and the U2 stream has been started. Excellent. Thank you. Good morning, Council Member Fleming. If you would test your audio and visual, please. Oh, perfect. Thank you. Morning, Victoria. Good morning, folks. All right. It's nine o'clock. Let's go ahead and call our special economic development subcommittee meeting to order. We can call the roll. Mayor Rogers. Here. Council Member Sawyer. Here. Council Member Fleming. Here. Let the record reflect that all members of the subcommittee are present. Good. See if we have any public comments for non-agenda items. If you're interested, hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. I see no hands raised at this time. All right. Let's launch into our new business for the day. It's our short-term rental program update. Good. Take it away, Sherry. Good morning, Mayor Rogers, Council Member and committee members Fleming and Sawyer. We're here today to talk about short-term rentals, a topic you guys are very familiar with. And I will just wait for Eileen to go ahead and get the slides up. Just one moment. Great. Thank you, Eileen. Next slide, please. So I'm going to dive a little bit deeper into short-term rental permit applications to give you all a status of where we are at this point in time. So the data that I'm going to refer to is as of May 2nd, because that's when I had to have the packet ready, and that was in preparation for the meeting, as you all know, was continued from last week. So we've received a total of 255 short-term rental applications to date, and 196 of those have come in as non-hosted short-term rental uses. There have been several constituents that said they went ahead and applied as a non-hosted short-term rental, even though they anticipated possibly doing hosted. They wanted to save that opportunity for themselves in the future. So the first 194 permits in total of the 255 were submitted before December 3rd, which was the requirement for someone to retain their operator in good standing status, which we at the time defined as someone who had registered for TOT and BIA assessments prior to October 27th and had to apply by December 3rd for a short-term rental permit. So 54 have been received since December 4th. These were the new operators, and I can further break that down to let you know that eight short-term rental permit applications were received in December, five in January, five in February, 13 in March, 11 in April, and five so far in May. And interestingly, there was an article by AirDNA, which is the short-term rental data source type of thing that came out in February, where Santa Rosa was actually ranked as the 25th best market in the country to start a short-term rental operation. And that was ranked based on rental demand, revenue growth, and investability. We had the third highest revenue potential behind only Maui and Key West, Florida. They at that in the February article said that the average daily rate was $506 and therefore a short-term rental operator could anticipate making approximately $101,000 per year. And this is data, as I mentioned, collected by AirDNA. Next slide, please. Eileen, if we, thank you. Nope. We skipped one slide, that's okay, it doesn't matter. It was just a slide showing that there are 59 hosted short-term rental permits. And I'm hoping you see from this map and the prior map, which shows the location of where these short-term rental permit applications have come in from, have been submitted for, they're spread throughout the city. There's a higher majority of non-hosted in the east side, but that's changing as the east side becomes somewhat saturated and more applications are coming in. People are threading the needle to find those spaces and then also moving over to the west side of the city. Next slide, please. So of the 255 short-term rental permit applications, three have been denied. And those three were denied because of the over-concentration requirement, the 1,000-foot setback requirement that we adopted to provide some form of control over how many can be in a certain neighborhood and therefore hopefully city-wide. So three had to be denied for that reason. Nine were withdrawn, a couple of them were just errors when they originally submitted for a permit, they ended up doing it a second time or that type of thing. 87, again, the state is as of May 2nd, have been approved or issued and 156 are still in plan review. And I know that seems like a lot, it is a lot. And there are several factors that have played into that. Some of it is, we tried really hard to put up on the website how to make a compliant application, including examples of a floor plan and a site plan, information about where smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors needed to be placed, fire extinguishers, that type of thing. We still get a lot, a lot of applications that don't have the correct information listed. So we end up having to refer back to the applicant and ask for a revised floor plan site plan and that type of thing have to give them time to install these things that couldn't be just battery, they don't have to be electric. We're also getting applications from LLCs, even though it's clearly stated in the ordinance that a permit application will not be issued, a permit will not be issued to a business entity, including an LLC. So we have to go back to folks and say, okay, what's the issue here? Another issue is that some of these have been recently purchased. So that the owner information, which we have in our GIS system that's fed from the County's assessor's office is not reflective of the current owner. So we have to reach out to the applicant and request a grant deed to show, who is the proper ownership? And so there's been a lot of things, in terms of the applications themselves, not coming in as perfect as we would like to turn them around fast. And there have been some staffing issues. We have lost, I'm sure you've heard this story more than once. So I don't need to dive into it, but we've lost quite a few of our planners. One person reached out to me, as a matter of fact, and said, first my application was being reviewed by one planner, then it was referred to another one, then another one, and now your name's on it. So there have been staffing issues and that type of thing. But we are working through them to the best of our ability. We have recently hired a part-time planner who is dedicated to processing these, hoping to improve that relationship with folks that are frustrated that they haven't received their permit and also just work through them quickly. Next slide, please. So code enforcement, that's been another thing that we hear from constituents about quite a bit. So since the ordinance was adopted, there have been a total of 124 short-term rental rated related complaints. 122 violations have resulted from those original calls and 108 code enforcement cases have been open related to that. There are 78 active cases and 30 closed cases. There's probably some updated numbers there that I will defer to my excellent code counterparts who are on the call also. Jesse Oswald is here, Cassidy Anderson and Joseph Moody and they can address any questions you would have about that. Next slide, please. So code enforcement penalties, there have been 21st violations sent and these first violations include a cease and desist notice and a $500 penalty assessment. Three second violations have been sent and thus far no third violations have been sent. And again, I will defer to my code folks if you guys have questions and beyond this high level data. Next slide, please. So I also wanna do include the amount of TOT and BIA we have received through this program as a comparison from last year. And I think that's relevant because we're hoping to be able to use some of that as potential program cost recovery. The ordinance clarifies that all short-term rentals must register for TOT and BIA assessments. And in first quarter, 2022, which is the first full quarter since the ordinance adoption, as you can see, there's been a significant, a 197% increase in TOT and BIA received. And this was never intended to be a money-making ordinance. Ordinance, we really want it to work and therefore we're potentially looking at is there a way to leverage those funds to support the program, to put it back into the program to make it more efficient. Next slide, please. And so what we're here, one of the reasons we're here today is to give you a status update and to let you know that we still have stuff to learn. When we passed the urgency ordinance, we had hoped to come back to you guys around this time with more comprehensive amendments to that ordinance, based on whatever we learned. Do we need to change this? Do we need to change that? And because of staffing issues and just the complexity of the ordinance and implementation, we're learning every day and we don't feel ready to come back with significant amendments to address things that we haven't quite worked out yet. So we come to you today, there is an issue in that the original ordinance allows for a one-year permit and it does not provide a renewal process because as I just mentioned, we thought we would be back around now with more comprehensive amendments to the ordinance that would have included a renewal process. Well, here we are, we don't have that in place. So we're recommending that permits be extended to give us time to then come back with those amendments that will include a renewal process. The other option is that the permits die and we start over again at a later date. So the recommendation then if we follow that is that we come back to you guys in fall with what we've learned through the tourist season, how we've done staffing up hopefully in code enforcement and getting through the permits that are sitting in process at this time and see what do you guys think? What should we look at? What are your recommendations? What are our recommendations? And then once we kind of mesh that together, then we start the broader community engagement strategy to see what the constituents are thinking and feeling come draft a comprehensive set of, if it is comprehensive draft some ordinance amendments that we decide are relevant and go to planning commission for their review and your review by the end of spring next year. And that's pretty much what I came here to express to you guys, we're obviously here. We have a very deep bench, Claire Hartman is here as assistant city attorney, Ashley Kroger is here. I mentioned our code staff, Alan Alton from finances here, Raisa is obviously here and Paul Lowenthal who I didn't even expect to be here. It looks like he's on the call as well as Jessica Jones and Amy Lyle from planning. So that is my presentation, but like I said, here we are. All right, thank you. Council members who wants to start with questions. All right, we'll go with Victoria and then we'll come to John. I'm sure we'll go back before they got a number of questions. One of the things I'm wondering, and I hear a lot from constituents as concerns about these uses being permitted in HOAs, is that something that the city is using as a filter by which to exclude permits? So I can give a high level answer to that and may have to defer to Ashley Kroger. And I apologize, my voice has been fine and now all of a sudden it isn't. So that was a question early on in whether it would be appropriate for the city to request some type of HOA approval. And what we've been told and the legal standing is that the city has no obligation or authority even to enforce HOACNRs which are governing bodies, governing documents approved by and specific to an HOA. HOA boards are who enforce CCNRs because we don't control what's in a CCNR. Somebody could say you can't have dogs or your house can't be painted a certain color.  