Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Can you hear us? Can you hear us now? Yes, I can. Thank you.

We're going to blame that on uh technology, which is great because I can hear it in the background. Guido So, you're dialing in to a meeting. You're in person. I'm just kidding.

I am enjoying I just I am enjoying it. It's a beautiful day, evening. I just got back from seeing Chainsaw Man with my son. Oh, which is an anime cartoon thing. And it's it's yeah it's about it's very cool. It's very funny of this mind but and it is it's very see he knows chainsaw man you gonna go see it he is

see which is today the first one in locally is today San Jose and oh my gosh leaving the movie trying to convince my telling my son it's just a love story it's not a love story it is a chaotic love story. Aren't they all? And I said that to him and he looked at me like, "That is not correct, Dad." I was like, "You don't have enough experience." Write that down. But you will. You will. All right, let's go ahead. Is everybody ready?

All right. Minute late. Uh, call the meeting to order. I quit if we're doing it. Just wondering, do we have people online today? Guido, sorry. Do we have people online besides Oh, we do. Yes, actually we do. Thanks. All right. Uh, go ahead. Call to order. Can we go through roll call, please? Sure. Commissioner Chang, here. Commissioner Baron. Commissioner Rana here. Commission Vice Chair Walton here. Chair Woodson here. Commissioner St. John here. Commissioner Jacobson here.

We have Corm. Thank you very much. Um just a reminder um Seth Commissioner Chang is still overseas right now. So he is calling in today. Did you have questions you wanted to ask him on that? No. No, because I believe he's he's attending under the traditional rule. So I think it's all agenda as necessary.

Okay, perfect. Just wanted to make sure. Um, all right. Uh, next up is the moment of silence and pledge of allegiance. Um, Mr. Jacobson. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. A

little bit longer. We can say that season's almost over. My team's been out for a while. All right. Next up, do we have special announcements and communications from the floor? Um, we'll start locally. Do we have anybody who would like to make comment from the floor here today? Yes. On an item not on the agenda. Yes.

Good evening, Chair Woodson, members of the planning commission. My name is Brian McCarthy. You know the drill. I am a city council member, but uh I'm not representing that body um as a whole today with these comments, just representing myself as happen to be a city council member. I've made these comments to you before, but um I'd like to take advantage of the opportunity when I'm here given probably the lack of of public comment that you often get. Um but I just want to take a moment to one thank all of you for your time and energy um that you've dedicated on the planning commission. It's not easy work. you're reviewing pretty complex land use um decisions and quite frankly decisions that have a tremendous impact on our community. Um I want to offer words of encouragement. The strength of the commission lies in your independent uh judgment. I think your staff provides very expert analysis and recommendations. Um and they do excellent work. But your role is to apply your own perspective, values, and your sense of community values to the decisions that you make. Um, I know that there's often a a strong desire to come up with unanimous consensus and I think that's great when you can do that. But I just want to encourage you um not to speak out or not to be afraid to speak out when um there are things that you feel should be voiced and um you may feel afraid to do so because of the lack of of consensus or or the optics of what that might look like. Um I think that you represent the community well when you do that. Um, you should feel empowered to probe deep. Um, challenge assumptions, voice your true opinions. It's not only appropriate, it's exactly what's needed from a city planning commission. Um, our city's best served when every commissioner brings their independent thinking and skills to the table. So, thank you very much for the work that you do. Um, just I I know you've heard that from me before again, but I like to say it um and remind commissioners. I've kind of heard from a few of you that sometimes you feel a

little bit um worried that you're not able to kind of kind of play out different scenarios, but um the public is watching and they actually like when you when you bring good comments to the table. So, thank you very much for the time, Chair. Thanks, Brian. Anybody else from the floor? Uh open it up. Is there anybody on the line who would like to provide a comment today? No one. Um, all right. Um, no other special announcements. Oh, I'm sorry,

Chair Woodson. We have one gentleman, but we need to be be clear that these are items for not on the agenda. That this is that part of the agenda. Okay. So, Brian, you've been unmuted. Did you want to speak? see who's online. Were you able to hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. Brian, yes. My comments were items that are on the agenda. Uh, so I could refrain from them till till needed.

Great. Yeah, if you could wait until we get to the actual consent agenda and what we're going to cover today, that would be be great. If you do have something else you would like to say, please you can say that now. All right, then we'll just we'll hold off and we'll come back to you then. Now that we've made sure the technology works. Okay. Um go ahead and close that part of the agenda out for today. Oh, you have special announcements. Okay. Um sure, Commissioner Walton.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I just have a quick quick announcements about some assembly bills that were passed and signed by the governor. Uh the governor signed SB515 which um is uh in January of 2027 will have all cities and counties collecting data specific um that that will disagregate the uh African-American category to um bring out the descendants of cattle slavery as their own distinct group distinguishing them from other black uh Californians. Uh the governor has issued a formal apology and signed it. He's also um established a bureau for dissident of American slavery and has said or will be sending $6 million to the CSU system in order to research methods to verify the lineage of descendants of enslaved teachers. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anything else? Okay. Um, next we'll go to exparte communication. Chair Woodson, our deputy city attorney has raised his hand online. Okay. So, we'll come back to this. Yes. See, hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. Doesn't look like my video is working. So, um, I I spoke too soon. I I I apologize. I do not see Commissioners Chang's location out of town listed on the agenda. So, I do need to ask the commissioner whether he qualifies for any of the just cause

grounds under AB2449 um as amended by uh SB77. Um so, Commissioner Chang, are you attending remotely for uh in order to care for a family member or because of a communicable illness or because you're traveling out of town for city business? No, we we we we do have his address on the agenda. It's uh some place in Singapore. Okay. Um it's it's under the Yeah, I don't So I think what he's seeing is the same thing I am. I don't I'm not seeing it in the agenda that was posted online. It's right here.

Oh, right at the very top. Yeah. uh in the participation paragraph. No, it's right. It's right there. Okay, that I I must be looking at a at an old version of the agenda, so I apologize. Thank you for pointing that out. No problem. No problem. Then we're all good. Thanks. Okay, thank you. [clears throat] No, that's fine. And regardless, that's double checking that isn't going to hurt us. So, hi, Miguel. [laughter]

Speak about you behind your back, so to speak, in in person. [clears throat] Okay. All right. Let's try to move on to section to item five again. My like favorite announcement section of this exparte communications for quasi judicial matters. Do we have any items to raise by the commission? Okay, we'll go as item five. Item six is consent agenda today. I think all we have on that that portion of it is approval of the minutes from our last meeting in September. Um, forever ago and it's not

um end of October, end of the year. Uh, any comments from the commissioners or any changes that they wanted to make? Okay, go ahead and do a vote on that quido. Sure. Uh, Commissioner Chang, sorry. Yes. Uh, Commissioner Baron, Commissioner Rana, yes. Vice Chair Walton, yes. Chair Woodson, yes. Commissioner St. John, yes. Commissioner Jacobson, yes. Motion passes.

Thank you. All right. Item number seven. We have two items on the public hearings tonight. Uh the first is a conditional use permit for the holiday and express and suites. And then the second is a short-term misspelled rental ordinance amendment, which funny, I've heard that a couple times and I didn't catch that. [laughter] might not be a nice show. So, um yeah, we'll have to make sure this is like I don't know how to deal with that on that. [clears throat] Um anyway, coming back to item number one, conditional use permit. Um holiday express. Brian, I think is going to present today.

Uh before we do, I believe one of the commissioners has to recuse herself. Uh that's right. Believe that. Yes. Yes. You could just hang out outside for a little bit. Thank you.

Wrong one. We good? Yeah. I'm pulling it up right now. Okay. I just want to know making sure I'm Chris Baron. the rest of it. I'm just I know that you're it's the end of the day and go ahead, Brian.

Go.

Okay. Thank you, Chair Woodson. My name is Brian Kim. I'm the assistant planner. I'll be presenting today on the Holiday N Express and Sweets Marina located at 189 Casside Circle and they applied for a conditional use permit. Next slide, please. So, looking at the map, the project location is at the intersection between Reservation Road and Seaside Circle located right next to the roundabout. Next slide. So here's a floor plan of the project. Um, as you can see, the Sunundry shop will be in the main lobby of the hotel and the general plan designation is visitor serving retail and services and the zoning district is planned commercial district. Next slide, please. So here's a little background. On July 1st, the applicant applied for a conditional use permit to allow on-site sale and consumption of beer, wine, and distilled spirits for overnight guests. And this is a type 70 ABC license. On August 7th, police commander Richard Cox confirmed that there have not been any calls regarding alcohol in the location and that the police department has no concerns whatsoever allowing the on-site sale and consumption of alcohol at this location. Next slide, please. So, there are two parts to the project. The first is the proposed sundry shop located adjacent to the front desk at the hotel lobby which would sell beer, wine, food, and other travel necessities. The hours of operations are between 6:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. And additionally, there will be a mini bars located within individual guest rooms that will be stocked with beer, wine,

and distilled spirits for guests overnight. Next slide, please. So per Marina Municipal Codes SE uh 17.42.020 section B a finding of public convenience or necessity is not required for an an establishment or business where alcoholic beverages are served or sold for on and or offsale consumption when incidental and in combination with food or groceries. And as mentioned earlier, the lobby shop will be selling food and other travel necessities. and the proposed alcohol will be an incidental. Next slide, please. So, here's the recommended motion and that concludes my presentation. Thank you very much. Um, so I'm going to open the floor for internally to the commission to questions.

No, you did it right. No, Commissioner St. John tried to beat you to the buzzer, but Commissioner Walton was first because she had already hit it before it even started. Nothing. It's like

All right. Uh, so, Commissioner Jacobson, [clears throat] uh, yeah, I do have one concern about this and, um, I've stayed in many hotels like this that have this service. Um, the alcohol is just out in a cooler or sitting there. And this looks like it's not going to be in plain sight of the front desk. So, what prevents somebody underage from coming in and grabbing alcohol and disappearing? Thank you for the question. I believe we should have the applicant online. So if they want to answer that question.

Uh is it um Gemma? Gemma. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead Gemma. Thank you so much. Um I also Nick Patel is also here. I'm the uh the permit expediter, but if you wanted to hear from him directly, he can also speak to this. But the alcohol any items in the Sunundry shop have to be purchased from a staff member. So, um, and Nick, are do you want to comment on how you handle that in your many establishments?

Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Hello. My name is Nick Patel. Um yeah, actually the sundry shop is uh to the left of the front desk enclosed into a space. So um the front desk which is 24 hours uh it's staffed. They would directly see if someone walked up to it um because it's in plain sight. So it's not around the corner, it's off to the desk and they'd have to pass the desk to get into the sunundry shop. So, um, we obviously want to make sure that it's secured in that fashion. That

that still doesn't sound secure to me. I mean, they could be checking in a guest to not see them. They could be I I just don't understand why alcohol isn't under a little more control. Yeah. Um, I mean, it's like that. We own four other Holiday Expresses. All the Sunundry shops typically have it in a fridge that's usually placed a bit higher. So a little kid doesn't and can't access it just directly. So we take our own preventative measures to ensure that um that doesn't happen. Not only for that reason, but for theft and other reasons as well.

Okay. I'm still not convinced. I mean, I'm not talking about little kids. I'm talking about teenagers who could reach it. It's always been a concern of mine. So I'm hoping we can get it resolved here. I'm thinking it through. Um, if there's any suggestions, we're open to it, obviously. Um, so I mean I Is there a way to get it under lock and key, but have it so that the front desk could buzz somebody in there?

I don't know about buzzing someone in there. Potentially, there could be some kind of lock and key on the fridge itself potentially. Or if it's wine, it's sitting in a cabinet that's locked. Um, that that could be a potential solution if that has to be done. I mean, I I I'm going to give my the the my the personal experience from my from that I've had with it and it it it influences the conversation because I agree with Commissioner Jacobson and having traveled a lot in my career before, I'm I'm used to it and I understand it and I haven't and I haven't I've seen it from a customer perspective and not a

owner manager perspective and it's a timing convenience issue. you want. How [clears throat] do you balance the customer's needs against it? At the same time, at my own personal house, I had an issue where we had it stored in the garage and we had somebody literally over the over over a period of months not one of teenage friends of one of my teens noticed it and then actually came into the garage when nobody was home and literally took the beer out of out of it and we went to confront the parents. It was so I've had that experience and yes it's not quite the same but I think that it we're providing an we're giving an opportunity is what we're providing when we don't have things and unfortunately it's a just like cigarettes and and vaping there are restrictions that guide the the the access and control and I think from a risk factor and I think that's it's interesting because you talk about how it isn't an issue and it reminds me of Okay. How how trusting we are as society. And it doesn't matter whether it's beer or wine or skis sitting up on a ski rack at a ski resort that cost thousands of dollars and then we just leave them out there when we go in to eat thinking nobody's ever going to take them. And we trust that society will meet the rules that we have and then we come back to it until they don't.

And it get something gets stolen. And loss prevention is a big deal to you. But at the same time, loss prevention on a on alcohol that ends up getting drunk or they steal a case and then they go out there and they go drive or they get the public [clears throat]

creates a an image that is not necessarily good for you all. It's also not good for the city um if it gets tied back to the city. And so I'm not sure I I agree with Commissioner Jacobs. not sure what's a good solution of how to balance this. I mean, you've obviously got statistics to show that you're that from a loss perspective, you're not having that come up. Um, and I guess maybe that's a question to mine is do you have you are there any issues? I mean, have you had that happen or is it how rare or how I would assume it's happened at some point, but I mean, I don't know.

Yeah. I mean our experience in this industry, you know, being in it for 30 plus years and having these level of hotels for the last 18 to 20 years and having the same setup in whether it's Fresno, Loi, Phoenix, Chandler, Scottdale, this this particular location actually is probably one of the more secured ones. We're happy to invite uh to take a look at it only because it's not the opening is against the front desk and it's the opening is not on the lobby side. So, it's probably one of the more secure locations why I feel a little bit stronger on this location than maybe a market that's located either on the opposite side of the desk or maybe around the hallway in the corridor. Uh this location I'd probably be less concerned with. There are I agree there are some locations where hey maybe it happens a little bit more but it's never been I think a a problem in the history of our ownership group and for the number of hotels that we've been under ownership and management. So I totally understand

you know on the schematic I can't locate the front desk. I can see the lobby. It's actually right next it's just above it and to the right.

