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Post by High Priestess on Feb 18, 2016 5:50:00 GMT
Danville City Council voted yesterday to ban short term rentals in its community. See the article here: sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/02/16/new-ordinance-bans-short-term-rentals-in-danville/ I worked on this issue in Danville with some hosts in Danville. Unfortunately, the situation in Danville was heavily influenced by one particular neighborhood feud, which involved some neighbors who were upset with a woman who was doing Short term rentals. Her guests were not causing any real problems, but they just didn't like this woman who was the host. She did not get on with them well either and unfortunately did things to antagonize them rather than pacify them. These neighbors then used the short term rental issue, where she was vulnerable, to bully her, and in the process, these mean spirited and misguided individuals ended short term rentals for all hosts in their city. (See the blog related to this exact type of problem situation, here: globalhostingblogs.com/2015/12/05/how-one-person-creates-short-term-rental-regulations-for-a-whole-city/ ) Following are some of the letters we sent to Danville City Council:
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Post by High Priestess on Feb 18, 2016 5:50:16 GMT
To: Danville Town Council Date: September 20, 2015 Honored Councilmembers: We are the East Bay Homesharers, a group of 430 homesharers or “hosts” in the East Bay. It has come to our attention from various news reports that the city of Danville intends to prohibit short term rentals within Danville. We are discouraged by this plan, which apparently the Town Council intends to do without first conducting a study of short term rentals and considering various options about how to regulate this activity within your town. Short term rentals, such as those conducted through Airbnb and VRBO, among others, are a growing social phenomenon, and many cities are presently studying how to regulate these types of rentals. Our group is currently working with hosts and city leaders in the East Bay cities of Alameda, Berkeley, Oakland, El Cerrito, and Piedmont, all of which have begun to consider regulations and/or taxation issues for short term rentals. In all of these cities, as is the case across the state of California as a whole, it appears that regulated short term rentals will be permitted, with some restrictions. Each city typically seeks to balance the benefits that short term rentals bring to its residents and visitors, with values such as preservation of neighborhood character, and preservation of long term rental housing stock. We understand that Danville is a different type of community than Berkeley or Oakland, or even Alameda or El Cerrito, yet we believe that the approach of one East Bay City, namely Piedmont, CA, as well as the Peninsula city of Palo Alto, provide helpful examples for the direction that we would hope the town of Danville might take with regard to short term rentals. Piedmont, like Danville, is a small, highly residential community, with a high median income level, (higher than that of Danville residents) where residents prize their intimate neighborhood settings. It has no hotels, very little commerce, and features almost exclusively single family dwellings. Like Danville, which has about 15-20 short term rental hosts, Piedmont only has about 20 to 30 short term rental hosts. When the issue of short term rentals arose early this year, there were area residents, as there were in Danville, who were indignant that short term rentals might be permitted in their city, and complained to the City Council. Similar also to the case in Danville, those complaints lacked merit, and consequently the Piedmont City Council was not much moved by complaints about parking, about an unknown person standing on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette, or complaints which, for instance, hysterically sought to link an influx of “guests” with a 20 year old murder case and irrational concerns about predation on area children. Wisely, the Council understood that minor issues like parking stood a good chance of being resolved, and that the city of Piedmont did not want to appear so provincial as to codify prohibitions based clearly on a fear of “outsiders”, meaning, those who were not Piedmont residents. Thus the City of Piedmont undertook a serious study of short term rentals, and directed its staff to write a 46 page report, found here: www.ci.piedmont.ca.us/html/govern/staffreports/2015-09-21/short_term_rentals.pdfIt remains to be seen how Piedmont will regulate short term rentals, but we believe that the important example here for Danville, is that Piedmont was willing to devote time to study this issue in depth and give consideration to all sides of the issue, rather than moving immediately to a prohibition, based primarily on a few complaints lacking merit. We would like to urge Danville to consider the example provided by Piedmont, read the report produced by Piedmont staff, and perhaps work with Piedmont to develop fair and reasonable short term rental regulations. Palo Alto is another useful example to Danville -- this city, also bearing some similarities to Danville, briefly considered short term rentals, and then decided that because of a lack of substantive complaints pertaining to such, it would forgo regulating short term rentals at this time, and so elected to take no action on the matter. Our understanding is that of the 15 to 20 hosts in Danville, there have been complaints related to only one of those. We believe that that one case is not representative of short term rental hosting in general, and involves issues beyond that of short term rentals – in fact it may be a case of a neighborhood feud, within which, the short term rental issue just happened to arise, offering a convenient opportunity for neighbors to bully someone in their community through seeking a city prohibition on that host’s activities. We hope that the town of Danville would see through this situation, and disregard such an “outlier” case in their study of short term rentals. We urge the honorable Councilmembers of the Town of Danville to not act rashly and enact a total ban, but instead give due consideration and time for study to this emerging issue and growing phenomenon of our times. Short term rentals need not be an activity at odds with Danville residents’ desire to preserve their community values and character, but is something that can be given place to 15 to 20 residents (a very small number of residents) in Danville to do, which brings benefit to the Town, and allows visitors to stay somewhere more homey than the local Best Western hotel. We hope that the Town of Danville does not seek to prohibit short term rentals based primarily on the fears that some residents may have of strangers—“strangers” are simply people we haven’t yet said hello to. Once we say hello and introduce ourselves to these new faces in our community, they aren’t strangers any more. In fact, many of those visitors may be Danville or San Ramon residents themselves, whose houses are undergoing construction and they need another place to stay temporarily. In Piedmont, a good number of guests staying at Airbnb listings are Piedmont residents with houses in construction, or are relatives of Piedmont residents who prefer not to impose on their family members. Other guests may be future Danville residents, having recently obtained jobs in local corporations. What better way to warmly welcome guests to Danville, than to allow them to stay in a home of one of Danville’s own residents. Best regards, East Bay Homesharers
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Post by High Priestess on Feb 18, 2016 5:51:03 GMT
Nother letter sent to Danville TOwn Council:
Dear Mayor and Council Members,
I am a homeowner in Danville (for ___ years) and an Airbnb host (for ____ months/years). In the past few months I have attended (and spoken at) one council meeting, and the two planning commission meetings on which discussed banning short term rentals (STR). At 2 out of 3 I was one of 2 (and at one I was solo) speakers who spoke against the ban. At all of those meetings there were at least a dozen people who spoke their opposition to STR. At least 3/4 of them were from the Alamatos neighborhood, which is suffering from a grim bad-neighbor scenario, disguised as an STR issue.
