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Home My Public Portal AboutPublic Comment Mone Haen Darrah Johnston From: Town of Truckee, CA <webmaster@townoftruckee.com> Sent: Monday, September 7, 2020 2:28 PM To: Truckee; Hilary Hobbs Subject: *NEW SUBMISSION* Public Comment Form for Short-Term Vacation Rental Ordinance and Permit Program Public Comment Form for Short-Term Vacation Rental Ordinance and Permit Program Submission#: 528457 IP Address: 75.111.66.125 Submission Date: 09/07/2020 2:28 Survey Time: 1 minute,45 seconds You have a new online form submission. Note: all answers displaying"*****" are marked as sensitive and must be viewed after your login. Name Mone Haen Email monehaen@gmail.com Phone (optional) Public Comment Please see the attached PDF in regards to STIR Ordinance and Permit Program. Thank you. lf your comment exceeds 2000 characters, please use the attachment function below to attach your comment in a separate document. Attachment MKHPublic Comment 09082020.pdf Please ensure that you enter your email address in the box below and click the SUBMIT button to receive a copy of your submitted responses for Public Comment. Thank you, Town of Truckee This is an automated message generated by the Vision Content Management SystemTM.Please do not reply directly to this email. 1 Truckee Town Council, First, I want to be abundantly clear in that this commentary it not meant to be a criticism of Town of Truckee staff. Town staff, much like other entities such as the US Forest Service, local fire districts and Truckee PD, are stretched beyond capacity now;with little support from governing bodies. With that context in mind,the over-arching issue of over-tourism needs both immediate and long-term attention, inclusive of short-term rental regulation.While short-term rental regulation is a step in the right direction, it is not the end all be all to the large and complex problem. The Push for Tourism: Our elected officials spend millions each year to bring tourists to the Truckee Tahoe region which result in associated revenues approximately$1billion annually. Unfortunately, a corresponding budget that provides our communities to safely manage and cleanup after these tourists is lacking. Truckee itself requires all short-term rentals to pay 2%toward the Truckee Tourism Improvement Business District(or TTIBD)."This benefit assessment district helps fund marketing and sales promotion efforts to improve tourism with the specific benefit of generating additional room night sales." Based on the TOT collections depicted in the graph on page two of this report,that equates to a range of$573,000 in fiscal year 16/17 to$719,000 for fiscal year 18/19. Eastern Placer County's spending on promoting tourism is far larger than Truckee's as it brings in over five times what Truckee does in TOT tax. Placer County recently approved a contract for$4.1 million to the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association whose primary job is to promote tourism. These spending numbers to promote tourism do not include spending by the Eastern Nevada County Tourism Board, Eastern El Dorado County tourism board and the City of South Lake Tahoe who also combine to spend several million in promoting tourism in the region. As we all know,Visit Truckee has branded our town as the"Base Camp for a Big Life".We are very much a base camp as well as a gateway to the Tahoe Basin,Squaw, Northstar etc.What the various North Tahoe chamber and visitors' bureaus do,does indeed affect Truckee and vice versa -not to mention the independent marketing efforts of KSL and Vail Resorts.While the Town of Truckee has no direct authority over what happens outside of its jurisdictional boundaries,it's entirely fair to include commentary surrounding their marketing budgets and would be naive to think what happens to the south of Truckee doesn't impact Truckee. The Community Burden: The underlying problem is that Visit Truckee and Town Council(enabling through lack of governing& restrictions)are attracting unsustainable levels of tourism without addressing the burden that it puts on the community. Nevada& Placer Counties are not allocating the financial resources sufficient for the Town to allocate human resources to address the impact. Whether it be trash and litter clean up,graffiti removal, or even policing,Truckee residents are asked to volunteer their time to put in the work that should be done by paid Town resources.We've all seen the calls for volunteers from the Truckee Litter Corps in addition to the everyday efforts of residents to pick up the trash we see on trails, beaches, lake beds and in our neighborhoods.Without the community volunteer efforts of residents,Truckee would not be able to maintain the area with current funding and staffing levels. By way of example,the following direct quote from Truckee Police Captain Billingsley acknowledges this shortfall: "We have approximately 160 miles of roadway in our 34 square miles. On average, we have 2 to 3 people working that are dedicated to patrol and traffic issues. That some staffing level handles between 14,000 and 16,000 calls 1 for service each year in addition to the proactive duties,such as litter complaints. In this current year, we are actually experiencing call volume that is 30-40°o higher than a normal summer. We have been averaging over 100 calls a day on busy