Vacation Rental Conversion Denied
For the third time in four weeks, the City Council denied a property owner permission to convert a residence into a short-term vacation rental. In all three instances, the owners had appealed previous denials by the city’s design review boards, only to have the decisions upheld by the council, which cited Santa Barbara’s chronic lack of rental housing. In all three cases, the vote was 5-2, with councilmembers Randy Rowse and Frank Hotchkiss dissenting. On Tuesday, the property up for debate was a single-family home at 2017 Bath Street.