And I wouldn't expect that you would. What I'm asking, let me be even more specific, are you choosing to withhold permits for these uses in HOAs that specifically prohibit these uses or are you just permitting them and saying you guys deal with it on your own? Well, because we can't enforce the CCNRs we did put information on the website saying check with your HOACNRs but we are not using that as a filter to deny or approve a permit. It's... Okay. Would it be difficult or impossible or cumbersome to say if you do live in an HOA you need to bring the contract just so that we're not doing something that's indirect contradiction to your HOA? I don't think it would be. Some of them are stay silent on it. Yeah. I don't think it would just be one more addition to add to the checklist of required documents. I'm gonna defer to Ashley though if she has anything to add on that. Good, she just unmuted. Thank you Sherry. And I completely agree with what you've said. I mean the CCNRs are private agreements and generally the HOAs have their own enforcement policies and practices. We are third party beneficiaries but we typically are just there in that role to enforce conditions of approval on projects. But as to your question council member as to whether or not we could require that in the ordinance we could require in the ordinance that we get a sign off perhaps from the HOA president. That's not something that we do typically it's not currently required in the ordinance but I don't see any problem if that was the direction that we could add that as a requirement. So basically as you said they'd have to show something from I would assume the HOA president saying we're okay with this and showing the CCNRs or bylaws that this is not a prohibited year as part of the checklist. Yeah, well it seems that getting a specific person to sign off might get political within the HOA but that at least bringing the HOA contract to show that it stays silent or at the very least doesn't prohibit it might be useful just so that we don't create additional problems. Not that it's honest to enforce but just that we wouldn't issue a permit if that was the case. I'll go on, let John go next and ask more questions as we go along. Can I ask a follow up to that? So council member Fleming were you suggesting that the planner then would review the entire CCNR contract to look for that language? That sounds like a whole lot right there but I'm just wondering like that they at the very least maybe on the application that the petitioner or the applicant could at least check a box that says my HOA does not explicitly prohibit this use or something along those lines. I'm just going to go real simple. What did you say? Before I let John jump in on it as well before we were moving in that direction I'd like to see a map of where we have HOAs in the city because my suspicion is just like the specific zoning requirements that we originally looked at in the ordinance I suspect that you end up running into an equity issue as well where the areas that have HOAs are the more well off areas of the city than the poorer areas of the city. So I'd be interested in seeing that. John. Thank you mayor. Thank you Victoria. First of all I wanted to speak to what you just brought up. I live in an HOA and there are state laws that restrict how restrictive the CCNRs of various HOAs can be. I'm of the understanding that the one that I respond to in where I live is that we were able to restrict to 30 days, a minimum kind of lease if you will of 30 days. Now that may, I'll defer to our legal team but what we have discovered is that planning has, they do have a notice, these with ours that says contact your HOA for additional information regarding the restrictions and that's about as far as it goes. So things may have changed but the state did weigh in on how restrictive HOAs can be and ours according to what I've learned was the most restricted we could be was you could make a minimum of 30 day rental which of course pretty much takes care of the concern about short-term rentals. But I'm just throwing that out there as a possibility and that's what we have learned in our experience with limiting the ability of having short-term rentals in my HOA, which is only 20 homes. It's a very small HOA but it's something to look into. What I was curious about on another note is when we have an active case with code enforcement does that pause the application? Essentially yes. So if the code enforcement violation is related to a short-term rental not having a permit so that having a permit issued and approved would solve that if you will or satisfy that code enforcement case that will continue along. We refer any planning when I say we refer any permit applications that have open code enforcement violations to code enforcement and building for their sign off before we would issue or approve or issue a permit. So they would have to give their sign off saying, yes, this code enforcement case has been satisfied. We will issue the permit. That said, for operators in good standing that have open code enforcement violations, we don't at this time, we haven't worked out an effective mechanism to, because of due process and I'm kind of rambling, so I apologize. Code enforcement cases, I'm not an expert on this and I'll probably defer to the code enforcement experts but when a code enforcement case is open, there is a fairly rigorous due process that is required. They're a 10 day notice of violation they have to respond to, but then, Jesse help me out.  That is something that could be suggested and we have concerned ways that we could amend the ordinance to tighten that up because we have found when we defined operator in good standing, we were hoping they would remain operators in good standing but some of them have become properties with several violations. Okay, I appreciate it and it speaks to the difficulty in coming up with what is considered fair and reasonable ordinance in this case. My assumption is that at the end of the day, no one is gonna be completely happy with what we come up with because of the necessity to compromise but I appreciate the difficulty that you face and that we all face in coming up with something that people feel is reasonably fair. So thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Sherry, do we have any data on one for the people who have a permitted vacation rental? How many each of those individuals have? If it's 196 non-hosted, I assume that it's not 196 operators. That is correct. I believe the most and Alan can probably maybe help me with this one, the most that any one person owns in the city is four. However, there are ways around that in that some people are having family members. So there are quite a few with the same last name and that type of thing. And the reason that number four becomes significant is after that point, someone has to register for a business tax certificate as well. So it's amazing how many nuances and questions we receive about things like that, but I haven't seen any with more than four with the same owner. However, there are companies such as Avance Day and Vacasa who assist people with purchasing vacation rentals and then help them run them. There are something like 15 Avance Day and I'm not sure how many Vacasa, but also those. And often I can't say a hundred percent, I don't have that data. Those are not local owners. All right, can we get some more data on that? Yeah. All right, that'd be helpful if that's circulated. So, Mayor Rogers, I apologize. Just to confirm, you would like to know how many people have, meaning owners of more than one and then the owner location for those run by Avance Day and Vacasa? Yeah, specifically my acceptance and tolerance of short-term rentals diminishes as somebody has more and more of them. If it's mom and pop trying to stay in the community and this helps them to afford their mortgage, then that's a lot different than this is essentially a hotel group that's operating across the city with units that they're skirting the rules around. So that's what I'm looking for specifically. And I'll let the other council members chime in, but that's what I'm specifically looking at. The other question that I had, and we heard some folks during public comment at the last meeting before we had to move the item, was folks saying that they've received violations without knowing that they've received violation? Can you walk me through how that would be possible? That's definitely a Jesse question. Okay. Good morning, Mayor Rogers, council member, committee members. Typically the most common reason that happens is the data that we rely on for addresses for ownership is from the county, I believe, the assessor's office that they record all transfers of property. And there are ups and downs in periods of the year that they are within say one to two months of getting that information updated. And then we've seen it as long as up to seven months or so before that information is updated. So that's the information we're relying upon. So I would suspect I'm just pontificating that due to such a high turnover of realty these days, they're probably backlogged more than we would normally see. So that's really where it lies is that data we're reliant on is a little bit tardy in getting to where we have access to it. Okay. Is there any way that we can help fix that? I've heard from a number of folks who are well-intentioned want to be in compliance that they didn't even realize they were out of compliance. I believe we can, our team can work on something in update. This is just an idea coming to me as we're speaking that part of our application materials or update materials could be that they provide us with their need. And especially we could highlight it in a bit of an explanatory way that indicates that if you've recently purchased the property, say within the last six months or so, it would speed things up to send the deed. And when we get that deed, we can update our system and reflect accurately the ownership that myself and Mr. Moody have done that a few times more recently, exact same scenario where an owner did not receive notifications because he had purchased it say four months ago. So pretty common, but I think we can find an upfront path to maybe help this. And so the ownership issue and notifications, I think we can find a way. Okay, great. And then Sherry, I heard you say that it's gonna be difficult for us to make major changes prior to any discussion about an extension, but we do hear pretty frequently about the differences. And I think that mostly they're accurate, the differences between the hosted and the non-hosted. And so I guess I'll just tip my hand a little bit before we go to public comment that I am interested in some changes around that because it does appear, and tell me if the data is saying otherwise, but it does appear that the non-hosted are the ones that we have the most issues with across the city, not the hosted ones. I would say that's absolutely true. There has been, I think you probably received in public comment, people have been writing in saying that realtors are telling people to go ahead and purchase a home and say it's going to be hosted and it won't be. It's going to end up being a non-hosted. You know, I don't know how we can be proactive about that. There also have been at least two instances, I know of where somebody was not able to do a non-hosted because of an over-concentration situation. And they said, okay, switch me to hosted. And they live in a different city, in one case a different state, and they said, well, we're moving there. So the biggest issues around hosted are whether they really are. And I don't doubt that there will be continued questions and code enforcement related to that. I don't think, and just so you can speak to this better than me, I don't think there's been one complaint about noise or party at a hosted where it genuinely was hosted. So empirically, through many of our meetings, that is true from all of the discussions between the teams that say the SRPD teams, code teams, SRFD teams, that is the experiences that the hostants, we don't get called to the hostants. It's the non-hosted ones that we do receive the complaints on for sure. Yeah. All right, well, I think we can fix this. I think that there's some room there for us to make it work for the folks. And I'm also fine with a zero tolerance.  