Oh I see it. So, and I think that that to that point I and I if I read my architect remember my architectural drawings, right, as an engineer, basically the dash line means that what you're going to end up having is you'll have a an opening door that walks in, the door closes, they're they're kind of enclosed there, but they won't actually have to walk into the lobby area. They'll actually be a standalone window that they actually pay pay or drop off or have it debited against their room account based that literally ties to the front desk. So, so this schematic is just slightly skewed. There is no door there. The opening is only on the front desk side. That corridor,

it's a complete solid wall. So, you have to actually go through the front desk to get into that little market. Okay. Yeah. It's not there's not even an opening on the lobby. Got it. So actually that's the space there in between the front desk and the sunundry shop is actually that is really in that case it's just a straight opening that they then walk through and then so they and then there's a cutout to the front desk that gets them back into the lobby space. Okay. Yeah, that was actually my concern. That door was around the corner.

Oh yeah. No, it's not actually. We would not be able Yeah, that that we would probably have a lot of theft if it was just that door that's open to the the guest room corridor hallway. Okay. I think that that that allies that allies a lot of my concerns as does mine. Good. Um because it just gives a better they're less likely to walk right past somebody and go grab something. Agreed. And go unnoticed. Um, so they're taking a risk. Okay. Thanks. Um, Commissioner St. John,

turn on my mic. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I just have one quick confirmation that this would be for consumption, on-site consumption by registered hotel guests and not a shopping center type situation. Agreed. Really, it's just an amenity. Yeah, it's just an amenity for our customers. We're typically not even selling a ton. It really just helps us boost our scores for guest satisfaction. Really, it ends up costing us more to have it, but it really boosts the IH reward members guest experience at our hotel.

I'm fine. Thank you. Thank you. I'm fine. That actually matches um the Naval Postgraduate School just did the same thing. um they took one of the shops that's right next to the lobby there and they've opened it up recently and the result that they're seeing after the first three months is is kind of proving out the same thing. It's a it's a convenience but it's a convenience that is not being used a lot of a lot for it but they wanted to provide that service to the customers just in case. Um and it's that's how it's working out. Um so um Commissioner Rana.

Okay. My question is for the staff. Does the permit allow taking the beverage outside uh and drinking in the parking lot area? No. Um no. I think it's consumed in the uh in their guest room only.

I mean I Sorry. So, I'm I'm going to go back to I don't think we have control over that. And I don't think the hotel actually has control over that. I mean, that's like it doesn't matter if they purchase it here or they went literally a block down the road to 7-Eleven or into Walmart or came up to one of the main stores. If they buy something and they walk back, at that point they're following the the Marina regulations on what they would fall under for drinking alcohol in public. Yeah. For

Yeah. I mean, there are separate laws for that. And I so I I think that in this case we're not trying the the regulation is not trying to mand to override the current city regulations for open container in the city. Um so the idea is that they're probably it's just like an outside source. I don't think I mean unless your prices are really good. [clears throat] I mean [laughter] really good maybe I'll maybe I'll be I would come over but um register and register [laughter] just go buy a beer. But I mean I think that that generally that's I mean we're seeing it be internal usage. The license type is for on sale consumption which means it's really not designed for someone to take and leave the premises with.

No. Um but we also live in a beach community and if they buy something and they take it to their car and they go down to the beach because they want to watch sunset that's I mean that's I think that's that be again it becomes a private issue that's outside the purview. mean we set we've set the rules and this is what we're saying they're supposed to do but if they if they go against they do something that's different that's fine but then they fall under different regulations. Um so

okay and the next question to the applicant uh what about event management that somebody organizes a party and uh the management organizes this maybe a birthday at the beach or a wedding party. So, will this permit include usage of alcoholic beverages in that event? I I I didn't hear you didn't speak into the microphone. I was having trouble.

So, I think what he's saying is if there was a if there was actually a planned event there that had alcohol served, but I think that would that come under this purview of this this requirement? I don't I'll turn it over to you, but I think I know the answer. No. No. And this not for any events. This is just for overnight guests to drink in their room.

So overnight guests organizing uh an event and the hotel management conducting that or kind of organizing this for on behalf of the guests. I mean, if if three guests want to go downstairs at the hotel and grab two bottles of wine and stay at the hotel or whatnot. We just that's not within our purview. I mean, there's so many permutations of that that

right. I mean, if they had friends that came over or not, I think that that again this is about internal consumption. It's a convenience. I think as soon as you're what you're tying it to is if the hotel then ties it back to an event. But if the hotel was hosting an event at that point, this is a ve that becomes a very different permitted item. And I'm not I mean I'm not even going to get into it because I don't this is not about a permit to host host events that have alcohol or not have alcohol. This is only about the store itself. That's correct. That's my understanding.

Okay, that's all I have. Thank you. So, the one question I have is [clears throat] I'm just trying to think of, okay, we've got we've got a couple other properties, hotels in the city that have sunundry stores. Um, we when the police, they haven't had any issues here, but we've never had this here. So, I'm not necessarily sure if that's a good direct comparison. Have we had issues at at any of the hotels that have ever come up with that have a sunundry store that has beer and wine or a sale of anywhere where you have that alcohol that could be purchased or or in some type or picked up because there's an open house or anything like that? We had anything similar to that ever come up in the city? Uh well I can't when you use the word ever as a city just celebrating probability that

but yeah so in the four years that I've been here this is now the fourth or fifth ABC permit we've taken to you guys and each and every time the police department always comes back with no significant issues but I can't speak for forever because the city's been around since 1975. five. So, it's not an excuse for you. Um, just kidding. Okay. Um, there's my questions that I had, I think, from commission. I want to go ahead and open it up to the floor. Are there any comments from the people in attendance here?

Yes. Oh, all right. Let me let me come back to you, Commissioner Tang, for in a minute. Okay. Is that okay? Yeah. No problem. Any I've opened this up. Is there any questions from the floor in the public here? Okay. No. Here. Are there any questions from online or comments? I don't see anybody online. Chair raising their hand for Commissioner Ch.

Okay. So, I'll go ahead and close the public comment period and we'll come back to the commission and then uh Commissioner Chang. Well, thank you chair. U my question is to Brian um about the cup. You're saying that the allowing the on-site sales I think can we be more precise on the locations like mentioning the lobby. I'm not sure whether Holiday in have permit to sell liquors in the guest room in the refrigerator. Yeah. And uh so that's why I I I'd like to know the u the cup. Can you be more precise on the locations? That that that's the standard language in terms of on or offsite consumption. And in terms of inside their room, I believe that's part of the permit tonight. So, um, so we're we're addressing both the specific in the room as well as is it on or offsite and it's onsite. I believe the applicant mentioned a type 70 license. So,

so how about the pool area? Pool area. I we would have to ask the applicant on that specific question. So I don't Java, does this permit cover us in the pool area? Um, yes it can. It can. It's It's an on-site license, so a patron could take a purchase something from the Sunundry Shop and take it anywhere on the footprint of the licensed premises. So it's it's everywhere then not just uh the lobby uh area correct.

That's right on site. That's that's how it's agendaized. So okay the the second question is um Nick mentioned that they have preventive measurements to prevent teenagers um getting liquors from the hotel. So, Nick, uh, could you elaborate the preventive measurement that you had?

Yeah. Um, I mean, you know, we're obviously staffed 24 hours at the desk. Um, usually if, uh, just like other locations, if anyone looks under 35, uh, they're IDing the the guest. Um, we also want to protect ourselves as well as, uh, ensure that, you know, no one's getting carried away. Uh there's SOPs at the hotels that kind of go through this during the the onboarding of new employees and how and who we sell our alcohol to. Um again, I think one of the commissioners mentioned we're priced higher. This is not 7-Eleven. It's not a grocery store. We also don't want to, you know, continue restocking. So we price it high enough where it's more of a convenience and not people are trying to get drunk off of, you know, wine and and beer. So most of the time it's they're taking a few and taking it to their room based on the customer demographic in that market. Um, and I think that kind of prevents the excessive sales because if someone was going to do that, they'd go down to the Walmart down the street and go get six-packs and and do as they see fit. So I think that helps uh limit the sales. Again, this is not the money maker for us. It's really to boost our guest satisfaction scores. I understand the um you you mentioned you have 24 hours staff and um again on site and um so what is the proposed hours of sales of liquor in the hotel?

6 6:00 a.m. to 2 6 6 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. in the next morning. is [clears throat] in the application 6 a.m. And the the next question when always related to sales of liquor is the noise and the nuisance. So what kind of measurements will be in place to take care of this? Yeah, I mean if they're obviously making noise in the rooms, it's disturbing you know 100 150 other customers. So we have zero tolerance for that. Um I now how about the pool pool deck and the patio?

Yeah. So our pool is on the basement level that's located across other guest rooms. Again, zero tolerance for for noise or any type of violence uh as it really affects guest satisfaction and scores. We're really big on that. And so that you know we definitely would you know first warning and second warning you're out. Um there is no three strikes and you're out in our in our company. Okay that's good to know because one thing good about holiday in location is away from the residence area is close to Walmart right. So yeah I think okay thank you very much.

You're welcome. Okay. Um, come back to the commission. Um, anything else from the commission questions?

So, I I if not, I have a couple comments that I had looked up on this when I was doing the research. Um, and it's ambivalent because it's reviews, but I think to address Commissioner Chang your kind of your comments about noise and I think discipline within within the guests um, going out and looking at at Trip Advisor um, and searching off of noise. I think they have over I think they they had over 400 reviews and of those reviews um only nine of those I think 10 of those actually discuss noise in any form or another and even at those um most of those were that okay it was an issue but it was handled. something like one directly states I will say there was a noise issue but it didn't go past 11 am so I think the hotel is aware and has always put a limit on it um I mean that's literally quoting from a review and even that review was only eight years that was eight years ago so

um that's a signal to me when you have that many reviews that online being that are posted that they do a good job of managing their their guests and the guest experience on that not to sway anything but just to kind of that's I think a metric that you can look at over time because that is a long series of reviews.

Um I think overall I'm again I've been traveling off and on for 30 years and I've had the inter room interim capability. Um, I guess my only other question back to the on to to your side is beer is beer, wine is wine bottles. Can't really do much with that. On the liquor side, the rooms are obviously going to be many bottles. Um, I'm just curious, not to control it, but I'm just curious at what the intent is of of how you serve, what are the container sizes for at your other hotels when you have liquor in in room. They're really the really mini like

mini bottles. Yeah. Mini super mini bottles, right? And again, you know, we're we're it's a convenience factor. So, they're priced fairly high and it doesn't move as much, but when someone just wants a 2 oz shot or a 4 oz shot really is is really what that's meant for. Then what about the Sunundry store? Are you going to actually um sell the liquor out of the Sunundry store or the liquor is the intent where the liquor just gets separated off? that's just in a room as a single serving size.

Yeah. So, I think we've applied for all of it, but normally um depending on, you know, how the GM wants to discuss that with us if this were to be approved, um we normally just put beer and wine in the sundry shop and then potentially those mini liquor bottles in the rooms only, but um we're not quite sure of that detail just yet, but we obviously applied for both just in case we do do it. Okay. No, that's fine. I was just curious. That's my experience has been that that's that's exactly how it's usually set up in almost every place I've ever traveled. Exactly. Because you don't necessarily know people have a single shot is a single shot serving in a room. Yeah.

A a bottle then all of a sudden opens up to taste because then people want to have okay how much how much am I going to drink and if I'm only going to be for a night or two it becomes it's easier to go to the liquor store. Cher Woodson if I may. Yeah. in the application that day was submitted, the lobby store only would offer beer and wine. Yeah, makes sense. Okay, I've looked through it a couple times and I didn't see that. So, thanks for the update on that. I think that's only my other my other question. Um, does anybody would not I'm going ahead and close out conversation here. Is anybody would like to who would like to make a motion?

Sure. Uh, Commissioner Rana. Okay. I propose a resolution number 25 202525-12 of the planning commission approving conditional use permit CU25-00003 allowing the on-site sale and consumption of beer, wine, and distilled spirits at the Holiday in Express Suits Marina located at 89 Cside circle APN 033-11 dash 032 the holiday express marina subject to findings conditions of approval and the class one section 15301 squa exemption for existing facilities.

A second. We have a second from Commissioner Walton. Commissioner Chang raised his hand. Uh Commissioner Chang, would you like could we discuss on the uh on the motion again before? Sure. What would you like? What would you like to discuss about it

about the location? Brian just say lobby store. Is that right, Brian? So, it's actually at the lobby. So, there'll be this the lobby store that's off of the actual res the actual um lobby registration area. So, the map is the diagram that was in the meeting was incorrect. There's actually going to be a solid wall. So, you can only access it through the registration counter area. And then they'll also have a mini bar capability or they'll have approval if they decide to put in a mini bar in each of the rooms. So is they could not put do it in the mini bar. I mean have mini bar in every room. Is that right? The permit doesn't restrict that. Correct. They'd be able to put a mini bar in the rooms. The mini bars can have beer, wine or liquor in sing which is basically going to be single serving sizes. And then in the sunundry store it is only for beer and wine.

Okay. All right. That's clear. Thank you. Okay. So, I if we go back to the vote, we have a motion with a second. Commissioner Chang, a second. We're actually taking So, Commissioner Walton seconded. Oh, actually now. Oh, yes. Commissioner Rana. Yes. Vice Chair Walton. Yes. Chair Woodson. Yes. Commissioner St. John, yes. Commissioner Jacobson, yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank [clears throat] you very much for coming presenting today.

