The La Jolla Town Council pledged this week to make short-term rentals and housing conversion a major topic in the coming year after it was briefed on the burgeoning issue of entire apartment complexes — including at least two in La Jolla — being converted to STRs.
During the Town Council’s Aug. 8 meeting, Jay Goldberg, founder of San Diego community organization NiceNeighbors, said many large companies have been obtaining multiple permits for short-term rentals (defined as fewer than 30 days) from the city of San Diego and “converting apartment buildings, many of which are naturally affordable units, into short-term rentals. … They are actually kicking paying tenants out and converting them to hotels.”
Goldberg, a resident of San Diego’s Hillcrest neighborhood, said buildings on Rosemont and Gravilla streets in La Jolla have been converted entirely to short-term rentals and that a building on Prospect Street has been partially converted.
He said NiceNeighbors has been tracking “over 200 buildings [citywide] that have been completely converted to [STRs] where tenants were asked to leave in some way.”
San Diego’s short-term rental ordinance, approved by the City Council in 2021, includes a requirement that such rentals be licensed. The regulations, which went into effect in May 2023, allow one license per person, and a cap limits the short-term rental of entire homes available for more than 20 days in a year to no more than 1 percent of the city’s housing stock (not including Mission Beach, which has a cap of 30 percent).
Since May last year, a total of 5,871 two-year licenses — at a cost of $1,000 each — had been issued for whole-home rentals throughout the city as of early this month, according to the city’s STR web page.
But critics say a loophole in the ordinance has allowed owners of STRs to secure multiple licenses through proxy hosts.
Goldberg told the City Council’s Community and Neighborhood Services Committee last month that “owners with five licenses or more currently hold 30 percent of the full-time licenses in San Diego.”
NiceNeighbors says on its website that just 30 percent of STR operators in San Diego have only a single listing on the Airbnb.com platform.
Goldberg said his intent is not to ban short-term rentals but to “achieve the intent of the ordinance” by eliminating “this … problem that is causing entire buildings to be converted from residential apartments to [short-term rentals].”
“We recommended that no more than 25 percent of any one building be available for short-term rental permits, or two units, whichever is greater,” he said.
Representatives of City Councilwoman Jennifer Campbell — whose office authored the STR ordinance — did not immediately respond to the La Jolla Light’s request for comment.
But Campbell and other City Council members didn’t seem to see a need for big changes in the regulations when the Community and Neighborhood Services Committee met July 25.
“Our short-term vacation rental ordinance has proven actually to be a success and it’s been copied by other cities across the nation,” Campbell said at the time. “The ordinance, which requires permits, has reduced neighborhood disruption [and] preserved housing availability.”
She acknowledged public comments “regarding what’s working and what’s not, and our offices will work closely with the appropriate departments to address many of these issues.” She did not address specifics.
La Jolla Town Council Vice President Peter Wulff said “this is one of the issues we are working on” and said the Town Council would vote on whether to endorse Goldberg’s proposal at its next meeting and would continue to discuss the issue.
Other Town Council news
New board member: Looking to fill an empty seat on the Town Council board, La Jolla Community Planning Association trustee and Realtor Steven Yang was accepted at the Aug. 8 meeting and will be sworn in next month.
“I feel like I have a lot to bring to the table,” Yang said. “I have lived here pretty much my whole life. There is a lot going on in La Jolla that I love to be a voice of and [is] part of my role on the LJCPA, and I hope to keep doing that … on this council.”
He said there “is a lot going on at the beaches … that I would like to fight for. I have seen [and experienced] multiple times where [sea lions] are attacking children and adults. We should be able to regulate that more strictly.”
Next meeting: The La Jolla Town Council next meets at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, at the La Jolla Recreation Center, 615 Prospect St. Learn more at lajollatowncouncil.org. ♦
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