Coast Commission pushes Long Beach to accept 350 short-term rentals along the beaches

Long Beach (iStock)

The City of Long Beach will now allow up to 350 unsupervised short-term rentals of homes and apartments along its beaches.

Under pressure from the state Coastal Commission, the Long Beach City Council voted to approve the hundreds of unhosted short-term rentals along its coast with the stipulation that the total number of similar rentals across the city does not exceed 800 units, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported.

The California Coastal Commission had sought to increase public access to the Long Beach waterfront. He said restricting the number of unhosted short-term rentals of the type popularized by Airbnb could not only limit access to the coast, but also reduce resources and increase prices for visitors.

Had the city chosen not to accept Coastal Commission recommendations that included allowing up to 350 short-term rentals, its existing regulations in coastal areas could have been thrown out.
Short-term rentals are properties rented for less than 90 days. Non-hosted rentals, where there is no direct tenant supervision, are the target of most Long Beach rules.

Long Beach adopted citywide rules for short-term rentals in 2020 and began enforcing them last year.

The rules state that landlords can rent out their primary residences as short-term rentals on an unlimited basis, as long as they are present during a guest’s stay. If they are not present, they can rent them up to 90 days a year.

Additionally, landlords can only rent out one property that is not their primary residence, as long as someone can respond to neighborhood complaints within the hour. There is no cap on the number of days a secondary property can serve as a short-term rental.

Long Beach caps short-term rentals at 800 citywide and offers residents a method to ban such rentals by census block. City officials have insisted the city not exceed its 800 cap on short-term non-hosted rentals, despite the 350 now needed along the coast.

[Long Beach Press-Telegram] – Dana Barthelemy

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