The Kibitzer

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Our DNA is Missing

By Billy Fried
By Billy Fried

“I moved to this town because people were so nice. What has happened?” asked Hermien Miller at the last short-term rental workshop. She was referring to the strafing of hostility from the crowd, who were resolutely against anyone renting a home for less than 31 days, even if its just a room and the homeowner is present.

“I raised three kids in this house, and lost my husband three years ago,” explained Miller, a Dutch native who moved here 50 years ago to teach Montessori. At 55, her husband developed diabetes and was unable to continue his dental practice. Eventually, she quit her job to take care of him and they subsisted on disability and social security. Still, they were able to put their three kids through college, mainly by mortgaging their home. She’s still paying it off.

“Short term rentals is not only a way for me to keep my home, it has also helped me with my grief. I’ve met wonderful people and have never had a complaint. I don’t rent long term because I keep the rooms available for my kids when they visit, and I don’t want a full time roommate.”

Then there’s Paulette Auster, whose husband Ken passed away in January after a long battle with cancer. Ken was close to artist royalty. He was a fixture at the Festival of Arts, a founding member of the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association, and served on the Arts Commission. He also donated generously to the Friendship Shelter, LCAD and the Boys and Girls Club. But a lifetime of art and philanthropy is no guarantee that your widow can remain in her home when you’re gone.

“We planned for the future, but sometimes circumstances arise when you can’t keep up with your home.” Auster has sympathy for her neighbors, as “there are irresponsible people renting, but to lump everyone into one group is unfair.”

Auster doesn’t want to rent her home, but will do what’s necessary to keep it. “Our home is a piece of art. My husband worked on it every day of his life. If I didn’t have a room to rent, I would have to leave.”

And there’s Karen Petty, a Sawdust Festival exhibitor for 25 years, whose husband Jerry died three years ago. A real estate investor, he was hard hit by the recession and didn’t leave Karen any way to pay the mortgage on the home they bought and lovingly renovated in 2001.

Each of them was told by the city at one time that they did not need a permit to rent their homes. In fact, when Miller saw all the “No STR” lawn signs around town, she thought it was a sexually transmitted disease.

At the sub-committee hearing, Mayor Steve Dicterow and council member Bob Whalen tried to offer a muted compromise for everyone by advocating a short-term rental regulations that would allow residents a mere two weeks to rent their homes. Here’s what the applicant would have to go through: apply for an Administrative Use Permit; prove that it is your primary residence; state days of the week, weeks of the month and months of the year that the rental units will be available; provide a site and floor plan, drawn to scale, depicting site layout and parking; provide evidence of a fire department safety inspection; provide liability insurance at a minimum level of $500,000; and pay an application fee.

Who would go to all that trouble for a two week rental? It’s a de facto prohibition. So this was not so much a debate about STR than a referendum on who we are as a people. How does denying these stalwart Lagunans a way to stay in their homes square with our values as a compassionate community?

The troublemakers can be weeded out. No one is advocating for absentee homeowners to convert their homes into hotels. Stop spreading fear and misinformation! Many cities have passed sensible legislation and are benefitting – like LA, where they just struck a deal with AirBnB to collect the taxes on up to 180 days a years of short term rentals, which they will use to help the homeless. Win!

Now it’s up to our Council to decide if they will cave to peer pressure, or rely on their core values to work out a fair compromise for all the residents in this town. I’m hopeful that compassionate council people Kelly Boyd, Toni Iseman and Rob Zur Schmiede will not view all short-term rentals through the same lens of “commercial activity,” and be able to look in the eyes of Miller, Auster and Petty and their like and say, “We care about you. We can make this work.”

Prohibitions will divide our neighborhoods into battle grounds. Home renters will go covert and use subterfuge. Neighbors will be spying on each other and waiting to report infractions. If permitted sensibly, neighbors will share openly and responsibly, and work together. Isn’t that the kind of community we want to be, and once were?

 

Billy Fried hosts “Laguna Talks” on Thursday at 8 p.m. on radio station KX 93.5 and can be reached at [email protected].

 

 

 

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3 COMMENTS

  1. I don’t know Billy, why don’t you ask the coyotes ?

    It’s because humans are the ultimate predator, that there are greater and lesser degrees of our predation we consider any preceived as weaker being parasitical and taxing to our immediate environment, an have them adjust their behaviors while not comparing our own.

    More or less an example of the food chain.

    In certain Buddhist cultures it is considered to be of a lower consciousness sometime referee to as “Animality”

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