Sonoma County Board of Supervisors – Proposed Coastal Zone Vacation Rental Regulation Update
September 26, 2023
Sonoma County Board of Supervisors – Proposed Coastal Zone Vacation Rental Regulation Update
The Board of Supervisors will hold a hearing on the Local Coastal Plan 0n Tuesday, September 26th at 1:50 PM, it is item #27 and documents can be found here.
We are concerned there is language in the Local Coastal Plan that will be used to prohibit certain homes from being purposed short-term. Please find below the public comments from Sonoma County Coalition of Hosts, The Sea Ranch Hosting Coalition, Sonoma Coast Vacation Rental Owners, for the board of supervisor meeting.
Our most important concerns are the impact to public access on the coast, the ownership restrictions they propose and the opportunity for the public to comment regarding the changes to vacation rentals on the coast. Additionally, we have questions about the meaning of what a “recorded governmental restriction” actually means. Can we get a clearer definition?
PUBLIC COMMENTS can be made to the Board of Supervisors by email or in person. UNFORTUNATELY, THE BOARD WILL NOT ALLOW PUBLIC COMMENTS VIA ZOOM. Please include agenda item number #27
Email comments, to the entire Board at bos@sonoma-county.org.
In Person: 575 ADMINISTRATION DRIVE, SANTA ROSA, CA 95403 |BOARD CHAMBERS – ROOM 102A
You can watch the meeting here: https://sonomacounty.zoom.us/j/95953003079?pwd=TGhKdVJEeWlUbDJxSzVpY1U2VmxOUT09
Meeting ID: 959 5300 3079
Enter Password: 919371
Impact on public access to the coast
The California Coastal Commission exists in large part to preserve access for all Californians to their coast. Indeed, the creation of the Coastal Commission stemmed from a dispute over public access to part of the Sonoma County coast in particular. Vacation Rentals form most of the available transient accommodation on the Sonoma coast. There are few hotels or other lodgings. Vacation Rentals have an outsize importance for preserving public access, since our coast is not easily accessible on a day trip basis for most Californians.
Despite this background, the County has conducted no study and offers no evidence of the impact of their proposed policies on public access to the coast. The County simply states, without evidence or even argument, that “this Amendment conforms to the Local Coastal Program, in that it does not negatively impact public coastal access”. [1]
In fact, the policies will obviously negatively impact public access through restrictions on Vacation Rental ownership, structures in which Vacation Rentals may be operated and occupancy restrictions. The question is not whether, but how much.
The policy does exempt existing rentals from these regulations and so any potential impact will take place slowly, as existing rentals cease operation or change hands and new ones are established.
At the very least, the County should have a plan for monitoring the impact of the policy on public access over time, in a way that is transparent to the public and the Coastal Commission. This should include publication of data, readily accessible to the general public on Vacation Rental activity in the Coastal Zone, including:
- Number of licenses issued and revoked each year
- Number of licenses actually in use (per TOT records)
- Number of Zoning Permits
- Number of Zoning Permits actually in use (per TOT records)
- Total rented nights each year (per TOT records) for permitted and unpermitted properties
- Total rented person-nights each year (per TOT records based on maximum occupancy) for permitted and unpermitted properties
- Total available person-nights each year (based on maximum occupancy of in-use licenses) for permitted and unpermitted properties
This data would allow the public, the County and the Coastal Commission to observe the impact of the new policies by comparing the above metrics between permitted (new) and unpermitted (grandfathered) properties over time. Over a small number of years it should be possible to estimate the long-term impact, either re-assuring the public and the Commission that public access is preserved or allowing the County to change course in good time, if necessary.
Opportunity for Public Comment
The County notes the approval of many of these regulations at prior meetings at which public comments were received over Zoom. The regulations themselves have benefited from public suggestions from Sonoma County homeowners and are considerably improved compared to their early versions as a result. However, it is difficult for many Coastal zone homeowners to participate in person because: a) the coastal zone is 55 miles along the coast with many owners needing to travel a long distance to the physical meeting; b) some owners are out of the area and are impacted by what the county is proposing; c) traveling to the meeting from the rural part of District 5 can be a hardship for older owners, or employed owners who cannot take a half day off work to participate in this important meeting.
The County should re-institute public comments by Zoom at the earliest opportunity. Those who use online public comments for abuse, do so explicitly to disrupt and degrade the important work of the Board of Supervisors. They should not be allowed to succeed in this by cutting off the opportunity for legitimate public scrutiny and comment.
Ownership restrictions
The new Vacation Rental license places ownership restrictions on Vacation Rentals, which have typically been described as follows:
- Limit licenses to properties owned by natural persons or trusts, and limit Vacation Rental licenses to one per individual
[For example, in the staff report to the 8/2/22 Board of Supervisors meeting at which the License was approved [2] and on numerous other occasions].
However, the License contains a stricter requirement:
- A property owner may only have an ownership interest in one licensed vacation rental at a time.
This requirement forces joint property owners to change their property ownership arrangements to obtain the promised right to one license per individual. The public, and possibly the Supervisors, have been misled about this detail.
The requirement for joint owners to change ownership arrangements to obtain one license per individual is extremely onerous for those affected. The County is presumably concerned that an individual might operate many vacation rentals by signing up loosely-related others to own a small slice of each and apply for the license. But this is also complex and risky, and so unlikely to occur at a significant scale.
The County should amend this requirement to align with the summary description given at multiple public hearings. They should limit the number of Licenses a single individual can hold to one. If further protection is needed against people “gaming the system” then, additionally, the number of ownership interests in license properties could be limited to two.
Recorded Government Restrictions
The proposed Zoning Permit restricts Vacation Rentals from “A structure subject to a recorded governmental restriction”. We have received and welcome confirmation from County staff [3] that this refers only to a restriction placed on a specific individual structure, per the examples contained in this clause. This narrow intent could be usefully made clearer in the ordinance, in the County’s submission to the Coastal Commissions and / or in the Coastal Commission’s approval.
[2] Staff report to 8/2/22 Board of Supervisors https://sonoma-county.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11094384&GUID=173788A5-327F-412F-AFA0-3EE3CBD65B78
[3] Correspondence from Doug Bush to Sonoma County Coalition of Hosts on 9/18/23: “The intent of that provision is to make clear that the ordinance does not over-ride unique conditions that have been recorded on specific properties, such as those conditions that have been used to protect deed-restricted affordable housing. The inclusion of the examples in the ordinance itself (e.g., farmworker housing) makes clear that this is intended to apply only in unique cases and that banning vacation rentals in general is not the intent.“