Thank you. Thank you guys. Okay. Uh next up, we have our short-term rental ordinance amendments. Um that's going to be presented again by Brian. You are the center of attention or he is passing it off. Good evening, commissioners. I am Marisa Huntley. One second. Hold on. We operate a much faster pace than he is. He's from the He's from the valley. One second. Why is it not letting me

one second or two or three? You might have to close the door today. That's fine. [laughter] in yesterday. No, it's it has this little popup window. It's not letting me I had the same comment about an hour before this that it was a little bit chilly tonight and my silent taste like it's not cold. It's just a little bit of a chill. It's not Yeah, it's not cold. It's just You can feel it tonight. Oh, just exit. Oh. says, "Sign in or create an account."

Never been asked. Is your computer? One second. We need to call Alison.

No. Rita doesn't figure this out soon, I'm going to start pulling up my list of dad jokes. Right. While we're waiting and to break the silence, just going to go around the room. So, Commissioner Baron, welcome back to the the front. Are you doing anything for Halloween and having candy and decorations?

Absolutely not. All right, perfect. Nothing. All right, Commissioner Rana, are you doing anything? No. Okay. Zero and two. Vice Chair Walton. I'm boycotting the holidays. Boycott. That would be zero. Zero for three. All right, Commissioner Jacobson. We will prepare for the eight trick-or-treaters that we usually. All right. So, one for four. Commissioner Ch. Uh, Commissioner Chang, you doing? Are you going to be back? Are you going to be back by next week?

No, I'll be here until maybe November. I'm going to miss Halloween and uh there's nothing much here in Singapore. No. Would you actually do something if you were here? Yeah. Giving candies away. So, so all right. So, now we're like we're balancing it out. Okay. Commissioner St. John. Yes, absolutely. Oh my gosh. This is literally a left and a right. Yes. That's come right down to the chair and unfortunately people on the right.

My wife and I go to the different stores and stock up for an army of children, which never happens. And so you just have the candy. But I have months of supply. You have months of supply. So unfortunately when it comes down to it, this is a positive for our commission because the Woodson family does. So our intention this year, our goal for our house is 800 kids this year. 800. That's our goal. Our highest that we ever had was the co year. We had,63. Well, that's because your front yard is so welcoming. Um, we're a destination house for Halloween and for Christmas.

Yeah. Brian's sitting here in the audience. He's like, "Yeah, I know." Yeah. Um, no. If you have not been to the corner of California and Brain Dollar, then you have then you have not enjoyed life. You've missed out. It's actually I've got the I gota get the music and the smoke kind of hooked up this weekend because that'll start this weekend. But please come by and mention to anybody who's listening on here, Halloween is coming up. And if you don't get the satisfaction from some places because they don't have anything, we do. And if if you go there and you need more, come to Bradley Circle and I'll be happy to help you there. All right. So, we've gotten the Halloween stuff out of the way. Are we ready for the presentation? Yeah. Are you going to decorate and Halloween? We We'll talk later. So,

we'll talk later. Oh my god. [laughter] Just simple yes or no. Yes, he will. Yes. Thank you. All right. All right.

Good morning. Good evening, commissioners. Uh, I'm ready for tomorrow. Uh, my name is Manisha Huntley, the code enforcement manager um under the building division. I'm here to present on municipal ordinance amendments to our short-term rental ordinance 17.42.170. Next slide, please. The background. On November 5th of 2019, city council adopted the ordinance uh 2019-02 amending the zoning ordinance to include 17.42.170 42.170 entitled short-term rentals which establishes a permitting process and appropriate standards for whole dwelling units or portions of the same for a period of 29 consecutive days or less along with associated regulations to mitigate negative impacts. On August 6, 2025, city council initiated this a discussion on strengthening the city's short-term rental program to better protect neighborhood integrity. City Council directed staff to identify ordinance amendments that would improve the effectiveness of the program. Analysis on proposed ordinance updates. The updates that are attached to the uh packet um strengthened the short-term rental program. It defined primary residence and acceptable forms of identification. uh it defined advertising to enhance enforcement for the advertisement of unpermitted short-term rentals. It also established parking requirements. It is uh intending to prohibit short-term rental activity on properties with accessory dwelling units and junior accessory dwelling units, senior and below market h correction. Um, it wants to prohibit short-term rental activity on properties that are intended for senior and below market rate housing, apartment complexes, and for commercial events or any events where or properties where it's intended

for the use of unaccompanied minors. It updated permit application procedures and it added specific it adds specific prohibitions in updated hosting platform requirements and adds liability and enforcement. and it's also in line with ordinances in the neighboring jurisdictions. The outline of the targeted changes as mentioned initially uh primary residence forms of identification, advertising, parking requirements, permit application procedures, hosting platform requirements, and liability and enforcement for primary residents. In our current ordinance, we are lacking a clear definition of what what the or what the council intended initially with the ordinance. So, we are listing the requirement that the homeowner exemption must be listed on the county property record. It's not just this is my property, it's my primary residence. It has to be listed on the property record with the county. Uh it requires a minimum residency by the owner of at least six months because currently you know they're telling us that it is their primary residence and they do spend six months but the property is being rented the whole year right based on the calendar search you can see that the whole month is available. Uh STR use is limited to a maximum of 180 days. This means that the owner has to live there technically 6 months out of the year and they can only rent it for 180 days out of the year. Next one, please. Oh, and and within that, the applicant is required to provide a proposed rental calendar for the fiscal year and submit platform transaction ledgers during the STR during the permit renewal process as proof that they did not violate the

code and that they did not rent it for more than six months. Forms of identification. Currently we ask for two forms of of identification for new uh permit applications but upon renewal we have not been requiring. So you know some of the applicants will initially go to DMV after being told that they cannot get a permit because their driver's license does not show that they live in Marina. It shows that it's their second house and they're in San Jose or another city. So then they do a change of address at DMV and provide us that proof. But obviously they can go back and change it back to their original primary where they live and we will never know about it because we have not been requiring that that the resubmitt of those original documents. So the ordinance now requires that they resubmit upon renewal. Um, we added acceptable forms of identification which includes the DMV vehicle registration, driver's license, state and federal tax returns, bank account statements, voter registration card, and a utility bill dated within 60 days. This is due upon new application and renewal at the fiscal year. advertising. We created a subsection 8 to uh section B of that ordinance. Um we described advertising uh meaning signs, circulars, cards, telephone books, newspapers, magazines, posters, email, mobile applications, television, radio, or any other representation implying or stating that the property is available for short-term rental use. Um, currently there's properties come on the platform or different platforms for rent without a permit and there's methods of locating them and citing them, but we currently don't really have it listed so where I

can site them for advertising an unpermitted short-term rental. So, this added a mechanism for a violation for actually advertising a property without a permit. We created subsection 11 advertising um oh this is where we actually listed that advertising it is a violation um and it goes for both the property owner and an agent um if they have a company that's listing it for them without getting the proper licenses and permits. Next slide. Parking requirements. We've received several complaints over the last few years about um short-term rental properties and the parking issue. Sometimes they rent, you know, the occupants or the customer, it'll be, you know, they'll have like eight adults or six adults and they all bring their car. So now you have six cars or eight cars in the neighborhood creating a parking nuisance for the neighbors. So we added parking requirements to the ordinance. Uh we added subsection 12 that states that the permit holder has to list the maximum number of vehicles allowed on site or even in the street. It cannot exceed the number of bedrooms in the property. So if you have a three-bedroom house, you cannot have more than three cars. Obviously, they have to list the maximum number of vehicles in their post, but we will only find out if there's a complaint from the neighbors. uh the s the short-term rental owner will be required to provide their platform listing and we have to ensure that the parking requirements are listed in that platform listing or advertisement. Next, if I can change the page, permit application procedures. We clarified and added additional procedures to subsection D. Um, we clarified that the permit application

fee is not refundable. Sometimes when we deny them, people expect that they can get their money back. And so we clearly defined that it's an unrefundable application review fee. Uh, we added section five which require that the owner provide site plans drawn to scale to include the floor plan of the building and showing every room. And of course, those rooms have to match what's on the property record. I've come across some properties where the property record has three bedrooms, but they're listing it as a five-bedroom house, which is a problem. It makes we require them to get the building permits to legalize those other bedrooms. We added section six. We are requiring that they provide the rental or lease agreement to be used or the house rules and requirements will shall which which shall include but not necessarily be limited to the number of guest allowed will shall not exceed two per legal bedroom plus two additional guests. That's already in the code, but we're reminding them that they cannot list more guests than is allowed per the number of bedrooms they have. And of course, u number of vehicles a guest is allowed to park on site and offsite. and section seven. Once the permit is issued, the permit number must be listed on all platform listing headlines and the platform web links provided to the city. Uh this makes it to where city staff can quickly see the unpermitted uh rentals because they won't have that short-term rental permit number that we issue them on Airbnb or BRBO or any of the other platforms. Next slide, please. specific prohibitions. We created subsection 14 uh to section uh C. The activities prohibited for short-term rentals are examples that include but are not limited to the following.

Parcels that have an an accessory dwelling unit or a junior accessory dwelling unit are prohibited from obtaining a short-term rental permit. Senior housing units and below market price units may not be used for short-term rental purposes. An owner may not have a short-term rental permit on more than one parcel for short-term rental use in the city's jurisdiction. In addition, the parcel listed on the permit must be the owner's primary residence. More than one short-term rental booking may not occur concurrently per parcel. Commercial or assembly uses such as weddings, corporate events, and parties are prohibited in short-term rentals and short-term rentals to unaccompanied minor minors is prohibited. Hosting platform requirements. Uh, a new Senate bill uh 346 recently passed, so we added subsection six to include it. It basically uh authorizes the city to require the short-term rental platforms to facilitate um the physical to report to provide us a report of the physical address of all the short-term rentals that they have listed on their uh on their platform. This way it makes our our job easy to identify which ones have permits, which ones do not. um even though it's listed in our m municipal code currently, this Senate bill just fortifies that and gives us another I guess tool

another tool. Um more backing to obtain that information from the platform. Uh failure to submit the required report may result in administrative fines, penalties or an audit initiated by the city to that platform. Um, nothing in this section preempts or limits the city's authority to adopt additional regulations governing short-term rentals, facilitators, or the collection and remittance of transient occupancy taxes, liability, and enforcement. Uh, this section, section F was added um to just clearly list um the enforcement tools that we have to enforce violations of the code. Um, currently, you know, we we go after the property owner, but this allows us to go over to to site the owner, the representative, the tenants, persons acting as their agent, a real estate broker, real estate sales agent, property manager, reservation service, or otherwise, uh, who uses arranges or negotiates for the use of residential property in violation of the code. uh they shall be guilty of an infraction for each violation and for each day uh the property is used and violations of this chapter may be prosecuted pursuant to Marina Municipal Code 1.12.080 080 and issued a civil penalty not exceeding the amount set forth in California government code 36900 DDavid. Summary of ordinance updates. Primary residence. A clearly defined primary residence and implemented duration limit. Forms of identification. It listed acceptable proof of identification and require homeowners tax exemption requirement. Advertising. It defined advertisement advertisement methods and clearly listed that advertising on unpermitted short-term

rental is a violation. Parking requirements. It limits the number of vehicles equal to the number of bedrooms. Permit application procedures. It's a non-refundable application fee. Site plan and lease agreement required. and short-term rental platform links must be provided. Prohibitions: Properties with an accessory dwelling unit or a junior accessory dwelling unit, senior housing, apartments, commercial or assembly uses, and unaccompanied minors are prohibited from the short-term rental program. Hosting platform requirements must comply with Senate Bill 346, which requires them to share information with the city. liability and enforcement is was added to enhance enforcement to all involved parties and of course the recommended motion. So, so that was a lot of information to share. So, first of all, thank you to Marissa and Brian. So, but just just to kind of put a bow around it, so we were asked by the city council, what could we do to strengthen the ordinance to protect neighborhoods? So, that really is the gist of these um the edits that we're proposing. Um we've added some stuff as staff which we can go into above that. Um but we're really here to hear from the public, hear from the commission, and um yeah, just wanted to clarify that. Yeah.

And I will add one last statement before we go out to comment. Uh staff has brought this uh all these, you know, these updates to the ordinance. um to strengthen our existing regulations to better preserve neighborhood character. These updates reflect community feedback and lessons learned over the last few years since the ordinance was first adopted. Uh they're intended to create a more balanced approach that supports neighborhood preservation while allowing responsible short-term rental operations. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Very detailed. a lot of information yet. Well, I'm just going to go down the list because I'm just so every coun every commissioner is going to have a question. We have public here who have comments that go with this. Um I am been debating kind of how to run this tonight for a couple days. Um, and so I think I'm going to try to put a couple of ground rules, but I want to make sure Guido number one is, um, as much as I love the summary slide, the reality is that I think that I almost want to go slide by slide at some point to address wording issues if we get to that point. Um, I don't see an is there an issue with that, Guido?

Uh, no. I Okay. Yeah. Thanks.

