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Home My Public Portal AboutPublic Comment Damon Cianci Darrah Johnston From: Town of Truckee, CA <webmaster@townoftruckee.com> Sent: Monday, September 7, 2020 3:54 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#: 528544 IP Address: 184.170.182.151 Submission Date: 09/07/2020 3:54 Survey Time: 52 seconds You have a new online form submission. Note: all answers displaying"*****" are marked as sensitive and must be viewed after your login. Name Damon Cianci Email dcianci179@gmail.com Phone (optional) Public Comment See attached. lf your comment exceeds 2000 characters, please use the attachment function below to attach your comment in a separate document. Attachment Comments on Town of Truckee Short Term Rentals Draft Ordinance.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 Comments on Town of Truckee Short Term Rentals Draft Ordinance General Comments: 1) Any new regulations should apply equally to everyone in Truckee The Draft Ordinance proports to address nuisance issues in Truckee such as noise, parking, overflowing trash, and fire safety. It assumes that these are issues are specific to Short Term Rentals (STRs) without providing any evidence that this is the case. In reality, the specific issues listed, and most nuisances of this kind, are often worse for houses used as ski leases, vacation homes, or even long-term rentals. Any rules that the Town of Truckee adopts for "nuisance behavior" should apply equally to everyone in Truckee, not just STR's. For many of these issues, such as parking and trash, there are already regulations in place and the Town of Truckee should begin by strictly enforcing these regulations. For noise and fire safety, any new regulations should apply to all residents and visitors equally. 2) Year-round residents who rent their home as an STR on an occasional basis or rent a portion of their home as an STR should be exempt from new regulations for STRs The Draft Ordinance and the proposed regulations do not distinguish Truckee residents renting out their primary residence as an STR on an occasional basis, from vacation homeowners who rent their property as an STR for the majority of the year, from investors who never occupy the property and only rent as STRs. This is unfairly impacts locals who rent their primary home as an STR on an occasional basis. Truckee is an expensive place to live, and getting more expensive. We occasionally rent our home as an STR when we go on vacation to help afford the high cost of living. (We have rented approx. 12 days thus far in 2020, mostly for 3 days at a time.) The rest of the time we live in our house as our primary residence. Under the Draft Ordinance, our home would be subject to all the same restrictive measures and additional costs as someone who rents to a different group every week of the year (the investor class and non- permanent residents). There are also Truckee locals who rent out a guest room in their home or a mother-in-law unit as an STIR to help pay the rent or mortgage, but wouldn't rent the space as a long term rental because they want space for friends and family to come visit. Many of the new proposed regulations do not make sense to apply to people's year-round homes. For example, most of our STIR stays have been from Fri-Mon. Our trash day is Thursday, so we tell our guests to leave the trash in the house and we will take care of it. Someone who rents a room in their house is there to oversee trash all the time. Why should we/they be required to install a bear box or have trash service for 2 cans per week all year round (5.02.040.E)? These requirements add unnecessary expenses for year-round residents who can oversee trash on a regular basis, unlike vacation homeowners and investors who are not around to provide the same oversight. Also, the above STIR examples would often produce much less trash than many homes rented as ski leases who often have numbers of 4-5 people per bedroom and who would not be subject to the same requirements. The draft regulations would also require us to: 1) get rid of our firepit, which we do not use in the summer and strictly enforce the same requirements on our guests (5.02.050.C); 2) not allow us to have a grill on the upper deck outside our kitchen, because the deck is only 8 ft wide so the grill cannot be 10 ft from the house (5.02.050.D); and 3) not allow us to get married at our own home (5.02.050.F). It seems excessive and unnecessary to place arbitrary requirements on our home that prevent us from having a grill on the deck outside our kitchen, prevent us from having a campfire during times when it is legal to do so, and prevent us from getting married or hosting a family member's wedding at our home simply because it is rented as an STIR a few weekends a year. New regulations for nuisances should apply equally to homes including ski leases, long term rentals, vacation homes, year-round residents, and short term rentals. However, if any new regulations are adopted exclusively for STRs, then there should be exemptions for those of us who live in Truckee year-round and rent our homes on an occasional basis as STRs (e.g. less than 90 days a year), or rent a portion of our homes as an STIR while living in the other part of the home. These nuisance issues can easily be addressed without placing additional requirements and expenses on local residents who are using AirBnB as it was originally intended — renting your home on an occasional basis or renting extra space in your home that is not available year- round in order to help pay the mortgage or the rent. (Many other cities in CA have different requirements for primary residences that are rented as STRs less than 90 days a year, e.g. Berkeley, SF, Oakland.) 