Editor,
I was excited to be moving to beautiful Laguna Beach in the late ‘80s, but had one firm requirement: I didn’t want to live in a transient, party area but wanted to live in a neighborhood, where one knew the neighbors and could rely on one another. We were fortunate to locate on a street in South Laguna on which people had lived for many years, raised their families, and cared about each other, including us newbies. And yes, our neighborhood has changed over the years. Though a number of old-timers remain, we also now have more second homes, and we have had a taste of a couple of owners who have operated unpermitted short-term rentals. Whether this trend of transient, commercial use in residential neighborhoods continues depends on the Council’s decision about short-term rentals.
After a year of study and debate, City Council will soon choose between two versions of an ordinance designed to address the proliferation of illegal short term rentals that have resulted from the growth of private-equity backed websites like Airbnb and VRBO.
If the City Council approves the subcommittee produced version of the ordinance, which would allow an increase in short term rentals in residential neighborhoods, we run the risk of becoming a city of transients. Owners driven by the opportunity to make a fast buck will find the provisions of the subcommittee version of the ordinance easy to circumvent and enforcement will be both difficult and expensive. Plus the only way to enforce such restrictions will be to turn neighbors into vigilantes. An ever-increasing part of our city’s resources will be used to enforce rules and ensure the peace in our neighborhoods. Is this what we want for our city? I think not!
Let’s protect our residential neighborhoods from short-term rentals. I urge the City Council to adopt the version of the ordinance recommended unanimously by the city’s Planning Commission, the city’s land use experts.
Peggie Thomas, South Laguna