All right. So what I would like to do um for this is my ground rules for this evening are that I would like to go to the commission first to provide general comments versus overall very specific comments. Then um we'll go out to the public and give the public a chance to talk through any issues that they have and do their presentations. and then we'll come back to the commission and have a second round where we can get into very more kind of granular finite things. And that's where I where I would like to go through the slides because I think there are enough issues on each of the slides that instead of since the slides literally represent all of the changes that are recommended. That way we're not necessarily bouncing around. And so I think we'll do an iterative process there. And if we don't have any on the slide then that's fine and we'll just move on. But that way we can address those. Um, and because I'm the the chair, I get the benefit of the doubt and I always I think except for one occasion, I have always deferred to the rest of the commission, but I'm going to start tonight. Um, I have bottom line a number of concerns with this. I have worked and lived and temporarily in other areas that have STRs that have revised STRs and the the breadth of the changes that are proposed here are significant. I mean this was a large discussion seven years ago to even get to a point where we would allow STRs. Um there was a lot of effort from a lot of u the planning commission and the county and the county the city council at the time to create these and when this came up in in summary this came up as an action item at the council it was discussed by the council and it was given to the staff to develop an action and somehow or another

we went from we have a process in place that have been here for seven years that we haven't and we'll get back to the issues on complaints where we've had issues come up, but then all of a sudden it goes to the council. Well, let's go ahead and do a staff action. And that staff action has turned into a multi-page significant change in how we're going to manage and restrict the STR usage in our city. And I appreciate the county regulations on STRs. That's been a big issue right now that they've just been updating. I appreciate the other cities in the area, but ultimately this is no different than everything else. We have our own city and we have to do what's best for our city and I appreciate what the other cities have, but they have their own issues to deal with. Um so that kind of said my first question that I have um and I'll resign a couple questions on first is we talked about you talked about we you received a number of a several complaints that deal with parking and then we didn't talk about anything else but what I would like to know is how many complaints we have broken down by by types. So are they parking complaints? Are they noise complaints? Because those are the two major issues that come up with STRs, our parking and that. And then the third that usually comes up with an STR is tied to noise, but it's usually the late arrivals where everybody's coming in at 9 or 10 or 11 o'clock at night. And so those three kind of combined are what most communities have when when these STRs come up. So I would like to know what the history is over seven years of STRs of what what is the real problem here? How how many total? Because this is a business for us. We have we should have all the the toot and nights rented across the city. Where do we really stand and how much how many complaints do we really have as a percentage of

total nights that we have actually rented out in the community since we put the STRs in place? We don't have that information today. And I totally and it would be virtually impossible for us to calculate the number of nights with STRs. And I mean that that's just not something that we would normally track. Well, and that leads to my second question, which is and this is the real issue. We talk about we're going to create a new administrative burden

and we're going to put it on on staff to do all this additional burden from 180 nights to number of cars parked to complaints. I mean, this entire list is now creating a set of really covenants that we're putting on the owners of each STR that we now are going to have to track for code enforcement. The 180 days, I can tell the level of issues that will come up with trying to manage 180 days. What is considered a primary resident? What is considered 180 days? Does it include weekends? Does it do they have to be consistent and cons or consecutive or not? What is this? what is the hardware the literal tool that we are going to use to ensure compliance. So that's my second question.

So so but but I just we just want to back up a little bit here. So so we're number one responding to a request from the city council to look at ways to strengthen the ordinance. Um, we could certainly quantify the number of complaints, but in terms of number of rooms and years, that's just virtually that's that's not going to happen. We're not going to be able to provide that information to the commission. Uh, but in terms of the issues that we're bringing forth, these are already issues that we're already dealing with. These are not issues that are theoretical. These are issues that we've already gotten complaints on. other communities have already implemented some of the language we're proposing. Um, so I just wanted to kind of center the conversation here. So,

and I totally and I appreciate that. So, you can't tell me the percentage of total complaints versus total nights. You can tell me the number of complaints. So, if I am if if we as a planning commission and then I'm I'm going to pause my comments and open up to the floor because I could just talk on this because I have all sorts of issues that and questions about this. But if we are are are supposed to make a recommendation to update our code and this is making a relatively semi-permanent change and severely restricting our current owners from this on what they're going to do and and create a set of new requirements that they're now going to have to do. We're creating an administrative burden for our owners of our STRs that we embraced seven years ago and said, "Hey, we've never had this and now we're going to have this new process and we want you to be a part of this and then seven years later we we do this. I would like to understand the breadth of the problem and how this has moved from something where we've have some complaints to this is something we have to address and we have to address it by by creating these all sets of of issues and every single change that is in here I have seen before. What I can also tell you is that there have been lawsuits in other counties that have tried to put some of these requirements in place that have gone all the way up through the court system in California and they have come back and they've looked at like the 180day issue the rest and a lot some of these restrictions and it has come back to those communities and then they've had to come back and then readress all these. But when they do that, it now comes back as a much bigger contentious issue that has fractured the city of where these are. And I don't think that's the purpose of what we're trying to do here. But I do think that we have to consider that when we're looking at such a large set of requirements here. And so I will go ahead and and turn the mic over to my other commissioners at this point who have comments. And I

guess I'll start with Commissioner Jacobson because you've got your light on. [clears throat]

Thank you, Comm. Um I'm I'm not going to be labor what the chair said, but um I saw what it said the city's intent is, but what I see is I see an overreach. I just think this is too specific and too hard to manage and too difficult to maintain. we'd have to have three staff members just to take care of this. Um [clears throat] the issue with number 14 ADU and the junior ADU. Um I'm a homeowner. I really can't afford my house. I build an ADU per regulations. I move into it and then I use my house as a STR. This prohibits me from doing that.

[clears throat]

um bedrooms. Each bedroom, one car per bedroom. I have a resident across the street that's in a four or five bedroomedroom house. He's got six cars out there. I mean, I' I've had three at one time. I guess that's one for each bedroom. Um but where's the resident supposed to park? Because the resident may be in that house at the same time. They may not be offsite. um 180day residency, 80day rental. I share the the chair's feeling on this. I don't know how to regulate that. I don't know how to count the 180 days. I don't know, you know, who's going to report that and who's going to, you know, take care of it. Do I, as a as STR owner, have to report to you every time I rent it out and then you're keeping a a tab of how many days I've rented? Um I I don't know. I I just think this is way too granular and really overreaching. And if the objective is is to put the STRs in Marina out of business, this could do it. So I really don't have any questions, I guess. So, so, so, so once again, so this body is a land use advisory body to the city council and if there are proposed edits that this commission does not recommend, then that's what we're here for today.

Uh, for example, the ADU stuff, we are recommending that as staff because a shell game that's being played is no, I'm not renting out the JDU or the ADU. and then we find out that it is and then we end up having to go back and forth to your point about staff time. There's been a significant amount of staff time that actually was something staff's proposing. If that's not something the commission wants to recommend to the to the city council, you can absolutely make a recommendation to take out some of the verbiage. So, that's what we're here for today is to get feedback and input so the council can take final action.

Completely understand. And what I will say to answer you correctly and then I'm going to go to Commissioner Chang is that again I'm going to come back to if you have complaints there is nothing in this packet that summarized all the complaints and that then led to specific root cause analysis that then said okay this is the recommendation from the staff. So if if I have a set of issues where they are are playing a shell game with the ADU JADU versus PI primary residents and those have been reported then that is a root cause of what's going on how many incidents have have come up with that and over time so that we can understand the tracking of okay how you got to that I'm not disagreeing that that is an issue I'm not disagreeing that the staff recommendation is is the proper recommendation At the same time, you're asking us to put in a policy for all the the STR and potential future STR um owners to say, well, based on this statistic and okay, what's the driver for this? And and really understanding that of what we're doing and and so I think that the challenge that we're all going to have and I'm going to now I'm going to turn it over to Commissioner Chang. Um so commissioner Chang

thank you chair uh I mean supporting uh of what chair has brought out u my question is what data supporting all these changes and what's the problem that we are here solving if we are talking about complaining about parking noise and and and from the STR then the ordinance should directly uh address occupancy limits and parking requirements and not just for example owner owner occupations and u I I just feel the um there's lack of data in supporting these changes right now unless the the staff able to come back and uh with more specific um clarifications on what the problem that we are trying to solve here and The other thing is I I know we we do have a lot of measurements in enforcing this. I think the question is do we have the staff to do it? I mean I I look at you may not have the staff to implement it and also you could enforce it but what are the penalties? I I didn't see any penalty mentioned here. I think the fine should be higher enough that it's cheaper to get a permit than to risk operating without one. So the penalty may need to um be specified as well and um also what are the uh unintended consequences here we are doing. I mean we are here to serve the community but we we we need to know it's not that we are opposing this but what are the intent and consequences and how does this affect housing? I

think um if the staff can uh clarify that um I maybe I I don't mind to bring it out. I think for for any ordinance we are bringing it up and right now because of this is a complex and emotionally charged issue. All right. And we are making a prediction basing on uh without any uh sufficient data. And I like I think maybe if if the commission eventually want to pass these motions then I like to propose a sunset clause to this ordinance. Right. That's that's all I have to say and for you to consider. Thank you chair. Thank you, Commissioner Chang. That's an actually interesting proposition I would like to come back to. Um, all right, moving down. Like I said, everybody, Commissioner Baron, I know you've got a comment, too. So, um, but next up, I'm just going in order, is Commissioner St. John, you're fine. Thank you, Chair. I have been studying this and I have a couple of pages But I I want to start with an overriding question. Two questions. First, does the state mandate by a Senate bill or otherwise that cities allow STRs?

Do they require them? Do they requ?

No. And actually part of the August discussion with the council was there was some sentiment prior to that meeting to have the staff recommend denial and to repeal the ordinance and to recommend denial of STRs moving forward. So what we're proposing is actually strengthening the ordinance but also supporting small business owners but do it in a way that potentially protects the neighborhoods more. Okay. So you answered in affirmative the I mean then [clears throat] answered the question that it's not a state mandate. No.

So then the next question overriding question is what is the actual benefit of the STR program to the city? I mean there is toot tax that we get. Okay. and and since the inception in 2019, what is the [clears throat] let's just say the nominal total toot revenues that have been collected and do they justify the administrative and enforcement burdens? Uh yes, I have those numbers not off top of my head but

I have them. It's well we can just hold off for a little bit but we have the I mean the answer is yes. Yes, you have the total revenues colle and they do justify the administrative and enforcement burden. Yeah. And actually what we're trying to do is actually make it easier to enforce. Yeah. So easier to enforce. Okay.

So yeah, let let me let me let me back up. So, I I keep hearing this theme of why are we here today? And I think um I think we as a staff need to do a better job of articulating some of the complaints and what we're seeing out in the field and we can certainly table the item tonight and bring back more in a study session format. uh similar to why we adopted the um the public nuisance ordinance when we when we brought that to the commission. Uh Marissa was able to articulate with some pretty detailed pictures and then when Shane brought the shopping cart ordinance, we it was more of a this is what we're seeing out in the field and this is our response to that. So, I think if the commission wants, we can take maybe take a couple steps back and uh table this item for today. I I definitely still want to get additional feedback, but um and then probably tailor the presentation a little bit more to what specifically we're doing instead of all the specific uh edits that we're making. So, yeah.

No, and I and I understand. I appreciate that. Um I think before we have that discussion, I I I don't want to bias any of the anything right now especially because we haven't had all the commissioners to speak and we haven't had chance for the public to speak. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, um do you have do you have any other questions you want to add?

Yeah, still with my overriding uh the STRs uh compete directly with established hospitality businesses. diminishing their revenues and growth potential. Is is that an acceptable is my understanding correct? Uh I mean I mean I've used

yours. I mean on a personal Yeah. I mean I do I want to stay in a hotel that charges X amount or maybe go to a short-term rental that's a little cheaper. I mean people make that decision. Yeah. What? Well, it's a it's a competition to the potentially hospitality venues. Not potentially. Correct. Correct. Sure. Sure. Okay. Okay. I have individual comments, but we'll wait and let the rest of the commissioners go for over overviews.

Yeah. Let me come back to those because I think after discussion we can talk and decide what we want to do with that. Uh Commissioner Walton. All right. I just I have a couple of questions. Um and we're doing we're doing it doesn't feel like light questions but ahead of the ahead of the public but more weedy questions. So I um where do I start? I'll start with the light one. is the good neighbor brochure and how does that come out of the planning commission? Marissa, if you guys want to answer.

Yeah, the good neighbor brochure is something that's handed or provided to the short-term rental permit holder when they get a when they get an issued permit, but it basically directs them to share that brochure with the tenants or the customers. Um, so it should be in the prem on the premises when their guests arrive, but it basically tells them about the noise, the parking. Don't block the sidewalk. Uh be mindful of the neighbors, the no the noise ordinance, right? 10 p.m. No loud noises, etc. So, it just basically, yeah, it tells them about it does tell them about parking. It tells them about trash, right? If the instructions are to put the trash bins out, it tells them what to do it. And it reminds the short-term rental permit holder of the number of guests that the maximum um the maximum number of guests that are required. Right. Um, currently as the manager, the code enforcement manager, it's I'm the only one managing everything, right, regarding the complaints and the permits. Um, so sometimes the permit holder has to be reminded that they have to refer to their neighborhood brochure to make sure that the brochure and the rules are matching their listing and that they're sharing that with their customers or their guests.

Okay. Thank you. That that was a good answer. I appreciate that. Um, so, so how will the city know if uh people are advertising without a permit? Who's where's the oversight? That's me. That's that's you. Correct. And um, previously it's it is still in the code where they have to list their business license on their platform listing, but you know, it's a lot of rules, right, on the existing on the exist the current code. So, people just don't read it and so they don't do it. So, I've been enforcing that more recently. So, every legal permit holder has to update their platform headline with a permit number. And

okay, let me ask it a different way. If someone is renting their bedroom and they don't have a permit, how will you know? Only by checking the platform listings, right? If someone's not using the platform to list their room, um, how how will the city know that someone has a SDR?

Correct. If they're just doing it by word of mouth, um, or even maybe Craigslist, but typically I still get those complaints from Craigslist, right? People that are scouring the websites and saying, "Hey, they're listing a rental, a short-term rental without permits, um, or on this Craigslist ad." But typically I just find them through that and then our third party provider for business license and toot also does the search as well and complaint driven. So if nobody complains, you won't know. Correct. I mean there's ways that you can keep something a secret, right?

Yes. I Yeah. So, so, so what's what would incentivize someone who who has uh cool neighbors that don't complain and and they're renting out and you know, little turnover because whoever their guests are coming 14 days and they're gone. Another two weeks and they're gone. They go overund they go over 220 days and you have no clue. The city doesn't know the it doesn't receive the toot, all that stuff. and the city just it won't know and we and that person will collect those those there's no way to monitor that I'll wrap it there zero without

yeah I mean our our general code enforcement posture is complaint driven okay right we do actively seek out some code cases that are of imminent public safety welfare issues but generally we do get the complaints

and I think I Like I said, the discussion today has enlightened me that I think we as a staff need to take two steps back and like I said, we did for public nuisance and the shopping cart ordinance. Explain why we put certain verbiage in the ordinance. I don't think we've done a good enough job of that tonight and then and then articulate why we're recommending certain specific language, but generally we get all the complaints. Your neighbors talk, they do. They do. I also taught me. Yeah. [laughter] So, um, so, so are homeowners required to list their STRs on a platform? Is that a requirement?

