Del Mar City Council members discussed a provision of the city’s draft short-term rental ordinance that would clarify the precise length of a monthly rental that would be exempt from proposed STR regulations.

“We all want to exempt rentals on a monthly basis from TOT, I think we’re all in agreement on that,” Del Mar Mayor Dave Druker said. “We’re going to have another bite at the apple on Sept. 9.”

The draft ordinance was designed more to regulate rentals that last a few days or so, but there were also questions from the community about whether renting their property to a visitor for a month or more would subject them to transient occupancy tax, permits and other STR rules.

Earlier in August, the city’s Planning Commission voted 4-0 to recommend the draft ordinance, including that it exclude monthly rentals.

City staff’s proposed definition of a monthly rental, or “long-term rental,” is a rental that lasts more than 30 consecutive calendar days. They have also said that their analysis of other cities that have short-term rental ordinances showed the common line between short-term and monthly rentals was 30 days or less.

Del Mar City Councilmember Dwight Worden said the precise language of a longer-term rental was a smaller piece of the process.

“Short-term rentals are two or three days, maybe a week, and we’re all hung up on some obscure, remote issue about somebody who might want to rent for a month, and what is a month,” Worden said.

Later this year, council members will vote on a comprehensive short-term rental ordinance. Short-term rentals in Del Mar are currently regulated by a forbearance policy, which allows renters to legally operate if they can document that they were renting before April 2016. That’s when the council approved a moratorium on STRs.

The draft short-term ordinance currently includes a 5% cap on STRs within the city, relative to the total number of housing units. It also grandfathers existing short-term rental operators who have been in business under the forbearance policy.

The city estimates that transient occupancy tax from short-term rental properties would generate an estimated $775,000 each year.

Since then, the process of developing a short-term rental ordinance in Del Mar has faced setbacks including lawsuits and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Before the council makes that decision, voters in Del Mar will also decide this November on Measure M, a ballot measure that would extend local transient occupancy tax policy to short-term rentals.