weekend days. None of those justifications should be interpreted as we are too busy or too understaffed to do additional work when there is viable investigative information for us to work with. Please keep in mind that the complaints need to be within our jurisdictional boundaries." The Data: The graph below was created from Town of Truckee TOT collection data for fiscal years 16/17 through 19/20 and then interpolates what 19/20 could have looked like without the impacts of lodging limitations put in place for 24%,or 86 days of the fiscal year 19/20 due to COVID. It is important to note that fiscal year 19/20 saw an increase of 10.2%over 17/18 and 11.8%over 16/17 in spite of the aforementioned lodging limitations. Furthermore,fiscal year 18/19 saw a nearly 24%increase over the prior year.Without COVID, it is estimated that we could have seen a 26%increase in 19/20 results over 16/17 or an additional 2%over 18/19. Town of Truckee TOT Revenue by Fiscal Year (Fiscal year runsJuly 1-June 30) 5,000,000 4,500,000 4,315,553 4,401,345 4,000,000 3,848,799 3,442,250 3,494,214 3,500,000 3,000,000 2,500,000 2,000,000 1,500,000 1,000,000 500,000 16/17 17/18 18/19 19/20 19/20-mod* Notes: 1)March 19,2020-CA issues Stay at Home Order 2)March 24,2020-Limitations on Hotels and STRs take effect 3)June 12,2020 STIR&Lodging order rescinded by Nevada county Public Officer 4)19/20 Fiscal Year TOT revenues were 10.2%higher than FY 17/18 and 11.8%higher than FY 16/17,and was down only 10.8% compared to 18/19 in spite of restrictions in place for 86 days,or 24%of the year. *Assumes Q1&Q2 19/20 results combined w/Q3&Q4 18/19 results to estimate a non-COVID TOT equivalent which would have resulted in a 2%increase over FY 18/19 or 26%increase over 17/18 FY With all of that said,Truckee is trending toward a record-setting Summer(July1-September 30)from a tourism perspective. The following graph shows data from AirDNA—a site that aggregates information from Airbnb and VRBO. Note the trending of the 2020 data as compared to prior years.While March and April 2020 were predictably lower that 2019,they were still higher than 2018 which is in line with the Town of Truckee TOT data. 2 It is also worth noting the dramatic increases in June and July and supports what residents have expressed concern over in terms of visitor traffic witnessed since restrictions were lifted on June 121h1 2020. It will certainly be interesting to see August&September results when they are available, but in the meantime,we can certainly assess the 2017-2019 data which clearly shows a dramatic increase in visitor traffic—also in line with Town of Truckee TOT data. Nights Booked-Truckee Source-AirDNA(August 2020 not yet available,data prior to Aug 2017,not available) 40,000 34,938 35,000 30,5 30,628 30,000 28,532 26,899 26,673 25,3 25,000 23,5 23,576 22,367 22,761 23%3 46 20,147 20,000 17,700 18,676 17,120 15,982 15,9 15,655 15,296 15,000 12,499 13,718 13,157 10,2H'118 10,2 11,412 11,662 9,435 10,000 7,299 y 5,000 January February March April May June July August Sept Oct Nov 2017 m 2018 2019 ■2020 Lastly,we have the Town of Truckee's own data which reflects the pacing of a record setting summer. During the July 23,2020 Town Council Meeting,Town staff quoted an increase in occupancy of roughly 10-15%which is based on an internal Town model exclusive of TOT data. It is important to note,that this data does not encompass visitors who make day trips to the area,visitors who stay in campgrounds, dispersed campers or second homeowners—all who have a material impact as well.Summer 2020 has had a particularly dramatic increase in occupancy at local campgrounds-a 200-400%compared to 2019. The Town Council's Role: While the current, proposed Short Term Rental Regulations are a step in the right direction,they do not go far enough. Please do not mistake this statement to be opposition to such,just understand that what is being proposed is merely a start to addressing a more complex issue. Over and above the proposed STIR regulations and in the short-term,Town Council should explore emergency and temporary options to address the unprecedented dangers we all currently face because of over-tourism. This needs to be done to address the current threats of COVID and unprecedented fire danger as well as to provide for a blueprint for future potential situations. In the long-term,either Town Council needs to take a stand with Nevada&Placer Counties to keep more funding up the hill,or to take measures to return tourism to a level of sustainability. In conclusion, it is prudent to allow for a growth in tourism only to the extent that supporting services and infrastructure can keep pace with the demands of such. 3 Sources: https://www.placer.ca.gov/6682/Economic-investment-in-North-Lake-Tahoe https://www.mountainhousingcounciI.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/mhcstrwhitepaper final.pdf https://www.theunion.com/news/business/working-together-to-attract-more-visitors-to-nevada-county/ https://www.townoftruckee.com/government/administrative-services/transient-occupancy-tax-tot-short-term-rental-compliance/tot-revenue https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/05/its-a-race-to-get-out-there-stir-crazy-californians-are-overwhelming-campsites https://www.townoftruckee.com/government/administrative-services/transient-occupancy-tax-tot-short-term-rental-compliance 4