Short Term Rentals in Redding

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Katie:
Welcome to a City of Redding podcast. Today we are again talking about short term rentals. We recorded an episode about 80 use and short term rentals with planning manager Lily Toye in May of last year. But a lot has happened since then. A new proposed set of ordinances went before the City Council late last year to address community concerns about short term rentals affecting our neighborhoods. After a robust City council discussion, the ordinances went back to the Planning Commission for review and will be coming before the City Council again on February 21st.

Steve:
Today, we talked with Development Services director Jeremy Pagan about the new proposed ordinance changes, why they were proposed and what those would mean for our community if adopted. There are strong opinions on both sides of the debate, with many claiming that short term rentals bring tourism and ticket revenue into the city. However you feel about short term rentals, this episode should give you more information about what will be discussed on February 21st and how to get involved. If you'd like to join the discussion.

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
My name is Jeremy Pagan and I'm the Director of Development Services for the City of Redding.

Katie:
Thank you, Jeremy, for being with us here today. And we are here to talk about short term rentals, which is a topic that has popped up a few times over the last year. It's been to council back to Planning Commission. It's going back to the council again here shortly in February. So we want to talk about some of the reasonings behind it. How did we get here today? What are some good things about short term rentals? What are some things that the city is looking to manage or help with ordinances to for those people who don't like short term rentals in their neighborhood and just really get like a top down overview on what's going on with short term rentals. So to start, maybe you can just fill us in. What is a short term rental?

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
Sure. A short term rental, as the name implies, is someone taking a single family home, a single family dwelling unit, and repurposing it for the point of a commercial use or a business. And they're renting out that property for a period of 30 days or less. So a long term rental is defined as 31 days or more, and a short term rental is defined as renting out that unit for less than 30 days.

Steve:
So the topic of short term rentals, it's not new. We've had them here in in renting for some time now, but obviously they've come back. The topics arisen with the Planning Commission and with City Council. Why is that the case now? How do we get to where we are today?

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
Sure. I think a big piece of that is we've seen some pretty explosive growth in the short term rental industry in the past five years. So when we've looked at the data and what we presented to council, we did show that our number of permits has more or less doubled year over year for the past several years. And so we've seen our number of permits between vacation rentals and host at home stays. We're up above 300 at this point. For the first few years of that ordinance, I think we had just a handful of permits, maybe a dozen, 20, 30, something like that. So it's, I think coming to a head because largely we're seeing a lot more of these permits out in our community. And then as we've seen that growth, I think we're just hearing more from the community when we notice the neighborhood that a short term rental is going to be proposed in their neighborhood. We're getting a lot of phone calls, emails and questions and concerns from the community about, okay, well, what is this? You know, more or less I don't want this in my neighborhood. And that's what started the conversation probably six months ago, eight months ago when it was when if you recall, council was considering the temporary moratorium on these short term rental uses.

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
And so from there, council elected not to impose the moratorium, but directed staff to, hey, look at our ordinance, see, see what revisions need to be made and come back to us with your recommendations. So staff did that. We brought it back to city Council probably four or five months ago. Council provided further direction to staff on. Here's what what we would like to see in terms of ordinance language changes. We brought that back before planning Commission a few months ago, a couple of months ago, and Planning Commission provided their thoughts, their recommendations on the proposed regulations. And now here we are today taking that all that whole long story there. We're taking that package back to City Council with Planning Commission's recommendations for their consideration on what they'd like to do. So that's the long story. I think, of how we went from sort of short, short term rentals being off the radar and the ordinance more or less doing what it's doing to now the community, providing us feedback and us taking another crack at this ordinance language and determine what city council wants to do with it.

Katie:
And if growth has doubled here in Reading, I would imagine that same growth is happening in other cities. I mean, is this something that's fairly unique to reading because we do have a good tourism offering here, or is this something that's happening all over?

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
Yeah, definitely not unique to ready and happening happen. I think across the board we've seen short term rental growth really across the nation as a market. I know it's been growing in the last 3 to 5 years and so no, it's not unique to our area and other jurisdictions throughout California. And the research we've done here and staff has looked into, they take varying approaches to this problem. But it is a it is a common issue for for jurisdictions to wrestle with in terms of how are we going to regulate these, what requirements are going to be imposed and ultimately how many of. Is, are we going to permit do we have the extreme of outright prohibiting them or a moratorium, or do we let them have an unlimited amount permitted in our jurisdiction? So not a unique issue that we're facing. We just, I suppose, need to come up with some of our own unique solutions to it.

