Del Mar City Council members approved guidelines for short-term rental regulations during their Oct. 2 meeting.
Those guidelines include limiting short-term rentals to 5% of the city’s housing stock, requiring a permit and $1 million in rental insurance, a minimum three-night booking, no special events, and each short-term rental has to display the operator’s contact information.
The policies are based on a series of principles that council members adopted, including consistency with the city’s community plan, minimize adverse impacts to neighboring properties, creating enforcement protocols and distributing STRs throughout the community in a way that makes sense.
Del Mar has been using a forbearance policy that allows short-term rentals only if they were in operation prior to April 2016. Legal challenges, disputes with the California Coastal Commission and the Covid-19 pandemic have slowed progress on a citywide STR ordinance.
Neighboring cities have already enacted short-term rental policies, but have still experienced their share of violations.
“Virtually all of the other cities are failing in enforcement,” Del Mar City Councilmember Dwight Worden said during the meeting. “There are rampant violations of all types, and this is a key part of what we have to do.”
Throughout the North County coastal communities of Del Mar, Solana Beach, Encinitas, Carlsbad and Oceanside, unpermitted short-term rentals have been the most common type of complaint that local officials have responded to, according to records reviewed by the Del Mar Times.
Last month, the city also launched a short-term rental registry for operators to voluntarily sign up. City staff emphasized that the registry would only be used to help craft policy recommendations, not for enforcement purposes. But council members still expressed concerns that STR operators would refuse to sign up.
Del Mar council members will provide more policy direction in December before they vote on a draft ordinance, which will go through the Planning Commission and City Council next year.
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