Residents urge Newport to get tough on short-term rentals

Newport Beach residents who for years have dealt with quality-of-life issues related to short-term rentals in their neighborhoods urged city staff during a community meeting Tuesday to further tighten regulations on the expanding industry.

Staff members gave more than 50 residents a first look at proposed changes to the municipal code that are designed to “make every property owner who wants to operate a short-term rental accountable,” Community Development Director Kim Brandt said.

The proposed amendments include limiting how many adult guests can stay in a home, requiring adequate parking and mandating that a notice with a local person’s contact information — someone within 10 miles of the home — be placed on the exterior along with the number of the house’s city-issued short-term lodging permit.

Staff determined the city could not limit how many children can stay in a short-term rental.

Join the conversation on Facebook >>

Staff also has proposed a requirement that any rental agent, homeowner or online platform list a home’s lodging permit number on advertisements. That would make it easier for staff to identify and control homes that are operating without a permit, according to Monique Navarrete, the city’s license and revenue specialist.

The City Council is expected to weigh in on the proposed changes in August.

In 1992, the city adopted short-term lodging regulations requiring property owners to have a city-issued permit before they could list a property to rent for less than 30 days.

Such lodgings previously were permitted throughout the city, but current law prohibits them in areas zoned only for single-family homes. However, 211 properties were allowed to keep their permits when the new regulations were passed in 2004.

Currently, there are 1,162 active permits, the majority of them in Corona del Mar, the Balboa Peninsula and Balboa Island, according to city staff.

As short-term rentals available through websites such as Airbnb and Vacation Rentals by Owner continue to swell in popularity, Newport has become one of several beach communities in Orange County grappling with how to regulate an industry that critics say has disruptive effects on communities.

Laguna Beach is in the process of revising its ordinance after enacting a moratorium on new short-term rental permits last year. The city currently allows rentals in certain residential zones, but City Council members have suggested limiting the length of stays and how many times a property owner can rent space in a given year.

Dozens of Newport Beach residents who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting said the city hasn’t done enough to restrict rentals and that they have little faith in the proposed regulations. Residents made suggestions such as reducing the time a property can be rented out, placing a cap on permits and placing a moratorium on permits until the city can get its arms around the issue.

David Diamond, a West Newport resident, raised doubts about the effectiveness of requiring rentals to post a local phone number for neighbors to call to report issues.

“It could be a phone number that leads to an answering machine that no one checks,” he said. “You can post the number all over. It’s not going to do anything.”

Tuesday’s meeting was the last of several the city has held in the past several months to get feedback from community members whose neighborhoods include short-term rentals.

For at least 60 years, weekly vacation rentals have thrived in Newport Beach, bringing in tourists — and revenue.

In the early days, vacationers often would look to rental companies and real estate agents to help them find a property. According to city staff, officials could more easily regulate the rentals and ensure that the property owners had an active business license, were in an area where rentals were permitted and were paying taxes to the city.

The changing online market has enabled virtually any property to become a vacation rental, with or without city approval, making it more difficult to regulate the business and keep track of who should be paying taxes.

Newport Beach imposes a transient occupancy tax of 10% of the price of each rental, like it would for hotel guests.

Tax revenue from short-term rentals is used in part to fund enforcement efforts to keep unpermitted and problem rentals at bay, staff said.

“We feel your frustration and the desire for things to get better,” Brandt told residents Tuesday. “We’re working to come up with regulations that best fit the city of Newport Beach.”

--

Hannah Fry, hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN

ALSO

Lido House Hotel developer seeks to expand parts of project

Wozniak lawyer not entitled to more information about jailhouse informants, judge says

Sperm whale fossils up to 12 million years old unearthed at Irvine landfill