Steve:
Jeremy, I'm curious, how much do you attribute the growth of the short term rental industry here in Redding and really, I guess nationwide, but specific to Redding, to sites like Airbnb and VRBO, that that obviously make that process of renting a short term rental a whole lot easier and maybe build some trust and make folks more comfortable finding and renting a short term rental than they had in the past.

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
I do think that's a huge part of it. We have a software we use to analyze the listings that are happening online, and that's one way we can determine who's operating with a permit, who is not operating without a permit. And I think on last check between Airbnb and VRBO, certainly the two bigger ones, there was seven or 800 listings for the month. Now that's not individual listings of properties. I think that's like 300 properties, but there's properties that list on multiple services. So certainly with the advent of of those services, the web host able to advertise online, that's definitely fueled some of the growth for sure in the past five years, no doubt.

Katie:
Jeremy For the purposes of today, maybe you can summarize what are the complaints about short term rentals? What do people say that they don't like about them? And then what are the arguments saying that short term rentals are good for our community and that we should have more of them?

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
Yeah, sure. So I will start with the complaint side of the coin. Largely what we hear is that people want their neighborhoods preserved, so they want to see that a business use doesn't come in and sort of that use isn't compatible with the single family zoning of their neighborhood. And I think there's some some truth to that, certainly that it is a different type of use. And so there's just a general broad concern of that. If you get into the specifics, then of what that might look like. People are concerned about parking, certainly bringing in multiple families, large gatherings, throwing parties at these short term rentals and disturbing the neighborhood that way. Certainly you think of noise complaints and parking complaints and the like. So those are just sort of your day to day concerns and complaints that we see from short term rentals. Next to that would be, I think housing stock is a more general global concern that people have, that if we have three or 400 of these units in our in our city, that's three or 400 single family homes that are not on the market, not for sale.

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
And it's certainly affecting the availability of homes and the affordability of homes. So broad strokes, that's, I think, that side of the equation in terms of the arguments for short term rentals and how their benefit certainly as an alternative way to come here and stay in our city while you're a tourist. I think for tourism it's big. You know, like I mentioned earlier, certainly I've used short term rentals before in my personal life and so I see the value there. They bring in transient occupancy tax revenue for the city. They promote the city, they generate business for the city, and they generate employment for those that operate short term rentals and those that property and manage them and clean them and provide those services. And so definitely an economic driver for the city too. So you see sort of, you know, those are just quick summary statements of like like you said, we can get into the nitty gritty or the the five or six hour long planning Commission meeting. We'll give you a lot of those details. But broadly speaking, and those are the two sides to to the problem.

Steve:
Well. And Jeremy, too, it seems like of those few hundred that you mentioned, not everyone has been a problem still. Right. I mean, there's maybe some bad apples, as it's been referred to, of some folks who are abusing the system or having those large parties or generating those noise plays or whatnot. And it's not across the board. What's the thought process from the city's perspective behind not cracking down or enforcing more of those bad apples or folks who aren't abiding by the current rules versus making these changes across the board that will affect everyone if things go through?

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
Yeah, it's a really good point. I mean, like anything in life, right? The few the few bad apples spoil the bunch. So there are a lot of good store operators out there. We have, like I said, close to 300 to 70 permitted vacation rentals. And many of them we don't hear complaints about, many of them we don't hear anything bad about. So in terms of how do you regulate so that you're not regulating just based on the few bad actors, I think that's a balance we have to strike and that's a balance that planning commission and city council are going to attempt to strike here moving forward. So really, that's that's what has to happen. We will try to do better based on council's direction here coming up in the future on enforcement of those that are breaking and violating the rules. Try to do a little bit better there. Also, what we if we have the staff in resources, what I'd like to try to do is make a more of a concerted effort to find those that are out there operating without a permit at all. That's been brought up at public hearings and public meetings. And it's a good point. And so in terms of us figuring out who's out there just blatantly not following the rules and operating without permits, I think it's important that we spend some effort reaching out to those folks and and getting them permitted as well. So that will be some work we do moving forward.

Katie:
What are some of the bigger changes that would come to pass if the new ordinances were passed?

