In a move that will dramatically alter San Diego’s home sharing landscape, the City Council Monday voted to outlaw vacation rentals in secondary homes, limiting short-term stays to one’s primary residence only.

The effect of the action will be to curtail investor activity in the short-term rental market while also barring residents and out-of-towners from hosting short-term stays in multiple properties other than where they reside.

While the council was expected to weigh a special exemption for longstanding Mission Beach vacation rentals that already had paid required transient occupancy taxes, a council majority was not willing to go along with that.

The council vote was 6 to 3, with council members Scott Sherman, David Alvarez and Chris Cate dissenting.

One exception was made for San Diegans who have additional units on the same property as their residence, as in a duplex. In those instances only, a resident would be able to get a license for a second vacation rental. Council members also said they would like to revisit the issue of granny flats, which under current rules, could not be used for vacation rentals.

The crackdown on Airbnb-style rentals has the potential to affect as many as 80 percent of the city’s more than 11,000 vacation rentals, estimated Elyse Lowe, the mayor’s director of land use and economic development policy.

The new regulations, which will govern the renting out of rooms while the host is present, as well as an entire home when the resident is not present, will go into effect by July of 2019.

In the decade since Airbnb popularized the home sharing industry, San Diego’s estimated inventory of vacation rentals has grown to more than 11,000, the majority of which are entire homes that are being rented out for short-term stays, according to the data analytics firm Host Compliance

In taking the action it did on Monday, the council is following the lead of other big cities, like San Francisco, New York and Paris, which, too, have limited short-term rentals to residents’ primary homes.

Pressure has been building to take some action for several years amid complaints from residents that rotating cycles of vacationers are disrupting their quiet neighborhoods and depleting the supply of long-term housing. Vacation rental hosts counter that their tenants have been a boon to the economy and that platforms like Airbnb and HomeAway provide them extra revenue to help meet their financial obligations.

Councilwoman Bry predicted that the new rules will be defensible in court and still provide an avenue for extra income for residents.

“This is a great day for San Diego because we passed an ordinance that will protect our precious housing stock and still allow people to do home-sharing to make ends meet,” she said minutes after the council session ended. “This is not a ban. This allows home-sharing and this allows someone to rent out their whole house on a short-term basis up to six months a year. This is the original spirit of Airbnb.”

Source: SDuniontribune by Lori Weisberg and Rob Nikolewski