This year, assuming a return to pre-COVID travel, Sonoma County will welcome more than 5 million overnight visitors to Wine Country. Most will stay two to three nights in hotels, small hostels or short-term rentals available through Airbnb and similar services. Collectively, they will spend around $1 billion, of which around half will be spent on accommodations.
Sonoma County and its cities, including Santa Rosa, levy a transient occupancy tax on all lodging charges, regardless of location or zoning.
While hotels and hostels have long been classified and allowed to operate for business purposes only, short-term rentals are treated differently. In Santa Rosa, the largest city in the county, they operate as unfettered residential use wherever they want.
This zoning loophole has triggered a proliferation of short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods, causing significant quality of life and public safety issues. It also reduced the permanent housing stock for Santa Rosa residents and contributed to the dramatic rise in prices for full-time rentals.
A check of Airbnb listings shows more than 400 short-term rentals in greater Santa Rosa — nearly all of them in residential neighborhoods. Some blocks have multiple rentals, and as only 255 have applied for permits, at least 150 short-term rentals appear to be operating illegally.
Most landlords offer their property for rent through Airbnb. Since specific addresses are not revealed, landlords can easily “hide” from the city and evade payment of transient occupancy taxes.
There is growing uncertainty about this growing corner of the sharing economy in our community. In a survey conducted by the City of Santa Rosa last August, 66% of respondents preferred that short-term rentals not be allowed anywhere in the city or be limited to operating in areas zoned for use. commercial.
In October, the city recognized the growing problems associated with short-term rentals and passed an emergency ordinance to crack down on them. Unfortunately, the application was difficult and its objectives were not achieved.
However, the ordinance lays down important foundations by defining “hosted” and “non-hosted” rentals. Hosted rentals are those where the owner lives on site full-time and rents out part of the property to visitors. These should be welcome in our community. Conversely, unhosted rentals are unsupervised whole-house rentals where guests can use the property as they see fit, often generating negative impacts.
Many full-time residents live in constant fear and stress, wondering if and when the next group of unfamiliar visitors to an unhosted rental will disrupt their neighborhood and compromise their safety, especially during wildfire season.
Without a policy change, you could soon be a short-term rental neighbor.
If you’re hesitant to speak up, know that since 2019 there have been more than 50 shootings at non-hosted short-term rentals in the United States, according to a review of news reports. Many of these incidents resulted in multiple fatalities. To believe that this is not possible in Santa Rosa would be a tragic mistake.
Local real estate professionals and outside investors continue to market, buy, operate and profit from non-hosted rentals by exploiting the desirability of our residential neighborhoods. As a result, Santa Rosa is ranked by AirDNA as one of the top 25 short-term rental markets in the United States, with the third highest average annual income potential, behind Maui, Hawaii and Key West, Florida.
The only proven way to effectively regulate non-hosted rentals is to eliminate or severely limit their existence in residential neighborhoods. Healdsburg and Rohnert Park have already done so, as has the county in unincorporated areas. Santa Rosa can too, simply by adopting one of the many proactive and easily applied methods successfully deployed by other cities.
Unhosted short term rentals are unsupervised commercial accommodation businesses. They are neither homes nor residential uses. Let’s start treating them and regulating them for what they are.
Want to help? Contact Save Our Santa Rosa at SOSR.org.
David Long, civil engineer, is a founding member of Save Our Santa Rosa.
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