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
Yes. So the biggest potential change is what we're calling a density requirement, the current ordinance. And you're absolutely correct, Katie, there is a current ordinance that's been around for since I think, 2017. But the current ordinance doesn't define a hard and fast density number or a limit or a cap to how many of these short term rentals can be permitted. And so it's the language in the current ordinance does something to the effect of we can approve or deny an application based on proximity to other vacation rentals, quote unquote. Proximity is not defined. And so it leaves us with a lot of discretion. It leaves some gray area. It can be difficult to determine whether to approve or deny these applications. So I think that the proposed one of the biggest pieces of proposed language is this density cap whereby we would limit the amount of short term rentals based on a measurement or a radius. So as proposed, it's 1000 feet between short term rentals on the same street, 500 feet. If you're on different streets and 300 feet separation, if you're a big arterial roadway or a creek or river separates the two properties. So again, these are just proposed at this point it's for council's consideration, but that's probably one of the biggest potential changes is a density limit or a cap on the amount of these short term rentals that can be permitted. A couple others I'll highlight one we have here total number of rentals. It's proposed to potentially be 400 throughout the city, although Planning Commission didn't support that one, others would be smaller maximum occupancy, increasing the required parking. Right now the ordinance says one parking space off street parking space per bedroom. Their proposal is to add one additional space, reducing the site manager's response time to make the site managers respond a bit quicker. And I won't go down the list for a few other more of the details. But largely I would say it's your density limit, your cap proposed. There are probably some of the bigger proposed changes and again the smaller details folks can go and look at the the agendas or the meetings specifically.

Steve:
Strs are not unique to read in with regard to these ordinance changes and kind of these topics in general. I'm guessing that many communities are struggling and coming up with solutions around these same topics. Are there current best practices that we're also abiding by or other cities that are doing this really well that we're using as a model? Or is it really kind of we're going off of what Planning Commission and council in the community feels is best for our community specifically?

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
Yeah, it's a good question. A little bit of both. I think staff has done research with other jurisdictions when we've come up with some of these suggested regulations for council's consideration. And then I'm not sure when the ordinance was originally developed, I have to imagine that we looked at what other jurisdictions were doing and maybe followed their lead a little bit, but there are a density limit and cap is common, I would say, throughout other jurisdictions where they either go by zoning district, area of the city, what have you, but they do something to limit and don't just let these grow unabated without limits. So that's pretty common. Off street parking requirements is fairly common with other ordinances that I've seen. So I don't I guess to answer your question, Stephen, I don't think we're getting too creative in terms of we're the only jurisdiction doing. A couple of these things. These are some common approaches. I think where the distinction will lie is how much of this regulation does council end up keeping and how much of it do we do we do they not accept? And so just trying to find that balance. Again, there are other jurisdictions, right, like we talked about, flat out prohibit these or other jurisdictions that have really, really strenuous requirements. I don't think we're there yet, nor do I think we'll get there. But I would say we're largely in line with, it seems to me like middle of the road in the other jurisdictions I've looked at in terms of our approach to how we regulate these.

Katie:
Well, and there were a couple line items in there that I thought were like a bit excessive if I was just going to put my personal opinion on it, like the parking one, I think it's one parking space per bedroom. If you have one family staying, they probably only have one car there. But the STR would be responsible to have four or five parking spaces available. Correct. Where do you say to some of these things that feel like it's such a big ordinance? It feels like something does. You have to you have to hit pretty hard, you know, to limit the I would say, abuse of it. Right? And then other things, it feels like they're so they they vary so widely. How do you come to a solution that feels like it's fair for everybody?

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
Yeah, that's a difficult that's a difficult question. And that's what our planning commission and city Council has before them in terms of finding that balance. But, you know, with parking that that does come up a lot. Parking does come up a lot. I mean, the reality is it's probably one of the more common complaints we get is, you know, an STR coming through. They've got three or four cars parked on the street and they're taking up street parking. And because we are regulating them like a business, that's why they they're considered a commercial or business use. We require we have parking standards for all our other types of uses and require that of all of our commercial other commercial uses. So it does make sense to have a standard. Now, whether it's too much like you mentioned, I think it's sort of probably in the eye of the beholder. I mean, I know when I've traveled with my family, yeah, generally we're all packed into one car and that's it. And I don't I personally have never thrown a party at a short term rental, so but I know it happens. And so striking the balance is difficult. But yeah, there is some of these proposed regulations where your response time, your parking spaces, your maximum bedrooms, the longer we make the list of regulations, admittedly, the harder it is to enforce to write as a city.

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
So we want to strike a balance and try to find the regulations that that make the most sense. And also, I think, do the greatest amount of good for the community. And council is going to have a tough decision ahead of them. I think in terms of weighing weighing both sides. You know, one other thing I might mention in terms of proposed changes, that's big as the notification area. So council has been big on trying to get the neighborhoods more involved and giving people a voice. So they're proposing right now a 1000 foot radius on each of these permit applications. Which is it a lot? One permit application could potentially generate 2 to 300 mailings notifying everyone around you within 1000 feet of what you're proposing to do. That could be quite onerous for staff to pull off. It could be a really time consuming. But, you know, in the spirit of public transparency and trying to engage our community, it could also be good. Also, one other thing is one person of those 300 objects to your short term rental use as drafted, that could potentially require a planning commission hearing. So trying to get the public more engaged and more involved in the process is good, but it comes at a cost of a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of energy to get these short term rentals permitted.

