Short Term Rental (STR)

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Short Term Rental (STR)

Where do we start on this one… to put it bluntly, Short-Term Rentals (STR) are eroding North Tahoe and removing workforce housing in the process. So many homes have been purchased by outside interests because Placer County is a haven for profit with low fees and little controls. Cindy has repeatedly sent community input, staff recommendations and the working panel suggestions back to staff only delaying any chance of reworking the program to make it work for residents and workers in North Tahoe. The sheer number of STR permits is ridiculous and should have phased in rather than offering up everything without trials and community feedback on day one.

Below are the eye-popping stats, Cindy says she’s working to make things better but in the end we can’t help but wonder if the CA Real Estate PAC and the many realtor/property manager campaign contributions are forcing the delay of program changes the community is asking for and staff has recommended after 12 months of work. The “heads in beds” push for more TOT revenue is a clear driver above and beyond workforce housing or the serenity of neighborhoods.

Unincorporated Placer County has 3,900 permits, 3,330 active
Unincorporated Los Angeles County has 2,841 active permits as of July 2024
San Francisco County has 2,330 active permits as of 8/26/24
Napa County has banned STRs in unincorporated areas of the county
City of Napa has only 41 permits for "non-hosted" whole home rentals and 60 for "hosted" rentals where the owner lives on-site
Other destination/tourist counties are protecting workforce housing, why isn’tPlacer?

HOW CAN PLACER HAVE THIS NUMBER OF PERMITS?? IT’S DUE TO UNCHECKED POWER AND POOR LEADERSHIP, ESPECIALLY FROM CINDY IN HER OWN BACKYARD!!

PLACER COUNTY has 27% more permits than LA County, insane!!
PLACER COUNTY has 40% more permits than San Francisco!!
LA has strict rules and penalties, here they are:
- Anyone who wants to rent out a house must own that house and live in it as a full-time residence. You can rent out a room, but you can’t buy up a property just to use it as a short-term rental.
- There’s an annual fee of $914
- You can’t rent out guest houses or accessory dwelling units (ADUs). The logic here is that the state has incentivized homeowners to build ADUs as homes or long-term rentals
SF STR requirements, far tougher than Placer:
- Permanent resident of San Francisco
- Must have lived in the dwelling at least 60 days before applying for a permit
- Owner must live in the unit for at least 275 nights/year
- Resident must apply for permission every two years by providing documentation to demonstrate that they meet requirements.
- SAN FRANCISCO is protecting workforce / affordable housing

Why hasn’t Cindy done more about this and why is there no sense of urgency, only slow actions to modify. Los Angeles has made great changes to protect housing availability and protecting neighborhoods, Placer is failing. Don’t blame the other supervisors, this is in Cindy’s district where 99.5% of TOT revenue is generated so whatever she says goes. Her actions direct the BOS and actions speak louder than words! It’s all about the money, more TOT revenue is all Cindy cares about!

In her own words she states the root cause on the Placer Co. 8/27 press release that:

“We want to give people hope for a better future. Living in the Tahoe Basin without any assistance has become too great a challenge for our local workforce. Our prices have been driven up because there’s limited supply and a lot of demand to live in Tahoe. I appreciate our staff working to find unique solutions through a combination of programs.” If the county were to slash the number of STR permits in half, create a lottery for the remaining permits then suddenly there will be a plethora of long-term rentals available again for workers to share. This isn’t rocket science, this is how it was done for many years before the explosion of STR’s and the greed of the county for TOT revenue!

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