Increased fines coming to Calistoga’s illegal short-term rentals
The city council is moving forward with plans to crack down on short-term rentals, which are prohibited in Calistoga.
During Tuesday’s meeting, council directed city staff to amend the language within its municipal code to clearly define short-term rentals, to create clear and enforceable penalties for violators and to protect neighborhoods from the ongoing impacts of illegal rental activity.
The new guidelines will prohibit hosting platforms like Airbnb and VRBO from listing unpermitted short-term rentals within city limits, would require new short-term rentals be assigned identification codes to register properties on such vacation rental sites, and those platforms would need to report rentals actively listed on their sites to the city.
“These people are not playing by the rules and it’s really, really not fair,” Councilmember Lisa Gift said of the violators. Implementing these new parameters, she said, will help to support the local lodging businesses that are permitted to operate in town and are paying their fair shares of the hotel bed tax (TOT).
The rental of any homes and rooms in Calistoga’s residential zoning districts for fewer than 30 days has long been banned. In 2010, the city, whose planning department was monitoring more than a dozen illegal vacation rentals at the time, partnered with the District Attorney’s office to carry out sting operations and shut down violators. In recent years, though, short-term rental activity has resurged, and city officials said they have become aware of a number of illegal rentals currently operating in town.
Gift said that during a League of California Cities conference in October, she spoke with representatives from two compliance software companies that flagged more than 20 short-term rentals operating in Calistoga. Just this week, Planning and Building Director Greg Desmond said he found five or six violators in as many minutes spent on a host site, adding that he thinks the real number is “quite a bit higher.”
Depending on whether the city contracts with a software company and has city staff enforce violations, or hires a full-service compliance firm, the estimated cost could be between $15,000 and $25,000 annually, along with additional hours of staff time needed.
“I think it’s important to note, too, that either option that we decide to go with, it wouldn’t be a long-term need,” said Deputy City Manager Rachel Stepp. “Because once we start enforcement and we start compliance and we assess fines, a lot of these properties will naturally start going away and not listing on the sites.”
City staff said in February that the current fines listed in the municipal code were inadequately low at $50 for a first violation and $100 for a second. This week, the council spoke in favor of establishing the state’s maximum allowable fines to violators, which could offset operational costs for enforcement. According to state law, SB 60, infractions are punishable by up to $1,500 for a first violation, $3,000 for a second violation and $5,000 for additional violations in the same year.
“I want to make sure that everybody understands this is not strictly an economic issue,” said Councilmember Kevin Eisenberg. “This is also a housing stock issue, which is very important. That’s part of the reason, if we broke even, we’d be ahead, because we would be able to put short-term rentals back into our housing stock for our residents.”
A formal ordinance, Stepp said, will be brought to the council before the end of the year.