Not that I'm aware of. So, if it's per the ordinance, sorry, not not on the platform. Right. They're not required to Well, actually, the ordinance does require them that if they we issue them a permit for a short-term rental, they have to share whatever they're however they're listing it with us. Right. But it's not on but it's not on a platform platform listing right where you can Airbnb right go find a room in marina.org Mh, right? If if they're not all listing on that, if they're not listed on the platform, but they do have the permit cuz they're doing it, I don't know, on Craigslist, Facebook, right? Market,

Twitter X, whatever, right? Um, in here it says that you would be So I guess and I may be answering my own question, but that uh toot would then come it would you would just get it straight from the from the homeowner, not the platform. Correct. Current that's what we have right now. We don't get it from the platform. They actually have to report monthly to toot through our vendor. Okay. And then that that that's only on the days that they actually have an occupant, a tenant. Correct. They only pay for the nights that they rent it out. Okay.

And regarding the the licenses and stuff, we have uh property owners that rent their properties for long term and sometimes they don't have a business license, right? And I don't know that they don't have a business license. And I find out when I get a code case or I'm trying to get a hold of a property owner and I'm like, "Oh, it's your rent. You're renting the house. You need to get a business license." and then they go through the process and get it. So, they've been operating without business license and you know, they haven't been caught. They they do all this stuff I'm I'm terrified of doing. All right, I'm going to land there and and give the rest of the commission a moment.

Right quick before I I go to Commissioner Ron, you mentioned the service that we use. My understanding was that the city of Marina does not use any type of software or service right now. That is all hand gener it's all handtracked. That's correct. Okay. Just wanted to make sure that I That's true. Hold on. What's Sorry, what's the HDL is the the company, but Marissa's tracking it just by monitoring the sites. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. Commissioner,

thank you, Chair. I have a couple of questions. First one is that u this uh provision has been in uh force since last about six years and uh these amendments have impact on the city parking violations code. So are we kind of discussing this issue with the police department also that we are making these uh specific provisions in this proposal and are they on board? So, we we have not believe to my I don't believe we've consulted with the police department at this point because um that's not something you know that's not for this type of ordinance. We haven't typically interface with them on that.

Well, typically the police department does not enforce the short-term rental ordinance violations. I would address those. I'm talking about uh the parking.

Correct. But even if someone's complaining about parking, like right now, saying, "My neighbor has guests and there like six cars." Typically, the police would not handle that, right? They would complain. I would get the complaint and I would follow up with the owner and remind them that they cannot have more than x amount of vehicles, right? And that one is kind of hard to prove or kind of hard to give them a ticket for or a citation for, but it's just a matter of them knowing the rules and letting their guests know that they can't show up with 10 cards, right? because that's what was one of the complaints. People 10 adults showed up with 10 vehicles, they put three in the driveway and seven in the street.

Yeah. So my question is that the guest is there for say 24 hours and the neighbor complains and uh the city violation code does not include this amendment and by the time the police reacts the either the person is already gone. So it's ineffective. So whatever we amendment we do has to conform to the city violation codes. Sure. That that's true.

I agree. But this is the addressing parking is in a lot of the codes in nearby jurisdictions, right? It's just a matter of like, hey, you need you cannot have more than x amount of vehicles, right? Because you don't want them having 10 people or more and bringing more vehicles, right? Um the police department is focused on if if it's blocking a driveway or a sidewalk or impeding the right public traffic right from, you know, preventing them from crashing a vehicle. So if vehicles are if there's too many cars, they're not really violating the vehicle code. They're violating the short-term rental ordinance, which I will address because we and planning or planning division is the permit holder, but I enforce it through the building division. The next question is that uh city is changing new developments taking place like the downtown revitalization code. Some people already have these permits but because of these new developments, new changes, new restrictions come, parking gets limited. So are we going to deermit some of the people who already have these permits and also the new developments where parking in any case is kind of restricted because the lot sizes are much smaller. The roadside parking is mainly the norm. So is are are are these new changes incorporated in these amendments or they've been considered while making these amendments?

Yeah, I'll I'll so um so this the way the original ordinance is written which we're not recommending to change is the permit is an annual renewal. So to answer your question, yes, this will absolutely whatever comes of this and we'll probably have to come back to commission. Um, this this is an annual renewal permit. And in terms of how it's being implemented, I mean, this is a city-wide ordinance, so it it it's across all the different new subdivisions and in the old central part of Marina. So, however, to add to that, the new developments do not allow short-term rentals. They're prohibited. Okay. Thank you. [clears throat] That's all.

Just one clarification for you. The city's parking ordinance allows a car to be parked for a maximum of 72 hours consecutive without moving. And that's the limit. After [clears throat] within the 72-hour period or at the end of the 72-hour period, the car must move to a different spot or leave the city. So it's not like a 24hour, it's what 72 hours is three complete days and nights. So it's it's not like if these short-term rentals are for a weekend, then they won't ever exceed the city's parking tolerance. They will probably exceed the the subdivisions tolerance but not the cities. Okay.

Thank you, chair. Um I agree with a lot of what Blenn said when we started the conversation and some of the things uh that was said around here. Um I don't feel we can vote on anything right now. Um this feels like we were dumped a big pile of stuff on us and now we have to decide in one evening so many little details. Uh some of the things we are uh just being introduced to there's no data. We don't know what the problems that got. There's so many unknown unknownables. So, we really need a study session or a work group or something

to really work on each detail or each section so we can really know and get our teeth into it. Uh, of course, I have a few things that uh I I was that jumped at me. One one of the things is what do we really want with these STRs? Do we want to encourage it or do we want or do we want to stop it and deincentivize STRs? I I get mixed messages about it. On one hand, we want to make the money for the city and get taxes. On the one on the other hand, we get all kinds of limits that makes it really difficult uh to do the idea that an STR has to be in a primary residence that somebody has to prove that it's primary residence which mean they're going to to rent it for a few days and then they have to look for a place to sleep because they're going to rent that room because they need that money. It just makes to me it makes no sense. Um, we had um a meetings here a year ago when a retired woman said she was putting an ADU and she got someone to put an ADU in her backyard so she can afford to stay in Marina and live with her family instead of being uh sent to some uh different state where she can afford to to live but now they can't have people renting their ADUs. It just I just don't understand what is I'm I'm I'm living in a total cognitive dissonance here to put it. So to answer your question, Commissioner Baron, I I think for I I can't speak for all of the staff, but I can say for me, like I said is, you know, the city council and the planning commission could ban STRs in the city, and there was some talk of that when we brought this as a

discussion item to the council in August. Um, the city can strengthen the ordinance. the city can use it as a way to support small business while also supporting the neighborhoods, right? So, there's a lot of different options. I think from my perspective, we we want to work with the SGR permit holders, but do it in a way that respects the neighborhoods. That that would be my policy recommendation. And obviously you've mentioned we probably need to do a better job of articulating why why we came here today which we'll probably end up having a study session in November December but that would be my recommendation is to try to strengthen the ordinance but do it in a way that respects the neighborhoods and the small business owners.

I I I feel the same. I want to protect the place where I live. However, why people that own apartments can rent one of the rooms in their apartment? Most of the places that I stayed when I was traveling were apartments uh in big cities and people didn't live there. So, why no ADUs? Why no apartments? Why second home owners can't do that either? Those people they buy these second homes as investments. I can understand that we don't want to encourage people to buy a a house here and then just use it as rental, but they're going to do it anyhow.

Uh if they don't if if they decide they want to make the money out of that investment. So we we we just need to discuss these things and understand absolutely that we are leading with

and and like I said when we come back in November December so so the context for that uh residency requirement is five or six years ago in the Bay Area there were a series of at least Mercury news articles where uh people would rent out an Airbnb the host or the owner of the property would not be present. And and then there were several news articles where the parties got completely out of hand. And uh there was actually some shootings of some underage kids at some of the unsupervised uh parties that got way out of hand. Um, and so in response to that, a lot at least not down here, but at least up in the Bay Area requirement of some type of you have to live there or you have to prove that you're on site or whatnot. So that but once again, that that's that's the work that staff that we need to do a better job of explaining how we got here today, right? As as you're saying, we kind of dumped a bunch of information on you and so I apologize about that. So

I just want things to make sense and to understand uh what decision are you making based on what rationale and that I can feel that my feet are on the ground. Right. Um thank you. I'm not going to go into all this all the points but I just wanted to say that I would really appreciate if we have some kind of a study session. Absolutely. That we can really discuss and not just vote for something. Absolutely. Thank you.

Okay. Um, I've now gone through the entire commission. Um, I said kind of ground rules we get our chance to speak. Thank you, Guido, and thank you for the the patience of letting us go through this. Uh, at this point, I want to go ahead and turn around to the public and we'll start. Um, actually, I'm gonna He's I'm gonna start online this time because I started here the last time. So, do we So, I think I don't see anyone commissioning. I do. I see Kathy Biala. Uh, I see Brian. Yes. Brian already had that from before. Yeah.

So, I think the first one I saw was Kathy. Um, sure. And then we'll go to Brian. There we go. Kathy, you can speak. Good evening, Kathy. One second. Okay, there we go. Can you hear me then? We can hear you.

Okay, great. So, although I appreciate all the uh very uh detailed analysis of the myriad of problems that that could and do occur um with STRs, and you've talked about noise, etc. Um, as I recall, the main council's concern was that there are many STRs spotted by neighbors that that uh, you know, that we are are not aware of. Um, they're not advertising on usual platforms. So, they don't come to our attention of the city through uh, the enforcement efforts of, for example, Marissa. So, it's the unknown STRs and we get that by two things. I guess it sounds like, you know, they they they they have a negative impact of course on the quality of our neighborhoods and then apparently we're losing a significant amount of revenue from to the city. Um, so I think we're looking for how to discover violators um who don't advertise on the usual um platforms. um they're they are seen but they're not detected and that's kind of u I I thought that was like the main reason for which uh we were referring things to the planning commission. So, if we try to find out that that resolution, and I think that uh vice chair um uh Walton was was probably alluding to this in in the most closely aligned with the objective because she was trying to get to those things that uh as as I'm learning listening to everyone here that it's either by word of of mouth or Craigslist or some other things that are not the usual ways and we which we can spot if if they were advertising on the

usual platforms. It's pretty it's pretty it's it's easier for Marissa to say, "Oh, okay. Now, I'm going to check this person with whether they have a business license, whether they have registered this and this." But we're seeing that there are many more that are going undetected. And so I that I believe was the main problem that that the council was concerned about. I haven't it's been a while. So, but that's kind of what I recall. That's it. Thank you.

So, I have a question back just for clarification because I know that she's involved in the discussions. Is that am I allowed to do that? I have a question back to Kathy on clarification. Would that be You've open You've opened You've opened the public forum so you can ask then. Yes, you can chair. Okay. So, [clears throat] um Kathy, if you're still here, um Yes.

So, I one of my questions kind building off of what you just said, it just made me think about this that is that is the context of that of potentially non-registered or illegal STRs that are operating. Is that driven by we may have multiple different ones in one area or multiple owners or we've we've seen something where we may have we may have like two or three in in one kind of one block type of thing. I mean was there any quantification to that? Do you remember?

No. I I just know that many of us heard complaints that they that they know these things are happening in their neighborhood. Um, and you know, either we maybe they were advertising on regular platforms and we weren't doing the enforcement, but the sense I got was that there are a lot of this in the city and we're missing revenues and the the neighborhoods of course then are seeing a whole lot of parking and noise or whatever else are the uh usual complaints about some um, you know, some uh, STRs, but it was I think driven by the fact that why are why are these here even and we we were not they're not registered and we're we don't have a handle on it.

Okay, thanks Kathy for the clarification. Okay. Um next up is we have Brian. Thank you for sticking around Brian. There you go.

Thank you for uh letting me speak. I have two kids so I'll try to make it fast. I have to go to sleep. I originally uh came on here, I wanted to kind of object and against some of the restrictive elements of the six months or 180 days or maybe an ADU. Um but I after hearing that the you know the chair has kind of an idea that that's kind of almost putting a choke hold on the ADUs or or STRs uh I want to offer a different perspective in the fact that that we um I moved here not even knowing what even Marino was on the map uh because my wife works here and so luckily I had the opportunity to to do an STR and I would have to say that that restricting it is is probably a loss for Marina because a majority easily over 80% of the renters that come to us have never experienced Monterey County and they experience Marina and and they the overall experience is amazing to them and and it really opens their eyes to the city on on what we can really offer them. Um, and the fact that we have things like the Marina Station project coming, we want visibility to the city. We want that revenue. Um, and a majority of the times that that we get a lot of STRs, rentals, is when there are no hotels available. And, you know, there's a lot of events in Monterey and and we we help fill that gap. um especially when they when they don't want to you know rent in a hotel because especially during COVID uh we do a lot of meticulous cleaning things like that. So we offer we offer a better maybe a different experience. So that that's kind of what I wanted to maybe help uh

shed light on or or offer a different perspective to the board. No, and I appreciate that as I think you're you're as an actual STR owner and hearing that side of it I think is really important to this this conversation this process because it's there is a there are a lot of facets to what we look at and what we and how we make decisions and that and that a lot of this conversation at the time I mean to the point that Kathy made and I think has been made previously we did not have an STR. We didn't have the ability to even have STRs. Um we were kind of the the lone wolf sitting out there in the county for years and years and years and then we went through a lot of study to get to where we're at. And so um hearing that perspective from a current owner is I think very important to the discussion. So thank you very much, Brian.

