The city’s Planning and Design Commission is no ship of fools. Planning commissioners showed their smarts earlier this year when they discussed changing the rules for short-term housing rentals.
They declared—for the record—Sacramento isn’t Barcelona or Pismo Beach. Thanks for clearing that up.
A dozen or so people in the City Hall audience absorbed the news as one might expect. No shrieks. No boos. Just silence.
Comparisons to beach towns in Spain and central California are rare at City Hall. But comparisons are handy when local authorities try to corral short-term rentals.
Unlike Barcelona and Pismo, Sacramento doesn’t have a genuine problem with Airbnb-style rental properties. There aren’t enough short-term rentals to matter here.
But as the planning commission’s anxieties reveal, short-term rentals cause persistent headaches at City Hall.
The big problem is how to make short-term rentals work in a town with a modest tourist industry and only around 520 entrepreneurs who rent out properties for guests who barely unpack.
In this case, planning commissioners chased their tails for solutions and kicked their short-term rental ordinance ideas down the road, into the arms of the City Council.
Fair enough. City Council members get $111,000 a year to debate the filaments of government. They bury the important stuff in budget sessions.
The short-term rental issue boils down to this: Should investors operate mini hotels in residential neighborhoods? By investors, I mean people who buy properties with no intention to live there.
Many cities (this means you, Barcelona and Pismo) write rules against short-term rental investors. Cities dislike absentee Airbnb operators for several reasons.
First, there’s the belief that absentee Airbnb landlords remove housing stock from long-term rental markets. Second, there’s the fear that absentee owners won’t bounce bad guests—visitors who disrupt neighborhoods with boozy parties, drug orgies and cars on lawns.
Not every absentee owner gives aid and comfort to obnoxious guests. But some do, spoiling the business model for good absentee owners.
Irresponsible absentee Airbnb operators are why the planning commission (and eventually the City Council) wants to eliminate permits for short-term rental operators who don’t live on their properties.
Wait, that’s not quite accurate. The city will let absentee hosts operate if they navigate a bureaucratic maze and emerge with a conditional use permit. The city averages about one of those per year.
Once the city ends absentee short-term rentals, the local Airbnb market will belong to residents who rent out bedrooms, homes or accessory dwelling units while living on the property. Six guests per night are the limit.
The proposed rules make sense. The city is tired of complaints about short-term rentals running amok. The city is fed up with absentee investors posting phony permits on Airbnb and operating illegal party houses.
The city doesn’t want to kill short-term rentals. It wants rental housing for traveling nurses and business consultants. It wants rentable dwellings for guests with relatives in local hospitals. It wants many more accessory dwelling units.
The ironic part is none of this matters in the larger picture of housing shortages. Short-term rental numbers are all but irrelevant in Sacramento.
The city has about 202,000 dwellings. About 520 are available as short-term rentals. Of those 520, about 60% are owned by people who live elsewhere—absentee operators.
Under proposed rules, absentee owners will have one year to sell, shift into long-term rentals or secure that conditional use permit.
Personally, I don’t worry about absentee landlords. But I’m thrilled when somebody at City Hall compares Sacramento to Barcelona. Flamenco and patatas bravas, anyone?
R.E. Graswich can be reached at regraswich@icloud.com. Follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
