Edhat Staff
By edhat staff
Santa Barbara City’s ban on the majority of short-term rentals in the Coastal Zone was rejected by an appeals court on Tuesday.
In 2015, the city banned vacation rentals along the beachside strip of land that extends approximately a half-mile inland and decided to treat the properties like hotels with limited permits. Before the ban there were 114 homes available for rent, afterwards, there were only six.
City officials argued short-term rentals were driving up housing costs, reducing the amount of housing, and “changing the character of residential zones.”
Second Appellate District Judge Steven Perren upheld the 2019 trial court’s decision effectively forcing Santa Barbara to allow short-term vacation rentals in the coastal zone. The lawsuit was brought on by Theo Kracke, CEO of Paradise Retreats, a local vacation rental company.
Judge Perren wrote in his opinion that regulation of short-term rentals must be decided by the city and the Coastal Commission stating, “The city cannot act unilaterally, particularly when it not only allowed the operation of [short -term vacation rentals] for years but also benefited from the payment of transient occupancy taxes.”
Steve Kinsey, the former head of the coastal commission, sent an advisory to several cities in 2016 stating vacation rental bans by local governments were unlikely to be legally enforceable.
The California Coastal Act requires that overnight accommodations in the Coastal Zone are to be available at a range of price points. Based on this landmark decision, the court rules that this Act protects the rights of property owners to rent their coastal residences.
Good for Theo! Very tired of the constant overreaching by the City
Well, as I understand it, the coastal zone is a half a mile inland period, and currently STRs are legal in that zone–SB City was trying to ban them, but the City has been ruled against, so that changes nothing–still legal in the coastal zone in all the areas that Fernando Point cited. Why, Fernando, you thinking you might rent out your place to drug smugglers escaping from the cartels?
Fernando Point…now that is funny…is that where the cartel beaches their panga’s
I’ve said this alllllll along: What was the city thinking? (or NOT thinking as is the case)
The city should have worked with the STR people to rectify the situation, now every single last Tom/Dick/Harry home owner (or even renters) are going to open up their places as STRs. Supply and Demand is what determines the prices of STRs. SB will almost certainly never have the “supply” because there will be “demand” to visit SB until the end of time. When “we” build more houses/apartments/hotels, it only allows more people who can afford to stay in SB. It’s not like SB is going to run out of good weather, beaches, mountains, wine, beer…..but we are always going to run out of places to stay!
Our city council spends too much time creating unenforceable legislation while the nuts and bolts of city governance is avoided.
Several years ago, when Short Term Rentals (STRs) started to become more prevalent in SB, the City staff decided that STRs were to be treated as hotels with all of the attendant parking, safety and other hotel rules. When public hearings were held to discuss the issue, the staff members involved were formally reminded that STRs were neither traditional residential units nor hotels. They were urged to do what other communities had done to recognize that fact and were advised to work with the growing STR stake holders to craft ordinances that dealt with the reality of the situation. But instead they chose to ignore that advice and continued to try to “force a square peg into a round hole.”
The result, as we see, is that the City staff was wrong and the advice they chose to ignore was correct.
The really sad thing in all of this is that no one on the City staff will be held accountable for this (and other) bad decisions, decisions that have cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. Many of the staff are convinced that they are the experts and don’t need to take advice about issues like this. Moreover they simply don’t care about wrong decisions since there is no accountability. In the private sector many of the senior City officials would have been fired a long time ago. But in the public sector they keep their jobs and get raises every year leading to very lucrative retirements.
Great. This is a HUGE loss for the local longtime RENTING residents in SB. Who protects US? There is a grave dire crippling housing shortage in this city for local residents. Rents are INSANE, and that is because every landlord out there can just make their extra rooms or units into STRs. Really needs regulation. This is a horrible decision. Local long time residents who cannot afford to buy need protection. STRs are KILLING housing availability.