I think that would solve the problem pretty quickly. Victoria? Yes, thank you. So to that point, what kind, one of other jurisdictions, I know that the other jurisdictions deal with this cat and mouse game around hosted versus unhosted. And like San Francisco, for example, I think has no unhosted rentals, but allows for hostals and still has some that slipped through the cracks. I'm curious to know how they manage the enforcement. And my angle on this is that I want to create regulations that are easy for residents to understand, but also easy for staff to enforce and don't create further complications down the road. So I know this might be a question for Jesse in terms of like what would make it easier for you? Would there be a specific cutoff of, I don't know, average nightly income or something that might be, because I'll just speak for myself. What I really want is I want the mom and pops, the people who are trying to stay in the community to be able to rent out their rooms in their homes that they're staying out without problem and be able to supplement their income that way. What I don't want is people who are really, truly not there, operating these mini hotels as if they're hosted. And so you could help me out with some ideas about what sorts of interventions might be appropriate. Thank you, council member. Again, some ideas coming to mind as we're on the fly right now. Some recent experiences with confirming actual residency. I know there are, one, for example, would be say DMV for either renewing a license or a registration as you have to have two forms of something showing you actually reside there, an idea of being a utility bill and something else with that address on it. That could be, we could work with legal and say, okay, can we require this to prove residency? That's a thought off my head right now that may be an element that we can kind of chase that element down of are they truly living there or not? So I'm sure there's some pathways that we could exercise and glean from other agencies and entities like the DMV or say the private utility providers or things like that. So that's an idea right now. Jessie and council member Fleming, I agree with that. I have seen that in several jurisdictions where they do require two forms of some type of identification. It doesn't have to be a driver's license, it can just be an identification card, but verified that that is their address and that for hosted because if they're hosted they are living there, that is their primary residence and that doesn't seem it should be an undue burden. John. Thank you, Mayor. And this piggyback's on to council member Fleming's question and this may be for our Helen Alden. And what it requires is more staff time and I agree with the need for that. And I think that, and I agree with council member Fleming's concerns about those that are trying to slip through the cracks. I'm not suggesting that everyone's trying to do that and I know for sure that everyone's not, but there are those that would look to be able to circumvent our ordinance. So I'm curious as to whether finance would be able to through our permit process and the applications and the fiscal requirements of applicants, whether that would be able to pay for other individuals and individual or more in code enforcement to be able to do that extra level of research to confirm that those that are applying are legitimate. Can I interject that usually it's planners that are reviewing all of that type of information first? So we would be looking at if we were to need more bodies, the first place where that would be needed would be in planning. I would say both. Okay, well, and that's kind of what I'm looking at is how do we become revenue neutral in a sense? When we are trying to maintain the quality of life and peaceful enjoyment of people's homes and trying to ferret out those that are trying to circumvent our ordinance. And here's Claire. Excellent. I will jump in. Good morning, Claire Hartman, Director of Planning and Economic Development. Yeah, Alan and I are working on a strategy to support the program. So as you noted, we are monitoring the taxes and the processing fees. I don't think we posted what the processing fees are, but then for this initial permit, we, you know, it is amounting to something over 100,000 I think coming in in this initial year. What we wanna do is create a sustainable program that balances. And again, it's not a, we need to make enough in revenue to support the program. That's our approach. And it may be staff. We do know it's sort of a tripod of support. We need planning or someone to process a short-term rental permit, check applications and issue them. We need code to enforce the ordinance. And we also need a financial arm to track, make sure that we're collecting DOT and all the follow-up with that. So one of the strategies in taking the time is to evaluate what's coming in, where exactly the needs are to support the program. And it may be stacking or it may be third party. So we are actually currently looking at different vendors to see what other cities have used and what vendors can offer in all three of those legs to support the program. And we don't have to wait. We can start looking at some of these strategies now, which is exactly what we're doing. So we are coordinating on that end. What has happened with the urgency ordinance, I think we all had the best of intent that we were gonna stand this up. We did have vacancies and staffing. But in addition to that, all we had was an ability to hire temporary administrative staff with salary savings with the vacancies. And all they were able to help with was phone calls and getting people to the website and getting them to the file your complaint form. But it wasn't enough to actually process the permit or the code complaint. So that's what we're doing. We're gonna look at how this program can be self-sufficient, whether it's with staffing outside or a hybrid. Thanks, Claire. And I had almost forgotten about the third party concept during the last meetings in Sacramento about short-term rentals. There was quite a presentation about those companies that kind of take on the responsibility of verification and tracking the good players and the bad players. And I think it's an important, that will be an important conversation to have is how much involvement we take on in this endeavor and how much involvement a third party group of which there are a number of them and some are come highly recommended and highly qualified. And to be able to start to have that conversation with the community that may not even understand that that is an option. And so thank you for that. And thank you for reminding us that there is an option to us taking that on as the city. And I just wanna mention that thus far approximately $288,000 has come in in application fees. And that is because the initial permit cost is the same as a standard temporary use permit of $1,129 based on the amount of review time and that type of thing involved. That's how we landed on that amount. So that $288,000 was a huge bulk in the beginning and it is likely that the renewal process whatever we do settle on will not generate the same amount of revenue each year. Right, but to add on to that you have two components of this, right? So you have your permitting fee and then you have these operators that in the past hadn't registered to pay TOT or DIA that are now required to do so. And as a result, you're seeing additional revenue come in. And so the thought is that we know how to isolate where that revenue is, that it's regular TOT or if it's short-term rental revenue and we're able to that's the part that Claire and I have been looking at to be able to allocate some of those revenues to be able to keep this program propped up. Appreciate that, Alan, that's helpful. Let's go ahead if John and Victoria if you guys are comfortable let's go to public comment and hear on this item. Seeing thumbs up, all right. If you're interested hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. Charles, you have been given permission to speak if you would please confirm your ability to see the timer and introduce yourself. Hi, my name is Charles. Thank you, staff and committee members. First of all, I appreciate the application process that allows a homeowner to purpose a home hosted and non-hosted. In my case it really helps because I usually offer three bedrooms but there are times my work carries a cause is me to be away for an extended period of time and I feel safe knowing someone is staying in my non-hosted home while I'm not there. So it's not sitting empty and a potential target. So I just wanna say thank you and I think my neighbors like it as well. Also, I agree with Sherry's recommendation that permits be extended and come back with a renewal process.  