullivan, who has lived in Oceanside for more than 40 years, did not agree with some of the comments made by neighbors at last month’s Planning Commission meeting.
“That attitude of entitlement, that is definitely not a local quality here. We are open to the public. We give local experiences to the visitors,” said Sullivan. “Of course when a family gathers together, they’re going to have a barbecue. They’re going to have a bonfire. They’re going to go to the beach. They’re going to enjoy all of the amenities of this lifestyle that we’re providing for them for their vacation, so if that’s offensive to some people, I don’t get it.”
Dr. Fischbach says plans are being drafted to tear down his 3-bedroom rental, which technically sits on two lots, and replace it with two separate homes for a total of 10 bedrooms. Oceanside’s STVR rules, adopted in 2019, allow 2 overnight visitors per bedroom plus 2 additional overnight guests, as well as 10 more daytime visitors on top of that.
If approved by the City of Oceanside, Dr. Fischbach plans to add a publicly accessible staircase extending from the street down to the beach in order to sweeten the deal for the City and the California Coastal Commission. While the beach down below is public, it feels like a private one due to lack of adequate access for the public. Two sets of stairs in the area, one at Cassidy Street and another at 1919 South Pacific don’t lead all the way to the sand with access cut off by large rocks, especially at high tide.
“This is going to be a benefit, not only to the guests of the vacation rentals but to the public who have been locked out of this area for so long,” said Sullivan regarding the idea of a staircase open to the public through Dr. Fischbach’s property. “That is the conceptual plan right now that is being met with a lot of, well you know, they’re trying to stop it and then wipe out a whole industry at the same time.”
According to a City staff report in December, there were 1,002 licensed short-term rentals throughout Oceanside with approximately 719 of them located in the City’s Coastal Zone. During the last fiscal year, the City raked in about $16 million in Transient Occupancy Tax, half of that from hotels and the other half from short-term rentals.
“It’s very important to our community, I just really feel we kind of have to get a handle on it,” said Shari Mackin, former deputy mayor of Oceanside. She says city leaders are revisiting the STR issue and considering a number of revisions to the current rules in order to preserve housing stock throughout the City.
“Housing, we need plenty of housing. We need to have families have areas to live with kids, you know, and keep our schools filled," said Mackin. “I’m hoping that they can get a handle on it, and make sure if people complain, that they actually follow up on it with adequate enforcement.”
The Planning Commission will take up the issue on March 25, after which the City Council will revisit STR regulations.
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