The impact of our reasoned arguments gets crushed by the piling on of negativity. The most recent Planning Commission meeting's agenda included a couple hours of discussion on whether to propose an ordinance to regulate or ban short term rentals (STR) in Danville. Unfortunately, the commission decided to recommend a ban to the Council. This decision was in spite of the commission members' having determined that except for 2 neighborhoods (out of the 23 which are represented by STR properties in Danville) there have been no complaints and absolutely no police activity because of STR.
The argument for a ban is loaded with highly charged phrases like “cause mischief and mayhem”, “diminishing home values”, “human and sex trafficking”, while there is not a shred of evidence to support these conclusions types of concerns/fears. Why would a criminal use as entry to our community a process that makes him so traceable? Recent media coverage of criminal activity in Danville has distorted the real danger. It's only because we have such an incredibly safe town with virtually no violent crimes that now having 2 property crimes a day (according to the Jan 31-Feb 6 police blotter) is resulting in people's acting as if the Mongolian hoards hordes are descending on upon us. What sort of community interprets anyone unknown as a threat and a person of evil intent, and is that what we want to create as the foundation of our town? is this the way that we want people to perceive Danville, as a town of fearful, hysterical xenophobes?
Also, the notion that NOT banning STR is going to lead to an explosion of STR in Danville is just silliness. Although the idea of opening our homes and augmenting our incomes is extremely appealing to some of us I can't see a huge number of Danvillians wanting to expend the time and trouble to do it! The Town Council can always revisit this issue if problems arise, instead of enacting a prohibition which has no basis in facts.
And one final note. The character of short term rentals is more akin to positive foreign exchange than the Inevitable destroyer of our town's “special character”. I have hosted people from all over the world, from Taiwan, the Philippines, Spain, Germany, Russia and more. These people returned to their countries with a first-hand experience of life in an American community, an experience that is not available from a hotel. We introduce them to our local businesses and our customs while sharing our values.
I request that you not put a ban on short term rentals in Danville. I think it is unnecessary. I think it was born of a mean-spirited group's commitment to address a bad neighbor situation that they have relentlessly broadcast and publicized and which they have misrepresented as a short term rental problem, and painted as an imminent catastrophe for Danville, which does not get to the source of their problem. Yet if a ban on short term rentals is passed, this neighborhood feud will continue. Let’s not allow Danville to be viewed by others as a backward, reactionary town which is pushed to pass ordinances, in response to the influence of one group of neighbors wishing to bully another group. Rather, let’s pass reasonable ordinances which show Danville to be a town of thoughtful and wise civic leaders.
Warm regards,
Pat
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Post by High Priestess on Feb 18, 2016 5:51:40 GMT
And one more letter written to Danville City Council:
January 19, 2016
From (host name) to:
Town of Danville, Planning Commission
510 La Gonda Way
Danville, CA 94526
Subject: Short Term Rental Issue
Dear Mr. Radich:
I have been following the Towns proceedings regarding the “Short term Rental Situation” for several months. Previously I have written the Danville Town Attorney, Rob Ewing, expressing some of my views on the matter. As I have previously stated, I am in favor of short term rentals and am against any restrictions in Danville.
As this matter has evolved over the past several months it has become apparent to me and others that have been following this matter that the real problem here does not stem from abusive short term rentals in Danville at all, but rather results from two neighbors not being able to get along.