I'm also the 1,000 foot radius which is about as long as three football fields. It makes me feel bad that my ability to do this takes away the rights of my neighbors 1,000 feet around me because there's lots of reasons somebody purposes their home short-term. Mom and dad going to assisted living facility and being able to rent the entire home short-term can help cover the cost and in some instances pay for the entire cost of their care in a facility. And because they didn't have to sell their home to pay expenses, they have the option to return home if their needs change and they need to receive care by a family member, friends or a loved one or skilled caregiver. I'm with Sonoma County Coalition of Hosts and we believe a better way to regulate the number of non-hosted rentals is to limit the number of permits and owner can be issued. And if the allowed issued is a reasonable number, zoning restrictions, 1,000 foot radius or cap on overall number of non-hosted short-term rentals won't be necessary. This would be fair to Santa Rosa homeowners since every homeowner would have the same rights and limits. Thank you for this opportunity to share. The next speaker will be Mr. Robinson. You have been given permission to speak if you would please different your ability to see at the time and introduce yourself. Hi, yes, can everybody hear me? Okay. Yes. Perfect, okay. So hi, my name is Chris Robinson and I speak on behalf of Vaunts Day. Spoken about today, I guess I can confirm we operate 14 homes in Santa Rosa on behalf of property owners that we work for. I guess today I want to speak a little bit about our expansion of the ordinance where I think it can be improved to help. Today, the community understand what the ordinance provides for and then to ensure that there's a good relationship between hosts and short-term rentals and community members. First, I'd say that there probably should be better transparency and the code enforcement process. I know on behalf of the property owners that we operate for, we have seen in the open code enforcement portal for the city complaints that have resulted in activations against the properties that we manage on behalf of the property owners, but there hasn't been any communication between the city to the property owner or on us about the complaints that have been turned into these active cases and some cases have resulted in notices of violation. The notice of violations that we have had to this point have been made invalid and closed because they were complaints that were based off of incorrect understanding of the ordinance as to what it pertains to. For example, we had a complaint about over parking when the ordinance doesn't specifically provide for maximum amount of parking that can be added at a short-term rental. Not saying that that's right or wrong, but saying that there has been some non-education and some disinformation about the ordinance that has caused some ambiguity between community members and hosts of short-term rentals that doesn't allow for everybody to have fair expectations about what should be going on and how to properly be in compliance with what the city expects for hosts. So I think there could be better education around that. I also think there could be better, I guess just better direction without the permitting process. I know for a fact we've had about half of our applications that we've submitted for property owners held up, specifically for not having legally permitted bedrooms towards what they want for the bedroom count. And that wasn't specifically called that at the onset of the ordinance. If it was, we would have been able to better prepare and get those veterans legally permitted, but it wasn't explicitly called out as one of the review criteria for the ordinance. I will say that Sherry and before Andrew left, Andrew had been great and Jesse as well in helping us to be able to understand that and work through it and create solutions to those things. So I do want to applaud staff for the work that they have done so far, but I also would say that they should be better supported in staff and have more resources to be able to process these applications and towards enforcing the regulations that are currently in place and that will be proposed so that way everybody kind of knows what we're getting into, what is going to be expected of everybody in the playing field and how we can be better neighbors to the community members in Santa Rosa and to the neighbors that we have up by. I thank you for the opportunity and I look forward to working more with the city on how we can make this ordinance work for the whole community. And our next speaker will be Rashad Meagher. If you would please confirm your ability to see the timer and introduce yourself. You have been given permission to speak. Yes, I can see the timer and I am here. Thank you. Good morning and thank you for your time. I would like to talk about the issue that you raised Mayor Rogers first on hosted and non-hosted rentals. We are an example of a family that tried to apply for a hosted rental permit and had to switch it to non-hosted because of the way the law is written. Our goal has always been to have a hosted rental and even after we get our permit that is non-hosted we intend to 100% host the rental. It's really just because of the way you wrote the ordinance. In my view, noise, nuisance and safety are the three biggest things that we should be legislating around. And when you have a hosted rental you have someone on property who can help handle these things. And so the way you've written the law is that only an owner can be the host. They must be on the title. Other jurisdictions handle this differently and remove the roadblocks to creating hosted rentals.  The way they do it is they say owner, family member or immediate family member and they define it.  The other thing that San Francisco does is they make it a much more egalitarian law. They allow renters with the permission of their landlord also to be hosts. This enables people all throughout the city of San Francisco to participate. And when we held hearings on that in San Francisco there were single moms from the mission who said my kid went off to college. I have a bedroom, my landlord lets me do this. It helps me pay for my kid's college. These are economic activities that we should be thinking about. If one of the goals is to help create hosted rentals let's remove some of the roadblocks that are there to create hosted rentals. The other thing I would say is that hosted rentals help retirees, hosted rentals help if you have to bring your elderly parents into the neighborhood. So these are all things that I think speak to why hosted rentals should be allowed. The last thing I wanna comment on, well, two things. HOAs, getting the city in the middle of HOAs is gonna put you in the middle of a lot of legal wrangling. And I think that's something to consider as to whether the city really wants to get involved. Lastly, the law itself is very costly and complicated. You wrote a law that's really hard for your staff to implement. And I think there are a bunch of ways to make it easier and I will write in as to what those are because I'm now out of time. Thank you. The next speaker will be Gary Lentz. Mr. Lentz, from U of N give information to speak. And if you would please confirm your ability to see the timeline. I see it. Thank you very much. Gosh, I'm watching you guys struggle with trying to write, craft this law and deal with all these issues. And it's new to you and I get why it's difficult but there's a community out here that can help you do it. I've been doing this for next month, it'll be seven years. And I did it to save my home initially but it's become a good income stream to me as I approach retirement. So I do rely on it. I agree with Carl, a lot of what Carl said. I think non-hosted things you should reduce down to a hundred bucks and make it simple for people to do that. That's providing homes for people when they come to Sonoma County, very simple. But when it comes to the non-hosted, you've created, you've got these arbitrary limits in there, 10 people per house. But you don't need in parking. I don't know what parking is all about why that's such an issue. But you've solved the problem with two main tenants of this law. 9 p.m. quiet hours, no amplified music and no events. That's it. Deal with the consequences of, deal with the outcomes only. And then you won't have to hire a bunch of staff to go out and adjudicate these problems between neighbors because what you set up is an artificial situation where neighbors are incented to spy on neighbors. And I've had people peer over my fence and ask my guests how many people are staying there. There's vexatious complainers. There's one person who spoke here last week who I understand has made over a hundred complaints. These obviously don't impact him at all. And yet he's out there just making complaints for the sake of it. And the poor people at the city who are trying to figure out how to enforce this, it's nearly unenforceable. I asked a couple of your officials who are on this call actually, is it a violation if somebody is noisy for 45 minutes just by the virtue of them being noisy after 9 p.m. Or is it if they don't fix the problem within 45 minutes? They looked at each other and they had no idea which one was a violation. So I think we've got ideas for ways in which to solve this problem by education, getting buy-in. I've never had complaints with my non-hosted rental because I warn people four different times that they need to be courteous toward my neighbors. I mean, this is a neighborhood. I need to keep this going. You can't be noisy. Now I have an even bigger hammer because there's these laws and I can tell them that they're going to be fined if they violate these laws. So I mean, if you educate us on best practice, if we educate people on best practices, we have an interest in weeding out these bad actors. We will help you craft a law that is easy to enforce and solves the problem. So please call us in. We have ideas. Like I said, I've done this. I've got over 250 stays in my home over those years. We've got lots of expertise. We wanna help you solve this problem. So please rely on us and bring us in. Thank you. Thank you. And the next speaker will be David Long. Mr. Long, you have been given permission to speak. If you would confirm your ability to see the timer. Yes, I can. Wonderful, thank you. Hello, everybody and good morning. My name is David Long and I really thank you for grappling with what is a growing problem in the city. You know, at its inception, the Airbnb business model was running temporary space in one's private residence to one or two people. And then that concept over the years gradually morphed into real estate investors and management companies setting up entire houses and running them to constantly rotating and larger groups of transient people. That's exactly how the non-hosted short-term rental was born. And they're now a real unrecognized problem. Not only in Santa Rosa, the top 25 market in the United States but in many other municipalities throughout California, United States, even the world, Barcelona, Spain, struggles with this whole issue. So hundreds of communities have already developed ways to prevent non-hosted short-term rentals from disrupting and damaging residential neighborhoods. You can learn from those experiences. Allowing short-term rentals to operate only in houses that are the owner's primary residence is the only inclusive method that has proven effective at substantially limiting problems caused by non-hosted short-term rentals. That's an important thing, so I'm gonna say it again. Allowing short-term rentals to operate only in houses that are the owner's primary residence is the only inclusive method that has proven effective at substantially limiting problems caused by non-hosted short-term rentals. Proving the primary residence is super easy. You can do it by submitting just two or three pieces of documentation. Taking that approach will allow the city to streamline their permitting and enforcement efforts and lower the costs for everybody involved. Non-hosted short-term rentals, they're businesses. It's one thing to profit from a business venture, but it's an entirely different thing to realize that profit at the expense and the detriment of others in the neighborhood. Owners and operators, non-hosted short-term rentals, they're exploiting residential neighborhoods for their personal gain, and they've depleted the city's housing stock for full-time residents. It really needs to stop. So thanks for your ongoing consideration and work to make this thing right. I know it's a heavy lift, but I'm sure we'll get over it. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker will be Mr. Eric Frazier and Mr. Frazier. You have been given permission to speak if you would confirm your ability to speak the primary phrase. Yes, thank you very much. And good morning, bright and early morning to all of you. I appreciate the conciliatory tone that the prior speakers that are participating in the short-term rental ecosystem have brought to the table. Indeed, before the urgency ordinance was contemplated or during the 12 or 18 months was worked out in the back room by your expensive staff. And during the process where it was coming forward during the condensed public hearing period that led to the urgency ordinance, members of the short-term rental community have always been ready to talk to you guys honestly because 99% of them are just honest players regardless of their unique DNA that makes up their operation. So that's great. And I'm glad to see that. And I'm glad to count myself as a member of that group. As you know, it's a eight-year five-star host on Airbnb primarily with hundreds of guests. We just received a grant to film five-star hosts reacting to when reviews are read out loud to them, make some weep. Should you too, Ashley? But really my comments today have to deal with the gaping mall that comes between the facts that staff likes to come forward with during the urgency ordinance make up as well as today in this meeting and what your duty is as public servants to deal only in facts. So for instance, there's been a lot of talk about the revenue that can be created. Pretty much all the statistics you use don't actually hold up to factual verification. So I can just sort of start with that as a researcher. And so when you're not using facts to define my experience, I'm personally insulted by that quite frankly. And there's so many things to deal with here. When code enforcement says, wow, look at all these code enforcement complaints, they're not telling us that there's only two that have to deal with operations outside of a batch that had to do with the fact of advertisements. Are you kidding? One person said in a spreadsheet and this was something that staff gleefully handled like, oh, good, we get this. We can start violating people and getting them on the first strike. We can also prove to the public how many code violations there are. It's all BS. I thought we were electing you guys to shelter us from the BS, not create it. There's no talk when we talk about the revenue office. What about the revenue that was erroneously paid to the county on TOT remissions? Because after all the county had Airbnb remit that revenue directly to them, some Santa Rosa addresses were all caught up in that. What about the claim that there's 400 of these operations out there and a million dollars in taxes? Really, you guys need to get a grip, but let's start by talking this out. Thank you. The next speaker will be Rick. Rick, you have been given permission to speak. If you would please confirm your ability to see the timer and introduce yourself, please. Hi, my name is Rick Hoyerman. I do see the timer, it says three minutes. And I operated a hosted short-term rental in Santa Rosa for nine years. Due to health reasons, I closed it down in November. When my health resumes to a level that I can operate it again, I plan to do that, but I'm very concerned about the rules and regulations that have been implemented. I'm a senior. I'm 68 years old and my husband is 73. We were depending on this income to supplement our income since we're both retired. And we had a five-star hosted rental for years and really had no complaints and managed it very well. My issue is that you seem to be trying to use a cookie cutter mold to apply to everyone when there's clearly a distinction between hosted rentals and non-hosted rentals. And I believe the core of the problem is you have a set of rules that you put into place for hosted rentals or non-hosted rentals and you're trying to force the hosted rentals to apply to those as well when they don't. First of all, the application fee is outrageous, $1,129. That's basically a whole month of rental for some of these people. And it's just beyond reason. And then the timeframe and the notifications with all of the neighbors is an intrusion on privacy. When you're a hosted rental, there's really no reason for everyone in the neighborhood to know that you're running a hosted rental. It's very quiet. I have neighbors that are renting out rooms in their houses for 30-day periods so they can avoid the short-term rental rules and regulations. And so the economic benefit that my hosted rental provided the city was equal to $14,000 in taxes that I paid over that period of time. So I think you need to really take a view that they're two different animals and you need to treat them separately and you need to coddle one. And I believe the other one is the source of all the problems because you have bad actors or people that are trying to circumvent the rules and regulations for your non-hosted rentals that are creating the problems. So I appreciate you listening to me. And I think there's some work that you need to do. Go ahead. But I think you need to fix the problem for the hosted rentals as soon as possible. Thank you. I see no additional hands raised at this time. All right, I'll bring it back to council members. Council member Sawyer, do you wanna start? One, two, one mute, that is. All right. My usual routine. Rick just mentioned the two different animals. And I think that he brings up an important point, how we deal with those two different animals and the staff time that it's going to take. And also, I have a question about our outreach. But I think that there are two different animals. And one of our speakers said, how to make the ordinance work for the entire community. And I think that's really the balancing act that we need to deal with. And Mr. Lentz mentioned the willingness of the industry or those that are the hosts and the non-hosts to come to the table to offer some good recommendations and based on their experience. I mean, we have other cities that have been reasonably successful hopefully in coming up with ordinances that try to address the complaints of neighbors and probably from the bad players is my guess. I mean, Mr. Lentz mentioned that he's been doing this for quite a number of years and has never had a complaint. And I think that that's, although perhaps a little unusual, that is in a sense a goal. I mean, we have a responsibility to allow people to have the peaceful enjoyment of their homes. And if there are bad players, then we need to address them. If there are players that are using our ordinance or using the concept of short-term rentals as for whatever reason, and I'm not going to judge why they are doing it. They'll all have a different reason potentially for wanting to rent out either their home or a cottage behind their home, whatever the case may be. This is a new situation, relatively new, that started out as potentially as a fiscal enhancement to the owners of the property and private property rights do apply here and what has happened afterward, which is some of the negative reaction that we have with some of the neighbors and probably it is my guess, probably based on the bad actors. And we deal with Montecito Heights and we deal with narrow roads. There was a question about parking and why that was an issue. Well, you go up to Montecito Heights and you have a home that sleeps 15 people and you have, let's cut it in half, seven or eight cars. You've got a parking problem. Can our fire department access Montecito Heights or other areas where we have narrow roads and parking on both sides potentially? This is the issue. We have a public safety issue that we need to address as a council and as a community. And so I guess my question is have we engaged those operators to help us craft a comprehensive ordinance? My guess is that we have reached out. I'm not sure whether we have taken the time to reach out far enough to help with that issue of making an ordinance work for the entire community. So I have more questions than I have answers. I think that we hear from those the horror stories and if I was next door to a bad actor, I would be royally upset and the peaceful enjoyment of my home would be very, very important and especially in a neighborhood that can accommodate 15 people. And if I'm next door to that and they are partying until all hours and we have to use our police department to enforce a situation where they have other responsibilities other than dealing with a bad actor, I have concerns about that. So I would like to make sure that we have done the outreach necessary to try to come up with a compromised ordinance because the ordinance that we come up with is not going to make everyone happy. And I understand that. This concept of short-term rentals is relatively new. And even though there are those that have been doing it for 10 or 15 years, probably not 15, it's become because of its popularity and because of the fiscal positive nature of the fiscal element of it, it has become popular. And now we are so we are dealing with and having to respond to a use in our neighborhoods that we couldn't have anticipated years ago, but here it is in our laps and we're going to have to come up with a reasonable ordinance that satisfies, hopefully satisfies both the community and the neighbors and those that are operating short-term rentals. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you. John, are you comfortable with extending the permit and not starting back over? I don't think we should. Well, when I was starting back over, what would that mean? So the permit that I could have Sherry explain what she was saying was you've got the expiration that's coming up at the end of the year and we don't have the comprehensive ordinance in place yet. No, I don't think that we need to make this more difficult than it already is. I mean, I think that those that are dealing with that are temporary ordinance, as though there may be many that are not happy with it, changing it yet again or making it more restrictive or less restrictive. I think that those that are dealing with it in its current form, whether they like it or not, at least we're not changing it again. I would rather come forward with a comprehensive ordinance to come before the council with the various arguments and I know that we will have a good showing of the community. But I think that what will help us ultimately at the end of the day will be in bringing forward those in the industry and that sounds rather formal but those that have short-term rentals, both those that have been, probably we will hear mainly from those that have been successful and that are kind of flying under the radar because they are responsible. And I think we need to respect the responsible players. Now, does that mean that I'm not concerned about what it does to our housing stock in Santa Rosa? No, I am very concerned about what that does to our housing stock but we do have private property rights that would have to be respected as well. So I'm just looking for a compromised ordinance and I'd rather not change it before we come up with our final recommended ordinance to the council. Okay, Victoria. Great, and I agree with much of what John said and I'll start with the end which is coming up with a compromise that both respects property rights but also protects the character of the neighborhood. And so one of the things that I'd like to see is a cap on the amount of permits that are issued because if we continue to allow them at this point, we're gonna get to a point where, I mean, this is happening, I've got one neighborhood where there's five of these on one block and it's just completely eroding the character of the neighborhood and see what's happened out in West County where we are closing