The city of Fountain ValleyCalifornia, vote 3-2 on December 21 to draft a motion of support short term rentals with a moderate amount of restrictions, instead of banning them altogether.
Short-term rentals are defined by the city as renting living space for less than 30 days. The available options are usually listed by owners on websites such as Airbnb and Vrbo.
Because short-term rentals are not explicitly addressed in Fountain Valley’s municipal code, the city previously took the position that they were prohibited. The lack of an explicit ban made it difficult to hold violators accountable. The city estimates that there are approximately 175 short-term rental operators in the city.
At recent council meetings in August and November, the city council reduced approaches on how to handle short-term rentals to just two choices: either ban them completely or allow them with a “moderate level of regulation”. restrictive”.
For moderately restrictive regulations, the city manager explained that this would involve a number of rules. First, the city would introduce a licensing process, where only one permit per owner would be issued, to prevent corporations from taking over the housing stock. The order would also limit the number of non-hosted short-term rentals, where the owner is not present, to 100. There would be no limit on hosted operations.
Council members said the current system of companies taking over neighborhoods needs to be changed.
“Someone has to speak for our city and for our residences. We literally have businesses operating from our homes here. It is a residential community. I’m just floored,” Pro Tem Mayor Kim Constantine said. “We don’t issue permits, we don’t issue licenses for that.”
Constantine, who voted against continuing the operation with restrictions, said the $250,000 in tax revenue the city would receive from taxing the operators was not worth it.
“Let me tell you something, I’m not excited about the potential revenue of $250,000, because we’re really going to have to get this controlled by code enforcement, police, various city employees , planning and construction, and others. It’s just not worth it for this town.
Council member Michael Vo said the city allows or prohibits short-term rentals, it will cost the city money because they have to enforce it.
“Whether we regulate it so that it can happen in an orderly way that would benefit our residents or we [prohibit STRs] and she’ll grow up…she might go underground…and other people can rent the house for 30 days and sublet it to other people [in an effort to get around the ordinance].”
Council voted to direct city staff to bring back a motion to approve short-term rentals with a moderate level of restrictions, with Mayor Patrick Harper and Mayor Pro Tem Constantine dissenting.
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