3. If Truckee does adopt an ordinance specific to STRs, it should make the following changes: A. 5.02.030 • C: Fees should be waived or reduced for local residents renting out their primary residence on an occasional basis (e.g. less than 90 days per year). • C.S: Maximum Occupancy—this requirement should be eliminated o We have a 3200 sf house on an acre lot that according to public records has 3 bedrooms. A 3 bdrm 1100 sf house on a 0.2 acre lot (not uncommon in Truckee) would have the same maximum occupancy requirement. This makes no sense. We can comfortably host 12-14 people in our house and have the space to park the cars that would bring these occupants, unlike a smaller residence on a smaller lot. o Ski leases, which often have 14 or more people renting a 3 bdrm house, do not have maximum occupancies. To enforce this regulation on STRs but not ski leases is unfair and will not accomplish the goal of minimizing impact on neighbors. o As an example, if 6 guests throw a party, and come in separate cars, they will produce a lot more trash, noise, and parking issues than 3 families of 4 (12 guests) who come in 3 cars, eat out at local restaurants, and go to sleep at 9pm. o The nuisance issues (e.g. trash, noise, parking) should be regulated and enforced. It is not necessarily the number of people in a rental that cause these issues, therefore this is not the piece that should be regulated. o If there is a maximum occupancy requirement, it should not be based on number of bedrooms, but on the square footage of the house and/or the lot size. B. 5.02.040.6. Local Contact Person —this requirement should be eliminated • It is not clear what problem this section is attempting to address • Ski leases and long term rentals do not have this requirement. • Similar to ski leases and long term rentals, if there is a maintenance issue, the owner can call a professional without being there in person. If there is a noise issue, the renters themselves should be cited and fined for a violation. C. 5.02.040.0—the phrase "in an unpaved parking area" should be eliminated • If there is a dirt area that a homeowner uses for parking, why should STRs not be able to use this area? • Ski leases and long term rentals do not have this requirement, why should STRs alone have this requirement? • Unpaved parking areas on a homeowner's property should not have restricted use. • It's unclear what issue this requirement is trying to solve. Cars parked too close to neighboring houses? If so, the requirement should address that issue specifically. D. 5.02.040.E — service level of two trash cans and bear box requirement should not apply to STRs in a primary residence • Unnecessary expense when there is sufficient oversight • Enforce existing trash regulations instead • See above E. 5.02.050.13 Incidental Camping—this requirement should be eliminated • We sometimes have kids camp in our yard or friends sleep in a camper van in our driveway. Our neighbors will not be able to distinguish between our friends doing this, or STIR guests. Will the Town of Truckee come out each time that our neighbors call to say someone is sleeping in a camper van in our driveway to make sure that we are home and not renting this as an STIR? How would you enforce this for STRs but not for residents? Sounds expensive and unnecessary. • It's unclear what issue this requirement is trying to solve. Too many people? Regulate the trash and noise instead of number of people. F. 5.02.050.0 Outdoor Fireplaces—this requirement should be eliminated • Existing regulations regarding campfires during high fire danger should be enforced equally upon all residences. • We shouldn't be required to demolish our firepit that we use responsibly and legally just because we rent our house as an STR a few weekends a year. G. 5.02.050.D Grills and BBQs: "All grills and BBQs shall be no less than 10 ft away from astructure" —this requirement should be eliminated • If a gas or propane grill next to a house is permitted for ski leases, long term rentals, and residents, why should STRs be any different? • Our kitchen is upstairs. The deck off the kitchen is 8 ft wide. We shouldn't have to sacrifice grilling on the deck year-round just because we rent our house as an STR a few weekends a year. H. 5.02.050.E —this requirement should be eliminated • The way this requirement is currently written, if I rent my home as an STR one weekend a year and live in it the rest of the year, I would not be allowed to get married at my own home. • Not all properties rented as STRs have the same amount of land. An STR on 5 acres could have a special event and the neighbors may never know, while an STR on 0.1 acres could have a party with just a few guests and create more of a nuisance. • What issues is this trying to solve? If the issue is noise, that is what should be regulated. Parking, same. I. 5.02.050.G: 2 night minimum - this requirement should be eliminated • If someone wants to rent their place one night a week or one night a month, why is that less desireable than someone who rents to 3 groups every 6 days? • If the issue is the number of groups per week or per month, that is what should be regulated, not the number of nights. J. 5.02.060.6.3: "...or is under investigation for" —this should be eliminated • If a neighbor makes a false accusation, while the accusation is being investigated the Town can revoke the registration certificate. This could serve to encourage false accusations, wasting the Town's time and creating additional tensions between neighbors. • As with US Law, STR owners should be innocent until proven guilty. K. 9.20.020 Loud and unreasonable noise • This section does not create any objective standard for what levels of noise are prohibited. • The entire section is subjective, allowing for wide discrepancies in enforcement. • Subjectivity in regulations tends to benefit privileged classes and harm minorities. • Law enforcement would likely prefer to have more specific terms to enforce. • The Ordinance should provide unacceptable decibel levels and/or unacceptable exceedance of ambient decibel levels for various circumstances. For example, maximum decibel levels/maximum exceedance of ambient decibel levels for intermittent noise vs. sustained noise, day vs. night, etc.