SHORT-TERM RENTAL RULES FOR TEMECULA VALLEY, IDYLLWILD REVISED
Board finds compromise on multiple issues, OKs several amendments
The Board of Supervisors on Nov. 28 tentatively approved a bevy of amendments to Riverside County’s short-term rental ordinance, focusing on minimum age, family transfer and related regulations of rental properties in Idyllwild-Pine Cove and the Temecula Valley Wine Country.
“This is not perfect, and there are quite a bit of trade-offs,” Supervisor Manuel Perez said. “Maybe we see some great results. There are things here to hate and maybe to love. It is what it is.”
The first hearing on modifications to Ordinance No. 927 was held on Nov. 7 and spanned about five hours, but the board was undecided on multiple issues, culminating in a second hearing, which took less than two hours on Nov. 28.
In the end, the board compromised on roughly a half-dozen proposals.
Chair Kevin Jeffries’ chief concern was a recommendation favored by Supervisor Chuck Washington to constrain so-called “family transfers,” or the ability of an existing short-term rental homeowner to pass on the property and its current short-term rental certificate to an immediate family member, in the Temecula Valley
Wine Country.
“I hate the idea of opposing generational wealth and the government destroying it for the sole reason of ‘we just don’t want you to own it anymore,’” Jeffries said. “We need to institute the ability to go back to family transfer opportunities.”
Jeffries described the approach as relying on “attrition” to ultimately remove short-term rentals from certain locations, prompting Washington to offer a compromise of limiting transfers only in segments of the Wine Country where there is a manifest “saturation” of STRs. The entire board accepted that proposal.
The board also unanimously agreed that the minimum age of anyone applying for a short-term rental certificate in the Wine Country
should be 25 years old, while in the county’s other unincorporated communities it will remain 21.
The board further backed dropping a previous proposal to limit short-term rental owners and operators to two certificates in Idyllwild and Wine Country if they already have more than that number certificated and available to rent.
The supervisors gave their nod to a biannual “lottery system” for the awarding of certificates in the mountain communities and Wine Country whenever existing caps on STRs are not hit and there are more than 10 applicants for newly available certificates.
The board signed off on a prior Transportation & Land Management Agency recommendation for maintaining an area on the north end of Wine Country, designated the “North Pocket Area,” as a stand-alone entity with an STR cap separate from the rest of Temecula Valley.
The overall limit in the Wine Country zone, where there are currently 998 dwellings, will remain just over 100 permitted STR properties.
The number of rentals in Idyllwild-Pine Cove are limited to a total of 500. There are already 474 in operation.
To vet the strength and weaknesses of the amended Short-Term Rental Ordinance, the board directed TLMA officials to return with a report in six months, enabling the supervisors to determine whether additional modifications are required.