The Arroyo Grande City Council granted amnesty to a group of short-term rental owners, much to the relief of a group of community members who were concerned about the future of local homestays.
“If they were operating and we never heard about it, I don’t think it matters if it’s 100 feet, 200 feet, or 500 feet,” Mayor Caren Ray Russom said at the May 9 meeting. “Give them 60 days. If you want amnesty, you can come in. This is the only shot.”
Russom was referring to a recent revision to the city’s short-term rental ordinance that increased the distance required between short-term rentals (vacation rentals and/or homestays) in the city and put pressure on existing rentals—some of which are no longer in compliance with city rules.
In 2014, Arroyo Grande adopted an ordinance establishing vacation rentals and homestays as permitted land uses. That ordinance has undergone a series of revisions with the most recent in October 2022, which increased the the buffer between all short-term rentals from the initial 300 feet to 500 feet, reduced the cap on the number of vacation rentals from 120 to 90, and required permit holders to pay transient occupancy taxes every six months rather than every 12 months.
At the May 9 meeting, the City Council edited the ordinance again as part of a “six-month lookback” on the city’s short-term rental policies. The buffer distance expansion was revised because the previous ordinance only applied it to properties on the same street. The ordinance will now measure that buffer as a circular radius.
Ordinance revisions have significantly impacted the number of short-term rentals available in the city. Almost 1,800 properties now remain ineligible to apply for permits.
Many residents and visitors asked the City Council to revert to the original 300-foot buffer. Roughly 30 public comment letters warned city officials against the May 9 changes, citing concern that Arroyo Grande’s number of rentals would shrink even further.
One of those comments came from Sandcastle Celebrations founder and wedding planner Janet Tacy. She told New Times that she wrote her letter to support her friend who has been operating an Airbnb in Arroyo Grande for several years.
“Because of the change, she’s no longer in compliance, and because of the events I do, it’s super helpful to have alternative housing for my clients when they visit town,” Tacy said.
The City Council decided unanimously to meet everyone halfway. Russom moved to amend the ordinance to allow homestay owners to approach the city within 60 days and go through the permitting process to become legally noncompliant. These homestay operators belong to a group of 28 property owners who were identified by city enforcement agencies for being unpermitted hosts during earlier revisions of the ordinance.
Russom said she favored homestays because of their track record of good behavior and a lack of complaints. Δ
This article appears in May 11-21, 2023.