And if you may, um all the neighbors did know that I was making STR. I'm sure they reached out to the city, but but I like to say that that I've had zero parking or zero noise complaints in over two years. That's correct. Okay. [laughter] Okay. Um I think Paul, I'm going to come I'm going to hold off on the commission and let the the regular public comment finish first. Is there anybody else online? We we do have another gentleman, Chair Woodson. Uh Bisho. Okay. Um, Bishaf, sorry, best of his name. Best. Do you guys hear me? Bisho. Bisho.

Bishoy, I think is how you pronounce it. Correct. Yes. Do you guys Do you guys hear me? Absolutely.

Hello everyone. My name is Bishoy. It's forgive me. It's my first time doing this. Um, I'm just here to speak that um, we came here um, in 2015. We worked so hard uh to finally own a home here in California. Uh we used to work three jobs to save money and finally own a home. And unfortunately now it's it's the mortgages are so expensive, the insurance, the home insurance are so expensive and it's even hard to find. Um and we really want to have the short-term rental. We really take care of the the house, the rules. We have been hosting for over three years. Never gotten any complaints with the parking, with the the noise sometimes, and we take control right away. We take actions right away, immediately. Even if it's 2 or 3 p.m. or a.m., we really take care of that. Um, and doing short-term is really helping. I do have my own team that work for me doing 180 180 days a year. Um it it will be really hard for uh the team to to be working full-time because they rely on us 100%. Um and this this is their only job uh doing uh like housekeeping and cleaning. Um so I hope everyone here can understand that this is really important to us. It's not really something that we make millions of dollars or thousands of dollars. It's for us to just survive owning owning a home. We're not trying to break or affect the economy or anything because I heard it from the city. I heard it from different people saying that this is affecting the house crisis. Uh for me personally and my family when we moved here in 2015, we

became homeless. Uh we couldn't afford the rent and it was really hard on us finding a place. We were hoping to find like have a home with a kitchen to cook or do or find a place to stay. So, we work so hard to finally own a home and I hope everyone here can understand the situation we are in uh and help us with this. And please do not ban or affect the short-term rental because this will really affect us. Um because this is not like the only source of income for us. We're not really making much profit out of it. Uh, we're just trying to survive here, that's all. And I hope you guys can help us with this. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much, Michelle. I think you you have raised a valid concern. It is definitely expensive. And this even when you're a primary homeowner and you're just sounds like in your case, you're actually um renting out a room or two rooms within your your actual house. Um, but then that restriction 180 days actually I could that's I appreciate your insight to that. So, thank you. All right. I think um like I said, Commissioner Chang, I'm going to come back to the group overall. Um so, I'm going to go ahead and go to the um in person.

Uh good evening, Chair, Commissioners. Uh my name is Sean McDonald. I'm here as a Marina resident. Um my wife and I previously spent a combined 15 years working in Marina schools. myself as a teacher at Marina High School and my wife as a special education service provider at Crumpton. Um, my home has a current short-term rental permit and it has an ADU on the property where I live as my primary residence. Uh, I want first express my appreci appreciation of the city's effort to improve enforcement and protect neighborhood integrity. Uh, I fully support the proposal to strengthen primary residence verification. uh ensuring that short-term rentals are genuinely owner occupied for at least 6 months of the year is an important step toward maintaining community character and preventing absentee ownership. Uh however, I am concerned about the proposed blanket pro prohibition on short-term rentals and properties that include ADUs or Jadus and the restriction of rentals on a property to 180 days a year. Uh these sections of the ordinance or the proposed ordinance would have significant negative impact on families like mine. who have followed the current ordinance and taken on extra debt to build an ADU. I ask the commission to protect responsible permitted homeowners while targeting the true problem unverified non-owner occupied rentals. Please preserve existing permits for ADU properties in good standing and focus on enforcement of those who abuse the system. Uh see I have a little bit more time. Um I participated in this process seven years ago also. Um and it seven eight years ago now it was a long it was a long process uh and it was back and forth and a lot um and at the time it seemed all the work was it was worth it there there was a compromise there was some allowed those of us who are primary residents could continue to operate could operate our um operations and now we're coming back to the uh kind of the same question again um and it's also it's so it's really stressful for our family because

it's an important part of our income I think uh also I would like to say Marisa has done an amazing job on enforcement. Um she's really detail- oriented. We've had conversations and it's it's really helpful to have good um code enforcement in the city. So uh I wanted to also u mention that. I think one of the issues as we speak to um the loss of income from from not not appropriately looking at the rentals is that there are some rentals that are not permitted. and we never collect Toot from them. And the reason why I never collect TOT from them because they're never going to report that they're operating, right? One of the issues with that that you could easily resolve or that you could work to resolve is is develop an agreement the city could develop an agreement with Airbnb with VBO to collect uh toot automatically. The vast majority of rentals are going to come from Airbnb and V VBO. I know there's questions about other platforms or non-platforms, but as someone that's operated this, we just don't get that type of uh traction from anywhere other than the major platforms. So, you'll collect that money to do enforcement appropriately if you get those agreements with the platforms. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you. That's very helpful. No, thank you very much for that insight in that one. Next up,

evening commissioners. So for background, I also was involved in this process in 2019. It took over a year for the planning commission at that time to kind of come up with the existing language. So that's how hard they worked on it. Um and the idea that you could probably craft recraft that in one night is maybe a little naive. Um so I'm really impressed with the discussion tonight. I should come more often. I think I'm I'm glad that you guys are talking about tableabling it. I think that's very wise. Um and to be fair, I think staff did a really good job of analyzing based on the data they have. But as the chair mentioned, just like you don't have the data, they don't really have a lot of the data either. Um the good news is is that SB346 did pass. Um that will allow cities to get some of that data from the hosting platforms. I think that's a really good step. Um I think that one strategy might be to start getting that data and come back in a year um when you can really look at the data from the hosting platforms um and see what's been rented and for how much and and those kind of things. Um, sounds like you're not going to pass anything tonight. So, some of my comments are a little bit mute, but um, you know, some of some of the comments that I talked about the first iteration and I think are worthy of discussion now, is um, this question of equity. And to suggest that only someone who owns a single family home can rent short-term rentals to me really um, begs a bunch of equity questions. And so I would urge the city to keep that last statement of the existing code the same, which allows more than just single family homes to participate in short-term rentals. Um, there's also something staff didn't talk about, but the existing code language says that only homes with one kitchen can rent short-term rentals, and that's because they referenced the the definition of a dwelling unit that very specifically says that that can only have one kitchen. Many people appreciate that second kitchen even if it's in their house. The guests don't may not want to share a kitchen. They may have food allergies. Whatever the case might be, it might even be a wet bar and that or kitchenet and that's a little bit

ambiguous as to what more than one kitchen really means. Um so a little bit of strengthening of the language there or um clarifications. Uh, in terms of ADUs, and I think this is really important, and it's something that I've talked to the city a lot about and it really has never been addressed, but um, many cities say there's something called exempt ADUs and non-exempt ADUs. People like Mr. McDonald who spent a lot of money building his ADU before the existing streamlining state laws came into effect, um, shouldn't have to suffer maybe some of the same consequences that those that did take advantage of those streamlining laws. that the streamlining was put in place as a carrot and they said, "Hey, if we're going to offer you this streamlining, you're not going to be able to use it as an ADU." So, that is already existing state law. If you use SB9, different streamlining laws, that law says you cannot rent your unit as uh STR. So, I think it's worth maybe looking at a difference between exempt and non-exempt ADUs as many um cities do. Um uh so yeah, th those are kind of my comments. Thanks for the robust discussion. I think it's I look forward to hopefully you guys having a study session and hearing some more about this issue. Thanks for your time.

Thanks a lot, Brian. Um Mia, do you have something you want to add? Oh, you said thank you. Um all right, so I'm going to go ahead and close public comment at this point. Um and come back to me and I and actually chair Woodson said we have one, two, three, three more people who just raised their hands.

Okay, I am totally into this because I have three more people and that's going to take us to two, three, four, five. That'll take us to eight. that is slowly getting towards our record for comments in a planning commission in a long time. So I absolutely am going to go back to this and if I counted Commissioner Chang because he's well he's in Singapore so we could count him too. Um so we'll go ahead and open the floor back up um to the remaining public comments because I do want to I really do want to hear the rest of the opinions on this. So who is up next? Uh just listed as KR. Okay. Welcome, KR. Hello.

Hello.

Hi. Um, I just want to comment um about the the regulations that we were talking about today. Um, I respectfully disagree with the 180 uh 180 uh night limit on short-term rental. Um many property many property owners uh including myself rely on short-term rental income to cover our mortgage payment. Um especially with the current high rate interest uh limiting rentals uh to only have um the year would make it extremely difficult for many owners to meet their financial obligations and could even lead to economic hardship. Um, additionally, short-term rental contribute significantly to the local economy. We already pay taxes such as like 14% occupancy tax to the city. Um, which helps fund public services and support uh city employees. On top of that, hosts often hire like local workers like cleaners um uh providing a steady jobs for and reducing unemployment. Um, also guests who stays in short-term rentals also spend money in the community by eating at local restaurants, shopping at nearby stores, um, buying groceries and purchasing gas. Um, this spending directly benefits small businesses and keep money uh, recreating with the local economy. Rather than limiting the number of rental nights, I believe the city um should find ways to regulate responsibility responsibly uh while still allowing homeowners to earn the necessary income and continue contributing the community economic health. Um I also disagree with the rule that uh prohibits uh Barcels with a with

an ADU or junior ADU from obtaining a short-term rental. Um the city already requires that the owner live on the property but without an edu. It unrealistic for the owner and their guest to use the home comfortably at the same time. I understand the city um wants to prohibit the ADU itself from being used as a short-term rental. However, it does not seem fair that just because my property has an ADU and the entire home should be disqualified from getting an short-term uh permit. In in my case, the ADU provides a space for me to live on site as required while responsibly hosting guests in the mint home. [clears throat] Um this rule discouraged the responsible homeowners like me who follow the regulation or regulation and contribute positively to the community. Short-term rental help many of us afford our mortgage and maintain our properties while also uh supporting local businesses and creating job for clear for cleaners workers. Um I believe the city could um find a balanced approach allowing homeowners with ADU to obtain short-term rental permit um for the main house while ensuring the ADU it is itself is not rented as shortterm um that should be fair particular and beneficial for both.

Okay. I mean I kind of used up the time at this point. It sounds like that was a good breaking point. Okay. So, no, you're you're fine. Thank you for for coming out and speaking tonight. Um, I really appreciate that and it was very articulate. So, next up, Chair Watson is it's listed as I

Okay. [clears throat] Yeah. So, just um a short reminder so if you haven't come and spoke before, this a good point, Commissioner St. on is that we do try the limit on it is for 3 minutes. Um just so you make sure that you are able to get any points in. Um so I guess iPhone Dell iPhone Adele if you have an Android I would love it. Uh I've unmuted the speaker Chair Woodson. So, okay. Uh, let me just make sure. Uh, I own, this is

Guido from the city. You're unmuted if you would like to speak for three minutes. Okay. Chair Woodson, I'm going to go ahead and mute her. So, just we'll give it another five seconds. Okay. All right. So, iPhone Adele, are you there? Yes. Okay.

Okay. Great. Go ahead, please. Uh first good evening for everybody. Uh I really appreciate this meeting. Um and also I want to appreciate what the city of Marina doing for all the like resident especially Marissa. um the short term and it actually is is helping us as everybody mentioned before and uh we try to like uh support ourself and our uh you know our uh city uh the taxes is is very important and that's why we always like try to uh like you know pay it like as soon as we can as soon as we receive the to info from the city also you know about the the people was like complain. I totally understand but in the same time uh I have like my brother-in-law I live in other city and our neighbors they have like tons of cars and we always complain he he was complain and the city said you know this is a parking street and I really u glad that some of one of members they asked they said it is the limit 72 hours for parking and this is short term so if it's like one day or two day three days even is no is no one going to leave the the car in the street in this uh in this period of long time plus you know uh the ADUs I don't know why they exempt from the short term because again you know this is uh apply for all the regulation for any city uh we have a permit for that and when we we even we have to rent it out we pay tax for that uh I don't know why is only the short term just it has to be like the main house,

not the uh like ad user, junior ad user, something like that. Uh that's all. Thank you so much for your time, ma'am. Thank you very much for your comments and I'm glad you're able to get on tonight. Okay. So, is Bashoy [clears throat] he's back? Does he have another question? I guess I I can't go back to Bashoy because he's already provided comment once. However, if there's somebody else that's there that would like to speak also, um I mean or can I go back? I mean, we haven't had this. It's really up to you and the commission. I believe Mina hasn't had a chance to speak yet though, Chair Woodson. So,

okay. So, we've got So, I'm going to address So, I mean, I'll come back to Bashoy, but does anybody in the the commission care if he speaks again? I don't necessarily care. Okay. So, Bes, we'll come back to you and then um who is the next one up? Uh Amina has not had a chance to speak yet. Yeah, I just don't see her on the screen. So, AA, please go ahead tonight. Can you guys you hear me? Very softly. Very soft. All right. [laughter]

Uh first, I want to thank you guys for invited us to uh joining you in this meeting. Uh I just want to share really quick um the numbers and the effort uh that cost us to build uh such a thing like the junior ADU or ADU. Um it cost us like a significant amount of money um citywise building fees, planning fees, school district, water department, all the stuff to get it built and it took us like eight years accumulated bunch of debt and it put us in a risk. So, for us to rent it as a long-term rental, which is the city asking us to do for me, I have to rent the GU for $3,000 a month, which is going to be like 30 36,000 a year. If you deduct the occupancy element, it will be like uh $30,000. It take me like 9 years to get my money my total money back from this investment. Same thing with the ADU. Um, so for me, it rented like a long-term rental. I couldn't find anybody can afford it to rent it monthly. So I have to put it in Airbnb and I understand the city want us to cut this but for us we cannot survive this without uh renting it as a short-term rental.

Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. So besoy. So now that we definitely doing second rounds. Yes. Do you guys hear me?

