Short-Term Rental Meetings Open to Public
Next Workshop on County Vacation Rental Ordinance Will be Held Thursday
The county’s Long Range planners are looking for community input on what to do about controversial vacation rental housing, or “short-term rentals” as the county terms them. An ordinance is in the works, and the planners have been examining noise, parking, and traffic issues, as well as the effects on tourism, income, and revenue. But they’d like to hear the public’s take on these matters. Short-term rentals are legal in the county, as long as they are in legal dwellings, planner Jessica Wagner said, and a transient occupancy tax is collected on a voluntary basis.
About 60-70 people attended the first meeting in Buellton on July 16, said Wagner, and the 15 who spoke were fairly evenly divided between those who found short-term rentals useful and those who found them a nuisance. The next workshop occurs on Thursday, July 30, at 6 p.m., in Westmont College’s Page Hall Multipurpose Room, 955 La Paz Road.
The ensuing ordinance will make its way through the planning commissions with the goal of reaching the Board of Supervisors by November. Comments can be emailed to short-termrentals@countyofsb.org or called in to Wagner at (805) 568-3532.
More information is available at Long Range Planning’s website.
