City tries to hide embarrassment as applicants for short-term rental licenses fall far short of expectations

The City of San Diego is trying to hide its embarrassment as applications for short-term rental licenses are well below its expectations. The city was going to hold a “lottery” on December 16 to see which STVR hosts would get licenses, thinking the city would be inundated with requests from the estimated 16,000 entire homes that were used as short-term rentals for more than 20 days a year. .

But, on the eve of today’s deadline to apply, there were “fewer than 5,400 applications”, according to Venus Molina, chief of staff to Council member Jennifer Campbell. Which could mean the city won’t have to run a lottery.

There are different ways to spin this development.

Or, as Molina assumes, many people didn’t know they needed a license, despite repeated announcements from the city and local media. Or maybe many hosts thought they didn’t need it, because the city hadn’t put the enforcement mechanism in place yet. In fact, enforcement of the new short-term vacation rental rules won’t start until May 1, 2023. That’s 6 months from now.

Or maybe there just weren’t many “good actors” – hosts who were never cited by the city for breaking its STVR rules or received complaints. Or maybe the hosts have become complacent over the past few years – they got away with renting out their place and they can continue to do so. Licenses? We don’t need stinky licenses!

Or maybe the slowing economy has hurt the colocation business.

But for those caught by law enforcement, the city can issue warnings, $1,000 citations or civil penalties of up to $10,000 for breaking the rules.

Campbell, Molina and the city were all expecting thousands of applicants (the deadline is 5 p.m. today) and they were going to reward good actors with a two-year license.

Maybe Campbell and Molina can just report that the short-term rental problem has been solved. ‘You see, anything worrying about home loss can no longer be blamed on short-term rentals.’ Their original goal was to limit the number of short-term vacation rentals in the city to 1% of the 540,000 homes.

But now the narrative from Campbell’s office is, “Hey, that’s great. From now on, anyone who requests it can obtain a license. Even if they weren’t good actors.

“Well, right now our demands are not as high as we thought, so everyone might be able to get a license,” Molina said.

7San Diego“Prior to the new rules, the city auditor had estimated that there were about 16,000 entire homes that were used as short-term rentals for more than 20 days a year. The city planned to limit to 5,400 the number of licenses for short-term vacation rentals of more than 20 days per year.

Molina—supposedly the architect of the whole plan to strike a deal between the city and the colocation companies—told 7SanDiego:

“We have a housing crisis in San Diego. It’s very expensive and we don’t have a lot of houses to rent or buy, so we wanted to make sure we put housing back on the market for people who want to live here. We wanted to control this particular platform because it was out of control, you know? People just did what they wanted, so we wanted to make sure there was some control.

IN truth, Molina, we don’t have a housing crisis; we have an affordable housing crisis. Walk down Abbott Street in Ocean Beach, Venus, and check out all the old affordable housing and apartments that have been turned into short-term rentals, then let us know you’ve got it all under control.

So, dear reader, what is your favorite take on this? Tell us.