Steve:
Interesting. Yeah, that's a great point. I'm curious, too, with regard to the hotel industry, I would imagine in general, the hotel industry is not a huge fan of short term rentals, like a big mistake, but I imagine that eats into their guest rate as well and their heads on beds. How, if at all, has the hotel industry and the hoteliers themselves been involved in the short term rental conversation thus far?

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
That's a good question. They haven't been involved in the latest rounds yet, but I know they were involved pretty heavily when the ordinance first came to be and from what I heard and this is second hand, I'll just say that out loud, I don't know for sure because I wasn't involved, but I believe the hoteliers were supportive of the ordinance and likely supportive of short term rentals. Broadly speaking, in terms of just bringing in more tourism and people to the area, I believe they just wanted to have them be treated fairly in terms of, hey, if they're going to operate this way, they should be paying the same taxes and fees and licensing and licensing fees that we have to as hoteliers. So I what I heard was that was largely their take. But again, that was, you know, back when this ordinance first came before council. Currently, there hasn't been a lot I've heard from the hoteliers and I don't believe staff has either with this latest iteration, because I don't know that it affects them too much at this juncture. It's more focused on regulations that will really be imposed on an effect our short term rental operators. So I guess, Steve, to answer your question, not too much from the hoteliers at this point. It's been fairly quiet, at least as far as from where I'm. Sitting.

Katie:
As you mentioned earlier. I mean, it is a lot. It's a big it's a big decision. It's a lot to put on the planning commission. It's a lot to put on the council. I believe the last planning commission, there were a couple of public comments that said, you know, why don't we have a committee about this and bring some people from the short term rental community, some people who are against the short term rentals, maybe the hoteliers are part of that mix or however the city would decide to do a committee. Is that is that on the table at all? Is that something that's being talked about?

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
It did come up in the public hearing process. I haven't had a lot of discussions yet with city manager about it. I believe we'll know more on that question, though, with our upcoming council meeting here on the 21st, if that's council's direction and that's where they want staff to go, I think I would just, you know, I'd work closely with City Manager Tippin on it and we'd figure out perhaps what other things need to come off our workload here down here in development services so we could accommodate a committee process because it can be quite time consuming of course, and involved and as it should be because that's the point. There's different levels of committee to you could have a brownout committee that that is subject to those requirements and has appointments from city council. We could make it a director led committee which is a little less in terms of work. It's a little less because it really revolves around me selecting a committee of individuals to come together and come up with some ideas to present back to our governing bodies. So I have heard, I think, from the dais and at public hearings that a committee is something people are looking for. I just don't know yet if that's going to be direction from council and from city manager. If it is, we'll have to figure out how to make it happen. And I think it's doable. We might have to table a couple other efforts we're working on now to to give that priority, But certainly some good could come from it. Of course, if we had people on both sides of the issue as part of that committee and perhaps made it a smaller committee so we could be a little more efficient and kind of lean and mean, maybe five, six, seven people from both sides of the issue. I could see that being productive. So at this point, too early to tell, but perhaps it'll go that way and we'll have to figure out how to make it happen.

Steve:
And Jeremy, for community members who maybe either haven't been aware that this conversation is happening or who want to lend their thoughts, their voice, I know you mentioned there's been a handful of public hearings and public meetings already. You talked about how the second council meeting in February, on February 21st, this this will be discussed by council if they want to provide feedback at this point is their best course of action to show up at that council meeting on the 21st to email their council member or is it too late in the process to provide their input?

Jeremy Pagan, Development Services Director:
Yeah, definitely not too late. In terms of the council meeting on the 21st show up to that meeting on the 21st, provide your your emails and your thoughts to council members. I know they get a lot of those and I know they read them and those also get forwarded on to to other city staff for us to consider. So getting involved in that manner, I think showing up is really pretty critical. It seems like the public meetings up to this point, we've heard a lot from the folks that are STR operators and have businesses and have interest in that respect. We haven't heard as much from the other side, although we do get emails and phone calls. But I think when it comes down to it, show up at City Council on the 21st and provide your thoughts and comments to council so they can hear directly from the community. Otherwise, they're always welcome to email myself or email our planning manager, Lily toI or our staff, and we're always happy to to respond to those inquiries. We also have a general planning email inbox that we check as well, and that can all be found on development services web page at the city's website.

Katie:
As a reminder, we are really looking for community feedback for this podcast. If you have questions, comments or suggestions for episodes, please email us at podcast at City of Redding dot org. We'd love to hear from you and incorporate those questions into future episodes.

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