schools because it's become primarily tourism. And so where I'm coming from with this is that I really don't have any issue with the hosted ones. I really wanna make sure that we put in place regulations on unhosted rentals that prevent over-concentration. I think we're pretty good on over-concentration but that we cap these and then we have a trade program where like a liquor license, you can, we say maybe 400 is the total amount allowed within the city. If you want to get a new one after we hit this cap you have to buy it from someone else. And then that way we let the private market kind of manage this going forward and that's only would be for non-hosted rentals. And then to your question about whether or not we should let these permits expire I think that that creates a whole boondoggle in and of itself. I can see why we might. What I think is probably more fair is to have an annual assessment similar to like a business tax where or some other small fee that helps to manage the ongoing issues surrounding this program. And then, yeah, one caller did speak about the traffic that is a really, you know you'll never hear me promote parking but like John was saying in Montecito you have these massive houses with like two parking spots and so it's really just a public safety issue. And then there's neighborhood concentration public safety. I hear you mayor on the concerns around equity in terms of restricting these from HOAs that has been a concern about people doing these in contradiction with their HOAs. And I think that perhaps it's something that HOAs can work on managing internally. It would be nice if we could restrict the permitting but I get where that could create a problem and then I also there was a point that resonated with me from a caller around the cost of the permit for hosted properties that does seem a little onerous to have an $1,100 fee on a hosted program. And so I'm wondering if as we go forward if we can bifurcate this process to address the real difference because I think we're trying to make a policy for two very different uses and it's just not working. And so I think we need to go to the drawing board and say what are the real issues around the hosted properties which sounds like there's really very few and have one set of regulations that are very late that deals with that and then another set of regulations that deals with unhosted rentals. So I know I've said a lot without giving really specifics but I do think that we're at this point of like there's all this information that's coming at us. There's all these unintended consequences and we have to figure out a way to manage them without creating even more problems. All right, I appreciate that. Sherry, to your question about the expiration of the permit, hell no would be my answer. John and I went through this with cannabis when we had to go through the whole competitive process regarding when we first did the launch and then trying to figure out how to move into seamless operations without undoing what we had already done. And I just, I don't wanna go through that process with vacation rentals as well. I do think that we need to bring forward some of the changes that we talked about the differences between the hosted and the non-hosted. I was in the Sacramento last week for the League of Cities to John's point. One of the things that every city is dealing with right now is how to manage the influx of vacation rentals particularly in areas like Santa Rosa that are highly desirable. And what that means is you do have many companies that have been popping up private companies to help assist cities in the management of them. More so each year it seems when we go to those conventions there's more and more of those that are doing this as a business. I did have a chance to talk to a number of them and ask them just honestly how and to what regard are they able to help manage the non-hosted? And the answer across the board was the non-hosted are always the problem. The hosted are not the problem. The only real way to mitigate the impact on your community is to ban the non-hosted and focus on your hosted. That doesn't, that's not the direction that we've gone in Santa Rosa. We do wanna be a little bit more permissive but I will say I'm always chuckling a little bit in these meetings when we hear the public comment from folks who keep talking about their five star rating. Your five star rating tells me nothing about the experience of your neighbors. It just tells me the experience of the person who rented the home. And the comment that was made earlier is that we are talking about a balance between somebody's property rights and also the quality of the neighborhood and the quality of our entire community. You do see areas where you have over concentration and we've worked on that. You do see areas where it's impacting school and property values. We don't want any of that here but we do wanna make sure that folks who are trying to make a living and stay in their homes, particularly if they age in place have that as an opportunity for them. So we'll continue to work on it. I know it'll take a little bit more time than we had expected. And we have been talking about the staffing issues and how we can try to try to manage that. But for now, I think we just keep plugging it forward. Some of the changes that you've heard at the earliest convenience that you've heard from the subcommittee. And in the short term, I think we do extend for now to give you guys that buffer zone or that room. There are any additional feedback or comments that you needed, Sherry? Oh, okay. I don't have to raise my hand. A couple of questions for you. So are you good with the one year extension? We came up with that just as an easy one year fix. What we're looking at is the first permits that were issued and approved were in December of 2021. So they will expire December, 2022. And then the one year extension would take them all the way until 2023. And so we can just maybe as staff work on this. But I'm wondering if we want to give a cutoff date for when permits have been approved because if we are considering, and I don't know if we are not doing something like primary residence only or whatever, I'm concerned that it'll be a weird transition if people have permits valid until 2024, which technically, depending when they were approved, I guess it'd be the end of 2020. I think you see what I'm saying. Do we want to have a cutoff date one year for permits that have been approved as of June of this year? My suggestion, we'll see if the subcommittee rolls with it, let's have it coincide with the budget year from June to June. And I'm good with a one year extension on it. John. Thank you, Mayor. That's actually a good option. I appreciate that. And I just wanted to ask about, it's a process question. How much outreach has there been? Oh, you don't have to answer that. Are we anticipating a fair amount of outreach to the community, especially with hosted rentals, just because or not, well, both actually, we need both. So I just want to make sure that we do a good job. I'm not suggesting that we haven't, but I don't know to what level we have engaged the various players in this endeavor. And I just want to make sure, because I do believe that some good recommendations, of course can come out of those that are dealing with, that are right there in the trenches dealing with hosted and non-hosted. What I am concerned about is what, how much, how do we deal with the ongoing criticism and the ongoing reality of very bad players in the non-hosted environment? And I am getting very intolerant of here, carrying over and over and over again, the complaints that are coming forward with non-hosted rentals, short-term rentals, in these large homes, and I don't know how to deal with it. And I'm not suggesting that we need to use our police department as the enforcer, but we need, this is something we need to tackle. I mean, if we have bad players that are happening over and over and over again, my recommendation, my off the cuff, my recommendation is strip them of their right to have this non-hosted rental and take away their profit, take away their access to the situation. If we can prove that they are basically saying, this kind of, just a slap across the city's face and saying, we don't care what your ordinance says, we are going to continue with this unfortunate behavior, regardless of what you say, I want it stopped. I mean, I just, I think that I'm very intolerant of it. We've been dealing with it for at least a year now. I'm done, I'm done with those complaints and we need to do something about it. I don't know what that is, but we need to deal with it. Well, and John, I think that brings up for me an important point of clarification on my June to June. They have to be in good standing. That to me is a given. I'm also interested when we look at our comprehensive ordinance at having a local ownership requirement and a cap on how many people can own locally, so that you don't end up seeing out of the area, folks taking advantage of the market. Victoria? Thanks, Sherry, can you remind us, do we have a method to revoke a permit for a person who has, who is a bad actor and is that dependent on findings from staff, which would be my hope rather than simply complaints from the community? So that's a nuanced question and that's something we've been trying to work out and it kind of goes back to council member Sawyer's remarks as well. So right now to be an operator in good standing simply means that you applied for a permit in time and then you were registered for BIA and TOT. So with this timeline extension for permits maybe a recommendation from your committee, subcommittee could be to include language that says that with the current situation, it's a three strikes, your permit is revoked but for somebody that doesn't have a permit yet that doesn't really have any T. So we could add language to that that says upon your third strike, you lose your ability to apply for a permit and or continue in process and that could be a relatively easy fix to the table within the ordinance and or we can redefine what operator in good standing means now that we've kind of passed that hurdle and the original definition doesn't apply or we could just add to it and state that it can't be anyone with verified complaints. So the revocation process for the permit we're still working out we haven't gotten there on any yet but everything that code enforcement does they have to verify themselves and that's part of why things are taking a little bit longer all of the information supplied from constituents is used to support a violation but there still has to be an internal investigation that happens before it rises to the next level if you will. And I do wanna go back a little bit also to council member Sawyer's- Can I ask you a question about just what you said and then- Yes, yes. Sorry to interrupt. So when you say everything has to be verified internally that would be the trigger of what you're calling a strike not the constituent complaints or neighborhood complaints but that code enforcement determining that there's validity to it so it wouldn't be something capricious it would be documented, verifiable and objective. Correct and Jesse just unmuted so I'll let him add. Thank you and council member Fleming yes that is the bit of the struggle with the legal side of it like we've talked about in some of our meetings and trying to support the initiative is that any case we have with code enforcement has to be handled as if it will go to superior court and some of them do so that evidentiary requirement just like SRPD and Chief Krigin and I spoke about this yesterday any reports from the public are substantial enough to start an investigation any evidence that is posed in court is actually something that the police department has to have confirmed. So we do get a lot of information and I'm sure many of our council members have received numerous complaints emails, pictures videos, audio recordings none of those are our date stamps showing address that type of thing though they do support starting that investigation we do have to find a way to confirm that information and we've worked closely with both of our attorneys that tend to be in this mix a land use attorney and a litigant attorney both and that's where we are with that evidence so to speak so it is a challenge. Thank you. Can I just jump in very quickly with the good standing comment or the good standing status? I would recommend a redefinition of what that really means some kind of, whether it be in what has I don't know, I don't not even sure how to do it in just two or three words but it suggests something that is inaccurate good standing sounds like great you're doing a great job you're adhering to all of our requirements and why is this neighbor complaining about this person who is in good standing with the city of Santa Rosa I think that needs to be redefined or at least we titled because it suggests something that it isn't and so I'm just throwing that out there good luck on trying to find the words but they need to not be as what sounds very favorable to the applicant, which is not necessarily the case. Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. And I think Sherry, I think that as you help put this together I don't think it needs to come back to this committee I think it can go straight to council with an explanation of the direction that came from the committee and what the challenges are. So on that note, Mayor Rogers, if you could I can rewatch the video, I've taken some notes but I just want to clarify what exactly you're hoping to see with this what we thought would be just a really brief amendment to extend the permits obviously we're gonna deal with the operator in good standing situation. Was there anything else in particular that you were hoping to see now versus long-term? I'll start with John and Victoria. Thanks, Mayor, what I'm looking for in our comprehensive ordinance and ordinances can change and as we evolve as a community and issues come up that need to be addressed the council or subcommittee thereof will address those issues. What I'm looking for is in that comprehensive ordinance is a way both to protect the quality of our neighborhoods to allow people their private property rights and to be those that are good players and that are not adversely affecting peaceful enjoyment of people's homes. I mean, even 25 years ago if there was a party that broke out next door to someone's home and we had more police officers on the street the police would come and close it down and that's not happening now and nor do we have the police force to enforce it. So we need to come up with other sticks and carrots to help those that are doing a good job and allow them to continue doing that good job at the same time of being able to address those that are using Santa Rosa and using our neighborhoods as a way to make money at the expense of the neighbors in that neighborhood. So, and I don't know what that's going to look like. I'm fairly convinced that not everyone is going to be happy with what comes forward. And when it comes before the council there will be other ideas potentially that will help guide this ordinance. I don't envy you the task, but we need to tackle it and I agree with the mayor that the next time we tackle it publicly potentially or probably recommended that it goes to the entire council and get their take on it. I just want to make sure that we have as much as possible done the right outreach. So we hear from both sides, we'll probably mainly hear from those that are doing a good job and so as not to come up with an ordinance that is so onerous that it compromises their original intent, which is fiscal renumeration and enhancement at the same time being able to use their home and there are numerous reasons why people want short-term rentals out there. And I think that we need to respect those that are doing a good job and find a way to acknowledge that at the same time put teeth into the ordinance that protects neighbors from bad players. That's not going to be easy. I don't envy you your task, but there is an opportunity for fiscal enhancement to the city depending on how we move forward. And I am all for looking at the possibility of using a third party as the kind of the program, not necessarily the developer, but even third party groups could come up with some reasonable suggestions in how we move forward with our ordinance and allowing them to help us with enforcement. So I'm open to all of those concepts. And again, I appreciate your work and it's ongoing and I appreciate the mayor's recommendation that we follow the move into June of next year with our budget cycle. I think that's a reasonable period of time and I think that allows people a little bit of breathing room and still allows us time to develop that ordinance that is so important. Victoria? So I agree with pretty much everything that's been said. I'll just add a couple more details, which is that my end goal here is to in the long run have a bifurcated process, which addresses hosted rentals and unhosted rentals. It could be the same ordinance, that has different regulations for both that are effective, simple and easily enforced. In the short run, what I wanna see is us staunching the bleeding, which I consider to be the draw on staff resources, which could be amended by a change to or improved by an amendment to the change in the hosting good standing, a continuation of the concentration and the concentration prohibitions. And then the addition of a cap on total allowable non-hosted permits until we bring this back to the full council. I think my short term is get it so that the ordinance continues since it was set to sunset the temporary ordinance let's not have a disruption there. And then I really am starting to lean more and more towards reserving this for folks who live in our community, the positives that we hear on that front. You heard my other comments throughout the presentation. So Mayor Rogers, just to be clear, the ordinance will not expire. The ordinance is our ordinance. It's the permits that expire. Okay, I just wanted to make sure because I mean, it urgency ordinances sometimes do expire. So you're totally right on, but I just want to make sure that you know that. I meant the permit. Perfect. So there are a couple of options here. If we did an urgency ordinance to merely address the, that we don't want the permits to expire that we could get to city council, as soon as possible. If we're talking about adding changes that are more substantive in nature such as changing the definition of operator and good standing and changing the enforcement information and that type of thing related to that, it becomes a little more muddy to get this to city council quickly because we would likely, at your direction obviously, potentially want to look at doing a bit of community outreach if we're talking about adding a cap. I don't think we have to and I'll let Claire or Ashley speak to that because the planning commission and city council would be public outreach meetings. But when we did the, I'm sorry, the urgency ordinance even though it was an urgency ordinance we did put out a well responded to survey and we had an industry specific community meeting and that type of thing all in the short period of the urgency ordinance. So I just want to be clear on direction here if we're just looking at the timeline or if we are seriously trying to add those changes now before we get to that, more comprehensive suite of amendments that would be about a year from now probably. What I heard from you and maybe Claire is the appropriate person to weigh in here. What I heard is that given the staffing that we have and the struggle that we're having in clearing the applications at the moment that staff needs more time before we do the comprehensive. Yes. Okay, I'm comfortable with that. Okay, so just the extension of time at this point. Council members, are you good with that? So just to be clear, we would extend it including for people who are making big problems. Yeah, so I would like to weigh in just for a sec because I think we heard unanimously about issues about this operator good standing. So that, first of all, we do need the extra time. We want to complete the application process and we really need to do a better job in enforcement. If we can all agree on that, we have work to do. So we want to spend the time doing that work and really focusing on those that are not in compliance with ordinance. I think we can do the time extension. Obviously that's relatively easy enough to write and vet out with the community as we go through the process to get it adopted. I do think we can address the operator in good standing definition. I think we need to, I think that's part of the lesson learned immediately that we didn't write that with enough teeth if you don't already have a permit, which is what they don't have. And so we need to come up with language that addresses that enforcement gap. In terms of addressing hosted versus non-hosted, we can look at that to see if they are treated differently or is there a different way to look at that? They're both complex, I'll say, in terms of processing just because it's hosted doesn't mean it's not as complex of a review as non-hosted. And then the cap, I only heard from one council member. So that one, I think is more of a comprehensive ordinance type of discussion. We right now, we do have the over-concentration which should address the issue I think was mentioned. You have more than a few on a block, you shouldn't. So that's an enforcement issue even with their urgency ordinance. So I think just boiling it down to grant more time for permits, address the operator in good standing definition, continue to tighten up our application process. We've heard a lot of great ideas about how to tighten that up at intake. And I think we have the right to ask, clarifying information or get the documents up front without making policy changes, tighten up our enforcement, and then start to vet and collect additional community information as we head into the comprehensive ordinance such as about the tax. That would be my suggestion. And I really appreciate the feedback that you gave today that's really, really helpful for us. A big team, this is a heavy lift for the city, but I think your direction has been quite clear. Yeah, Victoria, John, are you both good with Claire's recommendation? I'm fine with it. I wanted to just clarify one thing, which is the reason why I'm suggesting the limit or a moratorium is mostly because down the road we might find that we like a lot of jurisdictions do where they end up having rules to allow unhosted rentals. And then it becomes too onerous, too difficult. And we see that some of the premier destinations across California end up allowing none of it. And the reason why I suggest the moratorium or the cap is because it would be very difficult if not completely impossible and illegal