The history of this dispute as I understand it is as follows. Craig Gjerman and his wife live at 222 El Sobrante, which is at the corner of Alamatos and El Sobrante. Their back yard abuts the side yard of a house at 412 Alamatos. The party living at 412 Alamatos obtained a building permit from the Town of Danville to construct a two story addition to their home on the side of their property closest to the Gjermans back yard. As I understand the situation the stated purpose for this addition was to be for “Recreational Purposes”. As the construction progressed it became apparent that the addition would be quite invasive to the Gjermans privacy. It also seemed to become commonly known that the purpose of the addition was not for recreational purposes but rather for several more short term rental units (previous to the construction they had one short term rental).
Before I go on I would like to point out that the addition in question appears to be being built with the proper permits from the Town of Danville and the construction seems to have met all of the Towns building requirements including property line setbacks currently in effect. The problem is, and I think that anyone who actually looks at the construction would agree, that the construction is ugly, it is invasive to the Gjermans privacy, it will most likely devalue the Gjermans property and is inappropriate for this or any residential neighborhood. To be blunt, I think that the Town of Danville is partly responsible for this situation by allowing this type of construction to be approved. Simply put, its character is not consistent with the neighborhood and the surrounding homes. I recognize that the Town must issue building permits for any projects that meet local building codes. However, I think that the town needs to adopt and enforce some type of regulations that would address this type of situation in the future.
From what I understand in talking to people who know about this neighborhood dispute, Mr. Gjerman is not without fault in getting along with his neighbor. He is alleged to have started building a swimming pool in his back yard a few years ago without a building permit. The noise and construction ultimately gained the attention of the Towns Building Department and he was required to obtain a building permit. Your building department can confirm this. He is also alleged to have held a loud noisy party to irritate this neighbor after construction was in progress on this addition. The police were allegedly contacted on this. In addition, Mr. Gjerman, a fireman by occupation, also runs a dumpster and demolition business from his home and there have been a number of complaints to the Town about trailers and equipment being left on the Towns roadway in front of his house for days on end creating an eyesore. These infractions concluded with intervention from the Towns Code Enforcement from, I believe, the Danville Police Department.
I realize that the above allegations are not necessarily germane to the situation at hand but certainly help to explain why this situation has escalated to the point it has, so I want to be sure that the Town Officials contemplating restrictions on short term rentals understand that there has not been an abuse on the part of short term rentals hosts that needs to be addressed with the implementation of more laws and regulations.
I would also like to point out that the majority of the persons who have written letters against short term rentals all have one common source - that is they were prompted to write due the neighborhood dispute mentioned previously. The topics/themes of the complaints have suggested that short term rentals will cause more noise, traffic, safety issues, parking problems and bring undesirable characters to our Town. In addition, some have inferred that the short term rentals may be the cause of potential sex crimes, neighborhood burglaries, and are responsible for a drug house in this neighborhood. These allegations are all simply scare tactic
designed to bring opposition to the short term rental situation. They must be seen for what they are, which are simply unfounded allegations. They have no basis in fact in Danville, and I am sure that the police would readily agree that there has been no link between short term rentals and these alleged types of crimes. These potential issues are already covered under our current laws and enforced as necessary by the Towns Police Department.
While I and others who have already written the Town expressing many of the positive aspects of short term rentals for our town, I am concerned that a total ban on short term rentals will bring about a negative image of our town in the public eye by labeling Danville as not being a friendly place to visit, live and do business. Additionally, people who come to Danville as short term renters spend their money here too. They eat in the local restaurants and shop in the local stores. This is good for the local businesses as it helps stimulate the local economy. It is also good for the Town of Danville as their purchases generate sales tax revenue for the Town to spend on things the residents want. I am sure that if you asked any of the local business establishments in town if they would like to deny the opportunity for these people to shop in their establishments and thereby have lower sales, that they would not be happy with that idea.
I also think that, as Mr. Ewing points out, there are perhaps 15 to 20 short term rentals in Danville. This is in comparison to 16,000 total residential units. This is such an insignificant amount in comparison to the overall picture that it hardly warrants new laws being enacted and the creation of infrastructure to enforce these laws.
I would also like to point out that the types of short term rentals classified under the “airbnb” category are quite varied. They range from hosts renting a single bed and bath while still living in their home to hosts renting or exchanging their entire home while absent. Some BNB’s offer guests limited eating availability while others allow guests the use of the entire home.
I recognize that Danville needs to bring some type of closure to the current situation and would hope that you would limit any action to resolving the current matter in the Alamatos neighborhood and not implement regulations covering the entire Town. In other words, “Don’t try to fix something that isn’t broken”. In fact, in this case, the 'fix' would seem to be to available by enforcing existing building codes and buiilding permits without new regulation. That is, require 'recreational use' as specified in the original permit and disallow the current implementation of multiple rental units. This solution seems much more focused on the problem that is causing the uproar and eliminates the need for further regulation.
If, in the Planning Commissions opinion, you conclude that some sort of regulation is needed to handle short term rentals, I would suggest that Danville not ban short term rentals in total, but rather require that anyone desiring to conduct short term rentals register with the Town and pay a nominal $25-50 annual fee. In addition, I would suggest that there be different classifications for the different types of short term rentals and a limit to the number of short term rental units allowed on each property with a maximum of one or two short term rental units per property.
Thank you for considering my thoughts on the short term rental matter.
Robert
Danville, CA
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