To: Robert Moon, Mayor, Chris Mills, Mayor Pro Tem, Ginny Foat, Councilmember, Geoff Kors, Councilmember, J.R. Roberts, Councilmember, and Jay Thompson, City Clerk
PS City Council: Please Vote NO On A Vacation Rental Moratorium
The vacation rental issue in Palm Springs needs addressing, but not via moratoriums, bans or complicated attempts at density and ownership restrictions. We urge the City Council to get serious about better enforcement. We urge NEW procedures and technologies to help address neighbor's noise and occupancy concerns, without damaging the value of our homes or risking economic shock for all of us.
Why is this important?
A moratorium or ban on vacation rentals is NOT the best way to address vacation rental concerns.
Concerns over noise and occupancy violations continue in our city, and we look to our City Council to be a leader in creating positive solutions to enhance residents lives.
We are pleading with the City Council to not cause damage to the value of our homes, or the growth of our businesses. A ban will cause a drop in demand for homes here, and confusion in our local real estate market. Less demand will cause a drop in home values, weakening our local economy. A weaker economy will affect nearly all residents, not just vacation rental owners and management companies. Catering companies, restaurants, contractors, landscape and pool maintenance companies and many others will be especially at risk.
Residents, business owners, employees and homeowners here want the City Council to help support the value of their homes, not harm it.
Several ideas worth investigating, to help implement better enforcement, could include:
1. Implementing electronic signature technology to make renters aware of existing strict noise and occupancy restrictions BEFORE they rent, especially for properties not managed by local property management firms that already institute similar disclosures. Suggest the requirement to use a standardized form for ALL vacation rental homeowners.
2. Stronger commitment for fines for renters that violate the existing ordinance. This puts the responsibility back on a renter choosing to violate the existing city ordinance. Instead of considering $1,000 fines for homeowners that decide to violate a so-called moratorium (which is what the current moratorium suggests), renters should be held financially responsible for their behavior. In conjunction with the aforementioned electronic signature process, it would seem the technology exists that tenants would be required to leave their credit card info, at the time of booking, knowing UP FRONT it could be used in the event of a violation of the local ordinance the city needs to articulate it takes very seriously. This seems FAR LESS complicated than some of the elaborate and complicated solutions being discussed that include somehow devising a plan to determine density requirements or limiting ownership of rentals to one rental per person.
Palm Springs is a city based on tourism. We are not like almost all of the other cities that have banned vacation rentals. Most of those cities have well rounded economies based on many different industries. A change in policy for a city like that will not likely have disastrous effects. Palm Springs is different. We don't have anything else to fall back on. Even the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico recently reversed its limit on the number of vacation rental permits, after acknowledging it was difficult to manage violations and that the policy was damaging their economy and financial well being.
Vacation renters regularly rate the quality of their stay in Palm Springs among the Top 5 or Top 10 in the entire country. Certainly the City Council wishes to retain such a distinguished rating?
We urge the City Council to not ban vacation rentals, but to get serious about continuing to implement better enforcement to help neighborhoods become more peaceful again. Many full time and part time residents alike look to your leadership to help keep the city from experiencing an economic shock that will be difficult to recover from.
In the short term, real estate agents are reporting cancelled escrows, as well as angry buyers that recently purchased into our community, that are suddenly faced with the prospect that their home can no longer be used for the purpose they intended. Certainly there is a better way?
We urge the City Council to get serious about enforcement, but to save residents home values by voting NO to any current or future moratorium or ban on short term rentals.
Concerns over noise and occupancy violations continue in our city, and we look to our City Council to be a leader in creating positive solutions to enhance residents lives.
We are pleading with the City Council to not cause damage to the value of our homes, or the growth of our businesses. A ban will cause a drop in demand for homes here, and confusion in our local real estate market. Less demand will cause a drop in home values, weakening our local economy. A weaker economy will affect nearly all residents, not just vacation rental owners and management companies. Catering companies, restaurants, contractors, landscape and pool maintenance companies and many others will be especially at risk.
Residents, business owners, employees and homeowners here want the City Council to help support the value of their homes, not harm it.
Several ideas worth investigating, to help implement better enforcement, could include:
1. Implementing electronic signature technology to make renters aware of existing strict noise and occupancy restrictions BEFORE they rent, especially for properties not managed by local property management firms that already institute similar disclosures. Suggest the requirement to use a standardized form for ALL vacation rental homeowners.
2. Stronger commitment for fines for renters that violate the existing ordinance. This puts the responsibility back on a renter choosing to violate the existing city ordinance. Instead of considering $1,000 fines for homeowners that decide to violate a so-called moratorium (which is what the current moratorium suggests), renters should be held financially responsible for their behavior. In conjunction with the aforementioned electronic signature process, it would seem the technology exists that tenants would be required to leave their credit card info, at the time of booking, knowing UP FRONT it could be used in the event of a violation of the local ordinance the city needs to articulate it takes very seriously. This seems FAR LESS complicated than some of the elaborate and complicated solutions being discussed that include somehow devising a plan to determine density requirements or limiting ownership of rentals to one rental per person.
Palm Springs is a city based on tourism. We are not like almost all of the other cities that have banned vacation rentals. Most of those cities have well rounded economies based on many different industries. A change in policy for a city like that will not likely have disastrous effects. Palm Springs is different. We don't have anything else to fall back on. Even the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico recently reversed its limit on the number of vacation rental permits, after acknowledging it was difficult to manage violations and that the policy was damaging their economy and financial well being.
Vacation renters regularly rate the quality of their stay in Palm Springs among the Top 5 or Top 10 in the entire country. Certainly the City Council wishes to retain such a distinguished rating?
We urge the City Council to not ban vacation rentals, but to get serious about continuing to implement better enforcement to help neighborhoods become more peaceful again. Many full time and part time residents alike look to your leadership to help keep the city from experiencing an economic shock that will be difficult to recover from.
In the short term, real estate agents are reporting cancelled escrows, as well as angry buyers that recently purchased into our community, that are suddenly faced with the prospect that their home can no longer be used for the purpose they intended. Certainly there is a better way?
We urge the City Council to get serious about enforcement, but to save residents home values by voting NO to any current or future moratorium or ban on short term rentals.