for us to remove the ability of private property owners to continue operating as such if we ever do get to that position. And so the reason I suggested is so that if the council ever does get to that point that there's fewer problems for them down the road. But I don't hear that anybody else is interested in that and perhaps the whole council wants to weigh in on that. But I do think that we're setting our future councils for potential challenges around takings and legal problems when, if and when this becomes a problem, when we see the county and other jurisdictions surrounding us putting moratoriums or flat out banning these uses, it only makes Santa Rosa more and more attractive. You know, Mayor, I'd like to drill in a little bit more about the cap because Mike, I would have to guess that those that are looking to apply to have a short-term rental given the conversations around this issue over the many months and nationwide, that those that were really concerned about their ability to move forward with a short-term rental might, this may be, this is probably presumptuous, but my guess is that they have already started that process and that if we were to put a cap for a year or until the comprehensive ordinance came before us where it was determined that a cap wasn't necessary because we have over-concentration rules in place, then we wouldn't need the cap. But I agree with Council Member Fleming that to put a, to stop the bleed and go ahead and put a I'm not a big fan of moratoriums, but I think that in this case, given what we've been hearing for quite some time now, I'm not sure how much damage would be done by putting a pause on those permits, especially non-hosted. So I'd be willing to consider that. And I'd like to clarify, I'm only talking about putting a cap on the hosted ones, not the unhosted ones. A cap on the unhosted or hosted? Actually a moratorium on unhosted would be my preference. I would agree that I think that could be a reasonable direction to move in. I'm just saying staff is supporting, if the committee wants to move into the direction of a moratorium for new non-hosted rentals, staff would be in support of that. So I think what you're hearing is bring that to the full council with the other items that gives time for the public to weigh in and it gives time for council members to seek out some data, particularly from other jurisdictions. But I don't want to have us in a position where we don't have it queued up if that's the direction that council wants to go when we bring it to the full council. So go ahead and bring it for the discussion. Yeah, I had one last thing. In consideration of a moratorium, some of the jurisdictions that haven't acted them did so because they had exclusionary zones in other areas where they were not allowing permits and they found that people were buying up properties in other areas. So it could end up being an equity issue too, given that the east side is somewhat built out in terms of short terminals that the west side, which tends to have our higher equity priority concentration will end up having much more investor related purchasing. So it's just, it's a consideration that I've read in equity stuff, but I just wanted to throw that out there as well. Can I jump in, Mayor? So as far as the equity piece, I have to believe that the impacted, that the people that would be most impacted, regardless of where it is in Santa Rosa, would be the weekend renters, short-term renters, not affecting households that are looking to rent, in the more traditional manner. So I'm not sure that by placing a moratorium on short-term rentals city-wide, would have an adverse effect on those families that are looking, in fact, it would probably help them finding rentals across the city for in a more traditional manner, which is not by the weekend. So that would be my guess, unless there are large investors out there that are looking for something other than that, which is exactly what we are addressing, I would think that the equity issue, in this case, unless someone can convince me otherwise, would not be an issue. And in fact, would help with those that are looking to rent on a more traditional way. I think where I'm sensitive to the equity conversation surrounding vacation rentals is when we start to get into spot zoning, or when we start to get into particular types of housing that are playing under a different rule. So for example, the HOA conversation, that's where I get sensitive to it. I think at this point, it is helpful to see where the permits have come in, where they're pending and where it's bill permitted. And what I mean by that is, when you have your over-concentration rules in play, where is there actually the ability at this moment to put vacation rentals under our current rule that I don't have in front of me, that I don't know? We could refer back to one of the slides, if you wanted to see the map of where they are currently non-hosted applications. Yeah, I guess you can kind of surmise from there, which areas are far enough away to where people could put them. So I guess that is helpful. I just remember when we did cannabis, there was a pretty good map that was put together that showed all of the areas, the sphere of influences, if you will, to show where all of the areas that were already fully tapped out were. I can see if GIS can put together something like that. And then, so the, if we were to draft a moratorium ordinance to bring to the full council, along with the time extension, and maybe Ashley, maybe you should weigh in here, because I'm not even sure if this is a good question. Would the moratorium be on the issuance of any permits, meaning that even those that are in the queue now would not be able to be further along, or would it only be we would not accept applications for new non-hosted? I would think if just because we had people who have been waiting and have already gone through the process, I would be more comfortable with the conversation if it was new people submitting for their application, not for the folks who have been waiting in line. And in the concept of fairness, we usually, if people are in the process, we don't usually, as the city say, no, we're stopping your process. We respect their, the endeavors so far and move forward. And I think that that would be consistent with our policies to date. Yep, agreed. Any other direction that staff needs? Nope, I think I've got all I need. And I can always rewatch the video too. All right, any other comments, council members? Yeah, I have a comment for Sherry and others, Jesse, Claire, Alan, Ashley. This is a really difficult, I mean, beyond difficult policy to develop and implement and run. And I'm not just saying this to make you guys feel better. I'm saying because I'm really impressed by the challenges and the difficulty and your tenacity around it. And I wanna give you a sincere thank you for your work on it. Well said. All right, thanks everybody. I think on that note, we'll go ahead and adjourn today's meeting. Thank you for joining us for a special meeting to get this handled. We'll see it before the council shortly.


It's journalistic malpractice to say Gazans are starving without saying Israel is starving them. The mass media are printing some amazingly depraved headlines about a new UN-backed report on starvation in Gaza from the integrated food security phase classification, who says half the enclave's population is now at the highest possible threat level for starvation. The New York Times has a real corker out titled, Famine is projected for northern Gaza, experts say. Subtitled, a global authority on food security said that in the coming months, as many as 1.1 million people in Gaza could face the severest levels of hunger. A casual news consumer could get multiple paragraphs into this article, assuming that people in a place called Gaza are suffering from some kind of famine caused by natural drought. Not until paragraph 4 would they encounter the word Israeli, and not until paragraph 5 would they encounter the line Israeli's bombardment and a near-total blockade. At a time when only 20% of news readers ever make it past the headline of a given story, this is an extremely destructive and propagandistic act of journalistic malpractice. The editors of the New York Times know exactly what they're doing, packaging a story about Israel's deliberate starvation of Palestinian civilians like it's a troubling prediction about the weather. Contrast the New York Times' headline with that of Al Jazeera's report on the same story. Gaza headed towards famine amid Israeli aid curbs. What to know? That's the normal way to present a story about a deliberately inflicted famine upon an imperiled population. If a population was being deliberately starved by siege warfare from a nation like Russia, China, or Iran, we may be absolutely certain that the name of that nation would appear in the headline. But because the western media exists to generate propaganda and not to report the news, we get headlines like Gaza faces famine during Ramadan, the holy month of fasting from the BBC, and famine in northern Gaza is imminent as more than 1 million people face catastrophic levels of hunger, New Report warns from CNN, and famine imminent in northern Gaza says UN-backed report from Reuters, and catastrophic levels of hunger in Gaza mean famine is imminent, said aid coalition from the Guardian. We saw this with Saudi Arabia's US-backed starvation of Yemen as well. When the mass media talked about Yemen at all, usually they just ignored it, editors consistently obfuscated the fact that this was a population being deliberately starved by a cruel blockade and the deliberate targeting of food infrastructure. This is a very good example of how Western propaganda works, by the way. The mainstream Western press don't generally make up whole cloth lies, though they will uncritically print claims by Western government agencies who have an extensive history of lying. What they do is rely on half truths, distortions, and lies by omission to give their audiences a wildly slanted picture of what's going on in the world. By always going out of their way to tell you an enemy of the US centralized empire is committing an atrocity the millisecond it looks like they might be, while being furtive and obfuscatory about the crimes of the US and its allies, they give their audience a skewed understanding of who is and is not committing the real evils in our world. This doesn't typically happen as a result of any grand, monolithic conspiracy. It's mostly just the natural consequence of having all the major news platforms controlled by wealthy and powerful people who each have a vested interest in manufacturing consent for the status quo upon which their wealth and power are premised. The oligarchs control the media, and they hire the executives who run the media, and the executives hire the editors who write the headlines and guide the reporters to report a certain way, and this gives rise to a system where everyone working for the outlet conducts themselves in a way that just so happens to suit the powerful people on top. Then before you know it, you've got editors at the New York Times, a paper that's been published by the same family for over a century, packaging a story about starvation caused by an Israeli siege to look like it's a story about an innocent crop failure. Odds are nobody told them to do that. They just learned over the years that that's how you rise to the top in an outlet like the New York Times.