San Luis Obispo council OKs short-term home rentals

The San Luis Obispo City Council embraced a growing national trend Tuesday by deciding to allow temporary homestays, or rentals of 30 days or less, in owner-occupied homes.

The nearly two-year debate over whether to allow short-term vacation rentals in San Luis Obispo spurred a public wave of both support and concern.

Advocates say that allowing people to offer their homes as temporary rentals through popular websites such as Airbnb and VRBO.com is good for tourism and a valuable way to meet new people.

Critics say they worry that short-term rentals will degrade neighborhoods by making them less safe and inviting disruptive noise.

Councilman Dan Carpenter, the lone dissenting vote Tuesday, noted that some homeowners already have been quietly offering homestays and said the ordinance was unenforceable and not needed.

Under the new ordinance, short-term vacation rentals that are not the homeowner's main residence will remain illegal.

The city of Arroyo Grande, which in May adopted new rules to allow such short-term rentals, also requires that they be the homeowner’s primary residence.

Key components of the new San Luis Obispo ordinance include the following requirements:

Enforcement would be complaint based. Homeowners would be required to get a $305 permit and a business license to operate a home-stay rental, and the homeowner would be required to pay transient occupancy tax and Tourism Business Improvement District tax.

Some residents told the council Tuesday that the felt the ordinance was too loosely crafted and would allow a commercial enterprise on residential neighborhoods.

“We find it difficult to see how the addition of a myriad of unsupervised, short-term transients in our residential neighborhoods contributes positively to neighborhood wellness,” said Sandra Rowley, on behalf of Residents for Quality Neighborhoods, a community group focused on preserving and enhancing San Luis Obispo's quality of life.

Residents who use Airrrbnb to rent their homes said they respected the safety and noise concerns of their neighbors, but had little, if any, such trouble from the people they rented to in the past.

"We live in those same neighborhoods and have the same concerns about parking, noise and the unknown," said Jim Culver, a 40-year resident in support of the new ordinance.

In November 2013 a group of San Luis Obispo property owners prevailed in their fight to convince the City Council to allow them to rent rooms in their homes to travelers on a short-term basis.

The homeowners lobbied the council after several people received enforcement letters from the city telling them to stop renting rooms or face fines that can escalate up to $500 per violation.

Enforcement of the vacation rental ban was temporarily suspended while the homestay ordinance was studied.

Since February 2014, 36 people have signed up as hosts for homestay rentals and have paid $30,988 in taxes.

According to city staff, as of Dec. 1, 2014, there were about 90 San Luis Obispo rentals listed on Airbnb, about half of those offering the entire house.

Rosh Wright has rented her home to more than 100 guests over the past two years and said she has never had a problem.

On Tuesday, she contested a requirement — ultimately rejected by the council — for the homeowner to be on-site from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.

"The curfew is an insult," Wright said. "Even Cinderella got until midnight."

This story was originally published January 6, 2015 at 9:25 PM with the headline "San Luis Obispo council OKs short-term home rentals."