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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-06-10 - Minutes - PC-HPCPRESERVATION COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES JUNE 10, 2020 A. Call to Order PLANNING COMMISSION The meeting of the Historic Presentation Commission and Planning Commission was held on June 10, 2020. The meeting was called to order my Chairman Guglielmo at 7:12pm. Planning Commission present: Chairman Guglielmo, Vice Chair Oaxaca, Commissioner Dopp, Commissioner Morales, and Commissioner Williams. Staff Present: Nick Ghirelli, Assistant City Attorney; Anne McIntosh, Planning Director; Mike Smith, Principal Planner; Elizabeth Thornhill, Executive Assistant; Brian Sandona, Sr. Civil Engineer; Jana Cook, Manager Community Improvement; Dat Tran, Assistant Planner; David Eoff, Sr. Planner. B. Public Communications Chairman Guglielmo opened the public communications and hearing no comment, closed public communications. C. Consent Calendar C1. Consideration to adopt Regular Meeting Minutes of May 27, 2020 Two minor spelling corrections; Change Perish to Parish. Change arena to RHNA. Motion by Commissioner Morales, second by Vice Chair Oaxaca. Motion carried 5-0 to adopt the amended minutes. D. Public Hearings D1. Consideration to Amend the Municipal Code for the Regulation of Short -Term Rentals, This Item Will Be Forwarded to City Council for Final Action. Jana Cook, Manager Community Improvement, presented Commissioners with a Staff Report and oral presentation (copy on file). Commissioner Dopp requested clarification on the two rental agreements; does it mean they could rent out their home on certain weekends and then a room on a regular basis. Jana Cook answered yes. Although, this would not apply to long-term home sharing. If there were three or more people, that would fall under boarding house definition. Other than that, they are just roommates. This is just short-term rental people coming in for a few days/ weeks and then leaving. HPC/PC Meeting Minutes — June 10, 2020 Page 1 of 5 MEETING MINUTES JUNE 10, 2020 Commissioner Dopp asked for clarification on street parking. Is there to be an understanding that street parking will not be allowed. Jana Cook replied we cannot tell people they cannot park on the street, it's a legal place to park. The applicant must show there is parking for guests available on the property prior to a permit being issued. Commissioner Williams asked how do we expect to have people abide by this. Jana Cook answered the hosting platforms would be prohibited from posting their listing if they do not have a valid permit. She explained the intent is also to keep the costs of the permit negative and a cost summary which will go to Council with the resolution for the fees. It will cost us approx. $250 to do the inspection and permitting because we will be using one of the enforcement platforms and there is costs to that. We will recoup most of that costs while still keeping it down at approx. $150 range. Within just a few nights, hosts will be able to recoup their costs for the permit. It allows us to go in and do those inspections to make sure the area offered for rent is safe for occupancy. Nick Ghirelli, City Attorney mentioned he is not saying the hosting platforms that do this are happy to. It took some litigation involving the City of Santa Monica to determine a City could hold a hosting platform liable for non -complying with the basic requirements the ordinance sets out for making sure they verify the host they are advertising on their platform has actually registered with the City, but we can do that. Anne McIntosh, Planning Director, stated most homeowners want to comply. By providing a permitting system that actually provides people some relief, they will know then it's okay to do it. Jana Cook stated we really want to accommodate our residents who are just doing this for some extra income. We want to accommodate those residents for not negatively impacting their neighbors, but we also have some where they don't live there, and they don't care. We actually had to red tag a house for hazardous patio in the back. It was not safe to stay there. Those are the folks we want to stop what they are doing. Anne McIntosh, stated its counter intuitive but by regulating and allowing certain people to do something, it is easier to catch the people that are not complying. Commissioner Williams mentioned she is a great fan of Airbnb and uses it quite a bit. She really has not given it much thought before but these hosting platforms to the tourists who are looking knowing the house has been inspected and it's determined to be safe is a great comfort. Commissioner Morales asked will the permit renewal process be handled by the City like the other licensing and permit processing are handled. Jana Cook answered yes, those platforms from compliance have a component in their service. The host will go into the City's website click on "want a permit", and it will actually take them over to the other website. They gather all that information for the city and keep a record of it because the 24-hours service because if the neighbors have a complaint, they can call the 800 number and there is a 24-hour response they can get HPC/PC Meeting Minutes — June 10, 2020 Page 2 of 5 MEETING MINUTES JUNE 109 2020 ahold of an emergency personnel. Business licensing staff will typically handle it, but it will be mostly automated. It will be Community Improvement staff that does the inspection. Chairman Guglielmo asked what enforcement is existing now with the City. Jana Cook answered when there are reports on complaints only, we respond. There are 320 homes operating this and we probably have 10 on our list right now. There are 290 locations that are not offering us any issues. We don't actively go out and look for these at this time, but if there is an issue, we go out and address it at that time but it is very, very hard to prove because they will just change the listing to 30 days