Yes. So, I I did a little research uh when I heard about the meeting. Um I found out that New York State and and Florida as well, they did uh hard restrictions on Airbnb on short-term rental due to uh problems uh like um uh like housing crisis, things like that. But actually, if you go through the data, it doesn't actually show that when they did apply the restrictions on those cities or state helped the the the long-term rentals or help help the rental in generals. Um, it doesn't show that uh when I did the the the research. So, I want to say that we are not the Airbnb is not the cause of housing crisis. In 2015 when we moved here um it was Airbnb was not really big in Marina uh specifically and yet we still couldn't find a place to stay um more affordable. We we couldn't we couldn't find any rental uh that can take us. um they go really like like they put they they ask for like credit score things like that and it was really we didn't have that in that time so it was really hard to find a place um and also I want to say the benefit of Airbnb as well that uh this year actually we had more like four families that moved to uh they escaping the fires and they moved to Marina. They were looking for a place to stay and they were looking for a house. They cannot find they they they didn't want to go to like a hotel or something. So, they came straight for like like a short-term rental Airbnb. Uh that was the best solution for them as well. I want to say again that we here home owners, it's almost impossible to find insurance, home insurance here. And if

you find it, it will be triple the price when it was before. So it everything here are so expensive. Like I said before, we all we need is just trying to survive this. So I really hope you guys can help us not affecting this business, not affecting the workers, the maintenance people, the cleaning team, the local businesses. Like I said before, this is our home that we work so hard for to finally own here. And we really take care of that. We if there's a pl if there's a problem, we really take care of that. we step in and we find a solution and we take care of that. And if there's other host that had a problem with the neighbors or the parking, then the city, this is their job to deal with it. Not if you go to like a restaurant or someone got like a food poisoning. Not you're not going to close all the restaurants in the city. No, you just fix the problem the the the problem with the restaurant. Have that the same way with the with the host on Airbnb. If someone have a problem, work with the host, not everyone in the city. No, everyone going to close. It's not it's not the solution. Thank you. Comment again. either of you like say anything else but you're fine.

Wait, was I had a chance to speak? Thank you, chair. I wasn't going to hand this out, but actually I think I will. Um,

thank you. And you you know the only other thing that I guess that I'll add is that I went back and listened to the um the tape of the city council meeting and my recollection was that there was one council member that saw some activity that was really disturbing um to her. Um and you know she felt like she saw a maid cart being pushed across the street just for several units. And I get I get why that takes away from kind of some neighborhood quality. So I I do think there's some serious issues here that you know can be discussed and addressed but um at the same time I just think it should be done methodically. I think it should be done fair and I think it should be done with equity. Uh thank you chair.

Thanks Brian. Okay we've gone through two rounds of public comment which is unusual but I'm I'm glad we did that tonight because I think we got some good feedback. I'm going to go ahead and close public comment. I'm going to come back to the commission. And I my thoughts at this point um and I still will open it up and get the commissioners to get one last chance to say something before we kind of make a motion is that we table the discussion for today. We do create some type of study session and we define what the rules are. Um I've got some ideas on that that I'd like to that I'll talk about in a minute. Um, so I'll talk about right now. So what I would like to do is I think um well let me go. So I I think we do table it. I'm going to come back but everybody kind of have their I take on this on the commission one last time um on what a study session would look like or what they would like covered if they have specific things that they would like to address to the staff so they kind of have some guidance when they start creating the study session. and then we'll go ahead and u make a motion to table it with those conditions. I'm gonna assuming at this point looking at the group and and the the hands on the buttons that everybody has a quick comment that they would like to make. So I'm going to go the other way this time and I'm going to start with um actually I'll start on the my right. So Commissioner Baron. Okay, she has nothing on it. No,

they gave them all to me. So, I have fives. Thank you. All right. So, so I'll go through um quickly. The first one is if you can help me have some understanding about the proposed rental calendar um with respect to the 180 days um how that works.

Yes. So, initially back before my time, I've only been here two years. Uh, back in 2019 when this ordinance was passed, um, I guess it was the intent of the council to make the short-term rental permit holders and the properties be owner occupied. They wanted the properties to have the owner on site, right? So, they could rent the other rooms or like the majority of the house, right? But that never made it in to the short-term rental ordinance. And so the complaints that I have been received over the last two years are that the that the short-term rental permit properties are not being owner occupied. So the complaints are no, the owner is never there. The whole house is being rented every day of the year. How is it their primary residence if they don't ever live there? Right. So this is why we um

Yeah. And that'll be part of the study session. Yes. though for the 180 days and why that was added is because um I'm sorry I just meant with respect to that rental calendar. So or I think at this point do we if we're going to make a propos proposition we're going to make a proposal to conduct a staff survey unless we need an a question. All right. So maybe that's it. Let me think about this for a second and verify I can do this. Okay. Okay. Then I'll can we can we take make a motion to conduct a further staff study and to table this and then after we take that motion then quickly go through the remaining ones to provide the guidance that would then support the staff study.

Sure. The commission can do but but I think out of respect for the vice chair I think what Marissa was trying to do is provide the background and I I'll finish the answer. So yeah I'm fine with this one question but then I think if we do that then we can just go to the the guidance side of it. because otherwise we all have a lot of questions because the original intent was not being met of owner occupancy. It's taken Marissa a significant amount of time to demonstrate that somebody actually lives on the property. So that's why she's trying to recommend adding that language

and and so by having somebody resubmit every year how many days they generally thought they had rented the room and us verifying that with the platforms. Then we'd be able to hopefully have a better handle on that these places are not just being rented out every single day of the year with no owner oversight. So I Anyways, I just wanted to answer the vice chair's question. Yeah, I was really just trying to figure out the definition of what what a rentalful calendar is, right? And in with respect to that 180 days. Um I do have some other questions, but they all I think can go along with that guidance part, I think.

But I you know, if the commission's open to it, we'd like to be able to get those questions now if possible. we don't need. Well, so I think what I wanted, so the reason I would like to take a vote is I want to be cognizant of the public because we do have a lot of public that are here and they want to see a direction of where we're going with this. We I think we know where we're going to go, but I want to take vote on it. Absolutely. Because at that point, it's providing guidance to you and as much as they're willing to stay here and they can listen to us all day all evening long talk about those questions. Sure. I I want to be cognizant and and recognize their time commitment. Sure. Sure.

So I would like would somebody I'm going to make a I'm going to make the motion. I would like to make a motion that we table the update to the regulations tonight. That we conduct a study session and that after approval of that, we will provide a list of starting guidance questions to begin that staff study and then the staff will work on that. Absolutely. Work to come back with a date and time to [clears throat] conduct that. I second. So I made the motion. I have we have a second from Commissioner Jacobson. Uh can we go through Can I make a friendly amendment? Yes. So I friendly amendment.

Yeah. That the study session that we define the participant group that it be represented by members of the city council of the planning commission, city staff. a joint meeting. The study session not be limited only to staff but would include representatives from the city councing commission if they would like. That's fine. And as a matter of fact, I sent the draft ordinance to the people who have permits as of now. But okay, that again. Yeah, good idea.

Yeah. And I would like because I would like the additional public comment as we go into that what the what their thoughts are because obviously tonight was a very different issue than if we're doing a study session. They may have different questions. Okay. So I agree with the friendly members. So I I amend my my motion to include that the study session should be a joint study session. It involves uh input from the public but then also um a combined joint between the city council. Yeah. that I can't like have to stop the commission there. We would like a request of

uh so the planning commission is the advisory body to the city council and on this specific issue the planning commission needs to make a recommendation on an ordinance. I I don't want to commit to a joint meeting. Our recommendation is that we would we would like to have study session involves us and that when we have that study session that we would invite the city council is invited to attend. Um I'd have to defer to our deputy city attorney, but that's fine. If if if council members and a majority are commenting on an ordinance that could I I understand the intent of the commission, we will do our best to good cross-section.

Okay. Property owners and that's okay. I don't want to have to commit to a joint. It's a lot of work to do a joint session. So I'm fine with that. So if we remove the friendly amendment, would you agree to remove the friendly amendment if we make that as one of the questions requests of the staff study? Are you okay with doing that instead? Commissioner St. John. Okay. So withdraw the friendly amendment. Go back to the original motion. We have a second on that emotion on the motion from Commissioner Jacobson. We'll go ahead and take a vote on that and we'll start with all of you on that. Commissioner Chang,

yes. Commissioner Baron, yes. Commissioner Rana, yes. Vice Chair Walton, yes. Chair Woodson, yes. Commissioner St. John, yes. Commissioner Jacobson, yes. Motion to pass.

Okay, great. So public, you are more than welcome to stay as we kind of go through the guidance. Um I don't want to keep you there, but I did want to you kind of give that direction so that you didn't have to sit there and say, "Wow, what are they going to do? And I how long do I have to sit here for that?" Um so you're more than welcome to stay, but you you don't have to. Um now we're going to go back to providing additional questions. And since I interrupted our vice chair and kind of put this in there, I'll let um the vice chair Walton, I'll let you finish with your remaining four items that you would like to provide as guidance.

All right. Well, this one is more of a question um than guidance that uh I I was just looking at a website that is uh one of your platform hosting devices and I found a camper RV in Seaside. Is that something that's allowed in? Uh, that's a new one. I saw that one today as well.

Um, first off, it's in seaside, so not mine. [laughter] But yes, typically that uh I mean, and if that happened here, no, because you cannot stay in the city limits unless you're in an RV park and that's handled over there with the RV park, right? Um, so typically I would defer to that, but I mean it could still go under my purview because they're technically renting it out short term and they need a permit for that and you would tell them no for the RV camper or Right. So because you can't stay in it on in city limits, right? But we do have um except for the camper.

We Yeah, we do have a place, right? So typically they handle that. They they pay their fees or their f or their business license um taxes that way. But that's an interesting one because I haven't had one. I haven't had an applicant say, "I'm renting out my trailer at an RV park. Do I need a permit?" Right. That would be a new one. So, but yes, I'm aware. I saw that one. All right. Um, with respect to the process, are you a do you think you'll be able to streamline it through something like that? Uh, HDL portal where they pay the the T? I don't exactly know what the portal looks like because I don't have an account, but if you're able to maybe get it. I don't know how you're working through all of this. It sounds like a nightmare and I appreciate [clears throat] you for it. [laughter]

In my mind, all I see is a bunch of spreadsheets with tabs and you just Yeah, let me just because we're trying to try to get further back up. I do. Yeah. No, no, no. I'm not Okay. We'll stay here as long as the commission. [laughter] Uh, so you have to get a business license, you have to get the short-term rental, and you have to remit the TOT. So it's actually three separate touch points with council with with staff. So to answer your question, yes, it is quite a bit of work on Marissa and Brian's part. So So maybe maybe there's some software out there that that might that the city might be able to Absolutely. If that's something the commission wants us to talk about at this session, I think so.

That's fine. We can follow up on that. Um, and then just this is just a a comment and I guess this is back to the 180 days because on um that 14% toot on a $132 a day um room the city's going to get approximately $4,000 if they rent it. It's you know they get it out there for all 180 days. Um and I think that's pretty good with with the with all of that. So that that's just a comment. And then my very last one, I think um that the homeowner should be required to list their rentals on on a platform. I think that should be a requirement. That way you can track it.

And thank you.

And I did want to add more, you know, um one of the speakers uh mentioned it um how back then in 2019 the city chose not to use the platforms to remit straight to the city, right? We chose to do it our own way through our city website, not our city website, but through HDL, our company that also processes business licenses. So, they also remit Toot through that. So, it does make it a little bit more difficult because if it was remitted through the portals through the platform uh uh companies, they would they would remit the tax directly, right? they would get it from the customer and remit it to us versus having the permit holders remit or monthly taxes, right?

Is this on wouldn't that I in my opinion I'm going to swipe my card once and sleep? So I think maybe yes and maybe no. So the example would be

but that was the decision. a a friend of mine from the from my son's teams owns a real property company up in Sacramento that does high-end rentals and he has four rentals in the Monterey Bay area that completely come through his real property high-end property luxury rental company. They're not listed. They're just sitting out there. They don't even list where the houses are. Um, and the only reason I know it is because he rents the house out to Zach Brown during Indie Car who's the head of McLaren. And so he's got a it's down in Carmel or in the Highlands. Um, so I think that there I mean obviously a different category here, but in that respect there are a lot of places that it's a it's a sort of a listing, but we wouldn't even we wouldn't even know to look there. And that and the only reason I even know that is because I know him and I was talking to him and I was we were talking about Zack Brown and Indiggar. So it just was a a confluence of facts. So I think that that's where it's an idea, but I think it would be difficult. But I think we can come back to the study and we can look at that and say what that looks like.

Yes. Okay. So Commissioner Ch um actually Commissioner St. John, do you have anything else? Yeah. to include in your study session. And this was just brought up by Brian and others, the the issue of equity. Okay? And I didn't think of that when I my study on my own was focused on why we even need a a STRS.

Okay. But from tonight hearing from the public, some people that live here in Marina survive on their STR. It's a part part of their survival to own a home in Marina. And if and if that's the case, then then the current staff recommendation penalizes a portion of the population with no regard to equity to individuals equity. M

so I propose that you I have no problem with single family residents but that that could also include a primary home in an ADU and or a JADU and that if we look with a little more take our glasses off and look a little further to around why not duplexes is where an owner can live in half of the duplex and the other could be a short-term rental. Okay. Yeah, we will certainly take a look at that when we come back.

And triplexes and we could expand it. It we could What is zoning R1 includes up to four? Uh usually just single family single family home. No, just one one with an ADU or JD or both or all three. So, okay. And but once again, that's why we're here today to get the feedback. So, this is the kind of stuff that when we come back for the study session, we'll say, "Hey, we thought about it. We heard from the public. We heard from the commission. Here's some additional edits." And yeah, definitely through that equity lens, we can we can take

We listen to to the public tonight. The 180 days is probably quite restrictive to some of the population who have invested in a ADU and moved into it and want to rent their primary residence and and to limit that to 180 days would be a penalty to their economy. Okay.

