Arcata vacation rental cap struck down
Not enough council votes to pass ordinance after 2 recused themselves
Arcata City Council decided to drop an ordinance which would have placed a cap on short-stay rentals.
Arcata’s not going to have a cap on Airbnbs and short-stay rentals for the foreseeable future.
The Arcata City Council decided to drop an ordinance that would have placed a cap of 125 on short-stay rentals and added other requirements to operate one in the city. The ordinance was dropped because ordinances need to be passed with the approval of at least three council members. Councilwoman Susan Ornelas was opposed and council members Paul Pitino and Sofia Pereira recused themselves because they have short-stay rentals.
“Looking at the real problems we have in this town, I don’t find this to be one,” Ornelas said, “so I just feel like why are we doing this?”
Ornelas said she would need to see hard data, such as complaints, suggesting that short-stay rentals were creating a problem in the community before she could vote yes on the ordinance.
Mayor Brett Watson said the ordinance originated with him after discussions with a housing equity group and the nonprofit Arcata House raised concerns about people becoming newly homeless because their landlords were deciding not to renew their leases and were converting their housing into vacation rentals.
“I will agree that’s not hard data, it’s definitely, you know, an observation,” Watson said.
There are also a number of buildings in the city that were constructed without a building permit, said Community Development Director David Loya. The ordinance included a requirement to have short-stay rentals inspected.
However, Ornelas said that those properties would be unlikely to go through official channels anyway and could be handled through established channels since they’re already doing something illegal.
Rentals are also reviewed publicly on the Airbnb site, Ornelas said, so the people renting those properties have to work hard at making them habitable.
On the other hand, Ornelas said the city has been trying to get building inspections done on rentals for the past four or five years and hasn’t made headway.
“That’s problematic to me,” she said.
Roughly a dozen local operators of short-stay rentals spoke out against approving the ordinance, citing several issues including the requirement that their phone numbers be posted outside of the property.
“If there’s a problem, you call the police,” said Bob
Doran, owner of the Black Cat Hideaway. “That’s what the police are there for.”
A similar ordinance in Trinidad turned out to be far overreaching and difficult to enforce, said Jonna Kitchen, who owns shortstay vacation rentals in Trinidad and Arcata.
“I’ve always been more in favor of a percentage
cap,” Kitchen said. “Trinidad also did a flat cap and that doesn’t allow for building out the city.”
Ornelas said the subject doesn’t have to be dead in the water, and she would be open to considering a cap in the future if the data showed it was necessary.