County imposes moratorium on short-term rentals
Permits to be accepted through Dec. 6 with special circumstances
Those seeking to obtain a short-term rental permits in the unincorporated area of Inyo County have until Dec. 6 to get their applications into the Inyo County Planning Department before a moratorium that the Inyo County Board of Supervisors passed Tuesday becomes effective.
Fifth District Supervisor Matt Kingsley put forth the proposed moratorium in response to concerns from constituents that short-term rentals erode the county’s long-term housing inventory, which is a critical issue throughout the county and the state of California.
Supervisors discussed the moratorium for almost two hours, which included hearing from residents who opposed the moratorium and those who were in favor of the action, citing the housing shortage, the county’s lack of code enforcement and the negative impact it has on residential neighborhoods.
A number of residents requested the board delay the moratorium because they were in the middle of building their primary homes with plans to build a secondary unit for shortterm rentals or were in the middle of building the short-term rental unit. They said their ability to afford their home mortgages relied on the revenue expected to be generated from the short-term rentals.
At the request of Kingsley, staff developed language in the resolution that would allow homeowners who had secured building permits to apply for short-term rental permits if those building permits had been acquired by the resolution’s effective date.
Second District Supervisor Jeff Griffiths requested that the effective date of the emergency resolution be delayed a week so that others who might also be facing financial hardships without short-term rental be allowed to submit shortterm rental applications.
The moratorium
Inyo County Chief Administrative Officer Nate Greenberg said that during a board meeting in October, Cathreen Richards, the county’s Planning Department director, provided supervisors with an update regarding the status of short-term rentals in the unincorporated areas of the county, which excludes the city of Bishop.
Included in Richards’ update, Greenberg said, were several options for managing future shortterm rental applications. Included in those options were applying zones to different areas of the county, much like how the county addressed zones for cannabis businesses.
Greenberg said the county is basically looking at a way to constrain and manage the number of short-term rentals by location as well as through threshold numbers for new permits.
The board directed staff at that time to return with some options including some adjusted areas and maybe some recommendations for how these thresholds can be
imposed.
“And again, this is all for new applications coming in,” Greenberg reiterated.
He said as staff began to dig into the issue, a number of questions came up and staff became concerned that it would not be able to come back to supervisors with something fully formed that met the desire of supervisors.
“Rather than rush and bring something back that was maybe not a fully formed solution that met the objectives of the board, I decided that we should just place a temporary pause on new applications coming in to afford staff a little more time to take a thoughtful approach to what the future of the program will look like,” Greenberg said.
He said the moratorium was not about changing or removing anyone’s existing rights.
Greenberg said the moratorium would not impact anyone who has a permit from moving forward nor would it delay the review of permit applications that already have been submitted.
The moratorium is about putting a temporary pause on future applications from coming in, which cannot be imposed indefinitely, he said.
Greenberg said typically a moratorium would stand for 45 days but with two new board members who will take office in January, the moratorium would likely have to be extended.
He said during the moratorium staff would like to initiate a series of workshops that would be led by the county Planning Department and other key county staff and allow for public input into the process as a whole.
Greenberg said the moratorium would ensure that the county Planning Department isn’t inundated with applications while the county looks at developing future policies regarding short-term rentals.
The moratorium would allow staff to look at related issues, such as geographical districts, number thresholds, as well as some of the best practices that exist throughout the state regarding how other organizations and agencies are handling short-term rentals, he said.
Economics
During public comment, residents seeking shortterm rentals said that renting for the long term isn’t that attractive because renters have more rights than property owners when it comes to evicting difficult tenants.
They also cited shortterm rentals are more profitable in the long run than renting for the long term with less headaches.
Some residents noted that short-term rentals enhance the county as a tourism destination and bolsters county coffers through taxes and increased business that tourism brings.
Kingsley said his issue isn’t with short-term rentals rather than housing availability in general.
“Whether it’s true or not, the perception is, especially in Lone Pine, we don’t have enough housing and short-term rentals is affecting that,” Kingsley said.
Kingsley pointed out that one of the main reasons that county schools can’t find teachers and hospitals can’t recruit nurses is because “they can’t find a place to live.”
“I’ve had teachers begging me to find them a place to live so they can work in our schools,” Kingsley said. “I’m not against short-term rentals, the issue for me is housing and where can people live.”