Editor,
Laguna Beach has long recognized that our limited rental supply may be negatively impacted by short-term lodging. In light of this, it is remarkable that both Steve Dicterow and Bob Whalen would even suggest a new ordinance that would allow transient renters in residential neighborhoods.
While both Steve and Bob have given every imaginable rationale for short-term lodging, their rhetoric does not even address the economic impact short-term lodging would have on Laguna. It doesn’t take a degree in economics to know that taking long-term rentals off the market in favor of short-term rentals (which can and would command higher rents) would correspondingly result in higher rents for long-term rentals.
Yet Steve and Bob who purport to want to keep Laguna an artist community have not even considered the damage the policy they have been suggesting would have on artists. Artists cannot afford to live in Laguna as it is.
To Steve and Bob – you cannot have it both ways. There cannot be sustainable affordable housing for artists in Laguna Beach and a policy of short-term lodging in residential neighborhoods no matter how you may justify it.
Alan Boinus, Laguna Beach
Here we have it once again, the distortion of facts and continued push for a “Laguna Brexit”. Mr. Boinus would be well advised to go and listen to the facts as expressed by dozens and dozens of citizens as to why Home-Sharing actually allows them to stay in Laguna. Many of these citizens are artists that bought a house many years ago and do Airbnb to support their living expenses and pay for the taxes, under-grounding, etc.
The Village Laguna retirees continue to beat the FUD drums.
Can’t you see that when you rent a room in your house for a weekend or do a summer vacation rental, the resident of that home is not moving out permanently? This room was never and is never going to be part of the long term rental market. There is simply NO impact on the rental offering when you share your home with a guest. With home-sharing we would be opening the door to those that can’t afford a night at The Ranch to come and visit Laguna.
Clearly, there is a small loud group of people in our town that somehow have made it their mission to try to limit our City to the ones that can afford a $300 hotel and vanish the families that could use additional income. Probably funded by someone that can benefit of less competition and renting his rooms at $300/night and is happy to pay for garden signs to impact the City Council decisions.