Okay. So, let's reconsider the 180day limit. I think that there's probably nothing wrong with requiring the property owner to live there. Otherwise, it just becomes rental property. And and if it's rental property, does the city restrict the rental property to only 30-day or longer rental? If that's a city rule,

then the rental property for short-term rental would have to be included or excluded. Okay? And once again, we will we will kind of go through our thought process because if you're proposing that somebody live on the property, you have then No, no, I'm saying if you

I can I'm saying if if you're supportive of that, then put yourself in our shoes where what some have done, not all, is well, my LLC lives there. my um my corporation lives there. How do we prove someone lives there? And that's part of the genesis for some of the language. So anyway, it's not to belabor the point, but we will we will walk the commission through some of the thought process. So, and we we might not come to consensus and the commission might might not recommend it to the council, but at least we'll give some more context for who lives on a property. Does an LLC live on a property? Does an individual owner live on a property? That's the question. So,

well, yeah, I think you've put some language in there that that addressed some of your words just now, right? That said that it definitely homes can be owned by an LLC, but that somebody owns the LLC, right? But and that if somebody is in if the if the LLC is in Delaware and the gentleman lives in Las Vegas. Okay. Anyways, we'll discuss. We'll discuss. We're not going to be lawyers tonight. Okay.

Woken him now. Anyway, uh another thought to put into your study commission committee is insurance. that that that could be a requirement that the short-term rental if it requires a writer that it should have liability and um medical insurance coverage or Okay.

Okay. Because these are it's a business now. the uh short-term rental becomes a business and so they need liability, medical and whatever else businesses are required to have. Okay. And uh anyway, I'll I'll pass the chair. All right, Commissioner Chang. He's next. Thank you. Mr. Chang, you are next. You have had your hand up for a long time.

Okay. Thank you, chair. Um, I just have questions for the staff to think about and include in their study. The questions are how many permitted STR do we currently have? I think we need to know the numbers. We have like 35 31 31.

Okay. And and then what is our estimate of non-compliant ones? We have a couple um we have a couple and only three of those 31 are currently occupied, right? Where they they live on site and rent, you know, part of the house. The other ones rent the whole house. Um, and I want to clarify for the record that, uh, some of the, you know, the permit holders that continue to violate the code, um, have an issue with the ADUs and the Jedus not being able to be used as short-term rentals, but that is state law. That is not we reinforce the intermunity code, but it that's prohibited, right? The intent of having an ADU and a Jedu on site is to create housing, not to rent your house out for a business, right? It's still a residential area. Um, so it's intended to be a home. Uh, but yes, some people, you know, have have alleged that they're living in the ADU, um, and renting out the main house and they end up renting both properties or both buildings. Of course you you do have those who who did not ask for permit which you do not know right.

Yeah. And uh has a study been done on the impact of SDR on the uh availability and cost of long-term rental housing in our city. There there has been studies by the Turner Center up at UC Berkeley. I don't have those off the top of my head, but at all the state laws that we've been quoting, that's why all the ADU laws quote specifically ADUs should not be used for STRs, but we can certainly provide some of that documentation at the study session.

And I will add to that now, um those 31 permits that we currently have, we have two pending that we're working with the um owners to comply and follow through. Um but so that would make it 33. But um I went back on all the properties that we current that currently hold permits. Nine of those properties were recently bought within the last few years. And before they were purchased, they were all long-term rentals. And then when they sold purchased by the current owner, they used them as short-term rentals. and some of them have built a junior have converted the garage into a Jedu and also built an ADU and at one point rented all three as short-term rentals until I told them no. Um so yeah, so nine nine of those 31 permits were previously long-term rentals and now they're all short-term.

So would this 91 permit um affect the community here in the city? Sorry, what was the question? Will that affect the community here? Yeah, because I I think what Marissa is trying to say, Commissioner Chang, is your question was what is the impact on STRs on housing? And I think what what she was trying to say is nine of the 31 permits that she's currently processing. Those nine used to be long-term rentals, like permanent people living there. So that's a third of the STR permisses. So the answer to your question would be yes. Okay.

And then and once again that's the kind of data that we should probably explain. That's good. And also in your study distinguish between home sharing owner present and whole unit rentals so that we we know the uh the the owner who renting their house out completely without their presence.

Right. So, like I mentioned previously, you know, I know that three of them for sure are living on site, right? And some of them have have complained about the other properties stating the ordinance says it has to be their primary residence. Why aren't they living in the house because they're renting the whole house, right? So, that's why we try to reinforce it, right? Uh but yeah, only three of the 31 are occupied. Um they physically live in the house and state. Hey, I'm I'm actually occupying one room, but you have access to the whole kitchen and the living room and everything else. Um

so your your ordinance will differentiate these two type of uh occupancy right the home sharing and uh all unit rental will you yeah so just yeah so home sharing is that that's not really kind of what we're focused on here commissioner Chang that's more of a long-term rental um actually we have a program in our housing element so encouraging home sharing to help keep people in their housing. So that's kind of for another time. So Okay, that's good. Thank you. That's all I have. Thanks, Commissioner. Thank you, Chair. Yeah.

Um, next, uh, Commissioner Jacobson, now it's your turn. Thank you, Chair. [laughter] Um, [clears throat] mine is not specific to the proposed ordinance, but rather to the process. That might be helpful. And so, unfortunately, this falls back on my lean six s lean six sigma days. So, just bear with me. No problem. So the thing that would probably help me the most, I don't know about anybody else, is first of all for each of the major categories, identify the problem. What what is it that we're trying to solve? What's the problem?

Right? Include the data and the analysis of that data, [clears throat] how the new rules will solve that problem, and then test it. Now, I don't know what test it means. Does it mean bring in, you know, the STR owners and run it by them or does it mean, you know, doing a temporary with a sunset? Not sure. And then at the end of that, then we can recommend final changes and probably get through it a lot quicker. Okay. No, that sounds very rational in terms of testing it though. I don't know.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. But but I think I think uh this conversation has been very enlightening for me that I think we'll come up for the study session and then probably have a separate meeting with the STR permit holders and say hey this is the problem that we as staff are facing. You're the permit holder. Here's the draft language. What do you think? So we we so maybe that's a way of we can that's kind of Yeah. No, I like that. That's a good Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way. And then we can even we'll definitely we we did commit to uh noticing and hopefully bringing some of the STR people here to the study session. So, no, it's a great idea.

Yeah. And I'm not going to go into any details. It was just so cumbersome and you know, I could have I broke down a 100 comments, but let's not do those, right? It comes back to me. Uh I think on mine I have lots of different comments. I will as we move forward with that in the study session. I think we can we'll come up with the process and we can probably forward you the questions. So um and maybe we'll take that as that way of doing this we'll just ask the commissioners who still have outstanding specific questions to just go through those and forward those to Mercer and Guido separately because they coming into the holidays they don't have enough on their plate.

Yeah. So let's talk scheduling commission. So, we've only got one, two. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Apologize, chair. You might you must live outside the local community or something and want to get home.

Sorry. Poor guy. Sorry. Um, shouldn't be laughing because I know what that long commute is. Um I think on my side I have a couple kind of guidance areas and I think it coming back to the six sigma kind of process improvement is I think going back and looking at the specific regulatory options that we have that were cons that were considered back at the time and and when you were looking at that the the root cause right now is trying to understand what the intent was if we've got that documentation from the discussions back then in 2018 2019 because it was it was significant um to move this because we went from nothing to something. Um, so that would be the first one including and then as part of that I think it's looking at what are the estimated administrative costs and the level of effort that it takes for our city as we we put this what is what is Marissa's time commitment now out of code enforcement because if she's doing code enforcement supporting this it's not it's taking away from code enforcement to all of our other regulations in the city

that we have significant challenges with still trying to get to and we hired her and it's great and she's making a big difference and probably fully paying for his salary with the number of code issues that we have. Um so it's kind of what what is that level of effort though and what is that administrative burden that we're going to be adding to this. Um the second thing I would like to look at is what is um

going back and I think it's the structural occupancy and operational limits on short-term rentals. That's the 180 days. But it's really what when we start quantifying things and it's funny because we go to 180 days, right? And we're saying 180 days is half a year, but it's not. It's 182 days. And I I make that as a side as a ingest, but at the same time, why did we set 180? Why didn't we set 182? Why didn't we set 179? And that is something that the owners, whether it's taxes here, whether it's something else, anything when we start putting a date timeline to it. So I would like to kind of understand, okay, why did we get that? And and I do understand some of the background of why communities get to 180 days. I mean, because I've seen it. I I can literally have dealt with for five years watching South Lake Tahoe deal with these exact same issues. They use H and they actually use HLD or HDL. They use HDL for almost everything, right?

They use it for all of their tracking. They use it for registration. I mean, they have like whole hog into HDL. Um, so that would be my second. My third one is um I I I'm not sure how we address this, but I think the first part of it is how do we address neighborhood impact mitigation, which I think is kind of a rubric for a lot of things we've talked about here. The first part of that is what is an overlay going back to the comments from some of the public on okay, do we have too many in one area? Do we have I mean we run into this whether it's liquor licenses, whether it's whether it's STRs, whether it's rentals, whatever. we have this density issue that comes across and so having an overlay that we can say okay how are we trying not that we're trying to manage it because I don't know if we really want to get to that point where we're saying there's two on a oh we can't have more than two on a street but just having an understanding of okay with 31 and we have 2400 units single family homes across the city where does that 31 actually represent and where are we trying to grow to and are we going to move towards that

yeah Um then my fourth to look at is going back to taxation and revenue generation which we've talked about is um I would what is kind of the model that we're going to use moving forward that represents how we what is our return on investment what becomes viable because this is about and and the model and revenue model does not necessarily mean that it's all monetary I guess revenue does but the taxation but the basis behind it

of what is kind of the community impact And can we quantify quality of life and what does that look like? Because that is a lot of the these issues and these complaints that come in and it's not just STRs, it's rentals. I mean, my the house next to mine was bought turned into a rental and it's rented to graduate for the most part. It's been rented to graduate students for the last four years from CSUMB. I have at any given time they've had four to six people living at the house. They've been great tenants. There's never been an issue with them. They've they've been wonderful even with the rotation through it. They have six to seven cars depending on who's living there and whether they're riding bikes or not. And it it creates an impact, but I've been able to work through it as a neighbor. Um but there is a quality of life issue as we start to increase this. And what we're not looking at is we're not looking at 31 units right now. We're looking at okay, this is our long-term growth pattern. We were six years ago we were at zero units. So we're I I would see this increasing over time especially the way the market is because as a number of the people talked about today um and we talk about this what is what is affordable rental what is affordable living. The last thing that I would say is um I think we really have to have a better defined idea of what is what is the development of the of enforcement and penalty framework of what we want to look at and are there ways that we can catalog this as we look at at this to enforce behavior without providing a a physical regulatory stick but providing a monetary stick so that we're not penalizing the whole group for the actions of individuals. And that and that's just that's got its own sticky wicket and there's there's lots of issues that go around with that at the same time because sometimes it's just random. Somebody has a tenant or a rent or STR they come in and it's everything you look fine and then they

just sucked and they were terrible and so what becomes kind of that enforcement side of it. So I think that that becomes part of it also and maybe if we can develop a a good framework that is an escalating kind of framework that maybe that is tied to it and it could be that oh you've and that and I and I will say not getting into it that has its own risk. You can't just we can't put a number and say, "Oh, if you have four four valid complaints," because then you could have a bad neighbor who just doesn't want an STR and they just call in four complaints over two months. And I was like, "Ah, well, you've you've hit you've tipped the scale. You can't have an STR anymore."

Um, so there this is a it's a solvable issue, but it's a complex problem. I guess I'll leave it at that, Guido. So, those are my five kind of recommendations that I would make. Great. We're done. [laughter] It's on you. What you you want? You have

Oh, I I I didn't mean to interrupt the chair. So, uh so we're running out of meetings for the year. So, uh was going to suggest to the commission. So, because uh we've got a meeting uh November 13th that's already pretty packed. Thanksgiving, obviously, we're not meeting. And then December 11th, we've got two uh one or two media items. So, I didn't know if the commission was open to having a December 4th. That would be an additional Thursday. That's possible. That's the first f the first Thursday. I think I would I would be open to that. So, what I'll do is I'll email the commission and just um yeah,

I don't want there to be too much lag time because we've we have gotten some requests to finish this at the council. So, so I'll see if December 4th works for that. Reminds me of the joke that Guido of the the parents the parents call their kids up on the phone and say, "We're done after 40 years of marriage. I can't stand my spouse anymore. I'm getting divorced. We're done with it all." And they call their kids on the phone. Their kids are like, "No, you can't get divorced. You can't get divorced. Let's talk about this. We're going to get together tomorrow morning." Yet the parents don't do anything rash. Kids get on the phone with their parents the next day. They say, "Wait, parents are again, we're done. Can't stand it. We're going to be divorced." and said, "Well, [clears throat] we're going to come out and we will deal with this." Okay, come out on Thanksgiving. And so parents get off the phone and they turn to each other and say, "Well, now we know our kids going to be here for Thanksgiving."

All right. Sounds good. All right. All right. It's been a long day there, Chair Woodson. It has been a long my day. Anyway, so I So before before we get I I just wanted to for the people in the audience and at home as staff obviously We appreciate you spending three hours with us. Um, you know, we do the best we can. Uh, but obviously getting more input is helpful. So, we thank you guys and we thank the commission. We appreciate the commission's diligence and the thoughtfulness and we will have a very robust study session and we will obviously reach out to the STR people to get their uh input. But definitely appreciate everybody's input tonight. So, thank you.

All right. So, they're done. We're not done yet. So, we're going to close out item number seven. And the spell mistake truly was epic on the the rental versus renal. Um, I am sorry. I am sorry. That was one of the best typos I've seen in years. Um, so item number eight isformational items. Do we have any? If we did, we'll table it. Um, number nine is announcements. Nope, no announcements.

Announcements. Okay, number 10 is any correspondence to go over. All right, that means number 11, which is adjourning. So, we'll go ahead and adjourn for the night.