Public Participation Guided the Discussion on Short-Term Vacation Rentals
During a special Council meeting held this week, the City Council gave direction to develop an ordinance for consideration that would phase-out Short-Term Vacation Rentals (STVR) in Cathedral City. Two exceptions are proposed, one that would allow STVRs to continue to be licensed in HOAs that explicitly allow them and a second exception that would allow home sharing, where the owner is present during a rental, to continue. A formal vote on the proposed ordinance is scheduled to occur during the regular Council meeting on August 26, 2020.
I would like to take this opportunity to provide a little background on the lengthy process the Council and city staff have followed to reach this point and highlight the massive amount of participation by the public that helped shape the response to this issue. The Council heard from many people from our community regarding their opinions on both sides of this highly contentious issue.
During their annual goal setting session in January 2019, the City Council developed a goal for staff to provide an update on short-term vacation rental (STVR) regulation and enforcement efforts. Staff prepared an update, which was presented to Council at study session on June 12, 2019. At that meeting Council heard from many residents of Cathedral City who expressed concern that existing STVR regulations are not working or are not being adequately enforced and that the proliferation of STVR homes is negatively affecting their quality of life. As a result, Council directed staff to prepare an ordinance for consideration implementing a moratorium on the issuance of new STVR permits. An interim urgency ordinance establishing a 45-day moratorium on new STVR permits was approved by Council on June 26, 2019. The ordinance excluded from the moratorium HOA neighborhoods that expressly allow STVR permits and allowed the renewal of then existing STVR permits. On July 24, 2019, prior to expiration of the initial 45-day moratorium, Council approved a new moratorium, with the same conditions and exclusions as the original, but with no expiration date. The moratorium action allowed the completion of processing of all then pending applications for STVR licenses.
During this same period of time, the City Manager appointed an Ad-Hoc task force to study issues related to STVR homes in neighborhoods and develop a set of recommendations to address the problems identified with a target date for completion of their tasks of early 2020. Members of the task force included residents of Cathedral City neighborhoods as well as owners and managers of STVRs.
It was decided early on in the task force’s deliberations to develop a survey to be mailed to residents who live close to a STVR and to hold two public meetings to receive comments from the community. During the full task force meeting on September 9, the survey format and language were approved. Dates and locations were also approved for the two public meetings, Tuesday October 1 at 6:00 pm at the library and Saturday October 19 at 10:00 am at City Hall.
Both meetings were well attended by persons both in support of and opposed to STVRs. All comments made were noted and were shared with the task force members and Council members. The survey was mailed out on October 1, 2019 with a return by date of October 15, 2019. The results were released to the community on February 12, 2020 and were also shared with the task force and the City Council.
Over the past year, public comment was provided by people on this topic at virtually every Council meeting and the topic was discussed at most of the monthly City Hall at Your Corner meetings as well. Hundreds of emails and phone calls from the community were also received. All of the emails were shared with the Council and a summary of phone calls was also provided. Study session updates on the topic were provided to Council in open, public meetings in October and March as well.
I indicated during the Council meeting this week that I don’t think I have ever seen a topic during my entire career in local government that generated as much public participation as I have seen related to STVRs over the past year. Whether you are pleased with the decisions made by the Council or not on this topic, it is clear to me that the voices of the people of our community were heard and considered as Council made their decisions.