and then they are in compliance. There is a lot of game playing. Right now, enforcement is very difficult. Our biggest problem are those vacant properties. Owner does not live there; he is just making money on these. Chairman Guglielmo asked about the rules for this municipal code, did this come from a model of another city, are there other cities in California doing things along these lines. Jana Cook answered that we looked at the problems we are having and addressed those. We looked at a few others and brought in many of their items they had already been successful with. Chairman Guglielmo opened public hearing and after hearing no one, closed the public hearing. Commissioner Oaxaca commented that staff put forth a sensible and reasonable draft ordinance. It answered his question on what problems we are trying to solve, and staff did a great job identifying what those problems are. Fortunately, our beautiful city is not exactly the hot bed for Airbnb listings but it's still an issue and surprised to see there are over 300 listings across the city. He shared the same concerns about the impacts on our community and the absentee landlords and he also did a quick look through the listing on Airbnb earlier today to get a sense and the most that stood out are the listing for entire houses that would accommodate 10-12 guests and those houses only had 3 bedrooms in general and wondered where everyone is sleeping. Those are the kind of things we do need a way to track to insure we are avoiding those issues where we have landlords that don't live in the residents. Forget the fact they cram as many people as they can into their residents, which can also create safety hazards not only for those who occupy the residents but for neighbors as well. He is in support of the proposed ordinance. Commissioner Dopp concurred with Vice Chair Oaxaca and he was surprised to see what is going on out in the Airbnb world. It is clear with technological change we have to change our rules and regulations too. He is a big fan to let property owners have some freedom to do things with their property but it's clear some of the intention with some of these property owners are incompatible with what we want out of neighborhoods, ownership and quality community. When he was looking at the accessory dwelling units, he would like to see, maybe in the future, some sort of recourse where property owners buy a property and there is an accessory dwelling unit attached, but maybe HPC/PC Meeting Minutes — June 10, 2020 Page 3 of 5 PRESERVATION COMMISSION AND PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES JUNE 10, 2020 some recourse to allow them some sort of limited short-term rental, they end up adopting a property and want to do something with that. Otherwise they would not have the ability to do under the current regulation. His only minor concern. Commissioner Williams agrees with Commissioner Dopp in a way this is a work in progress and if we get started with it maybe in a year come back and look at it and see how it's going. The accessory units already there, she can see those being very useful income for someone looking for property. Staff did a great job sorting it at out. First steps first with moving ahead with this ordinance. Commissioner Morales agrees we need this ordinance. In his HOA at his residence they have a big problem with rentals having parties. It is almost impossible to track down. Control and regulate across the whole city, is a good solution. The most important thing is this will control and regulate the problem out there and also bring in transient occupancy tax that is due to the city to help reimburse our cost. It's a good ordinance. Chairman Guglielmo echoes it was a great report and stated he was surprised to see 10 occupants with three bedrooms. It comes down to we will have some people that are operating this as a business that might be upset but every hotel will operate under a certain set of rules. Staff did a good job exposing some of those loopholes people operate under. At least it gives the city some more oversite on that to maintain good neighborhoods and positive outlook. Motion by Commissioner Williams, second by Commissioner Dopp to adopt Resolution No. 20-28. Motion carried unanimously, 5-0 vote. E. General Business Ell. Mike Smith, Principal Planner mentioned to the Commissioners he will be sending out reminders to them for training to be completed on Cybersecurity. He also shared will be going through the process of selecting new appointments for Trails Advisory Committee, which begins on Monday, June 151h and ending June 30, 2020. We will be accepting applications during this time period. It will be advertised to the public on Monday as well. Anne McIntosh reminded Commissioners about the joint Planning Commission/ City Council Workshop, which is part of our General Plan series, scheduled for next Wednesday, June 171h @ 3:00pm. More information and a packet to come from the City Clerk's Office. Commissioner Dopp inquired about the virtual event at the end of the month for the General Plan and asked if that would be something the Commissioners should be a part of. HPC/PC Meeting Minutes — June 10, 2020 Page 4 of 5 MEETING MINUTES JUNE 10, 2020 Anne McIntosh replied that this is the Future Forum and will occur on June 291", 30t" and July 1st, we are still working on the schedule. This is more of a general public event. There will be a link on the City's website. More information will be provided as well. No need to RSVP. It's a three-day period of some presentations and small group discussions. F. Director Announcements - None G. Commission Announcements - None H. Workshops — None Adjournment Motion by Vice Chair Oaxaca, second by Commissioner Morales, to adjourn the meeting, motion carried unanimously, 5-0 vote. Meeting was adjourned at 8:00pm. Respectfully submitted, izabeth Thornhill Executive Assistant, Planning Department Approved: June 24, 2020 — Regular Meeting HPC/PC Meeting Minutes — June 10, 2020 Page 5 of 5