The Marin County Planning Commission threaded the needle on short-term rental regulations on Monday. It exempted Dillon Beach and parts of Stinson Beach from proposed limits but set tighter caps for the rest of West Marin than county staff had recommended.
The commissioners did not resolve a major question: whether to exempt hosted rentals from the limits. They left that matter to be decided by the Board of Supervisors, which is expected to take up the proposed regulations in early January.
Monday’s hearing was the latest in a series of public meetings and workshops aimed at reconciling two competing goals: giving homeowners some flexibility to rent and increasing the availability of long-term housing for West Marin’s workforce.
“This is not a simple issue,” commissioner Margaret Curran said. “People’s finances are affected, and people’s communities are affected. It’s a big, difficult issue not just for us, but frankly, in the state and in the country.”
County planners presented a first draft of the proposed regulations to the commissioners on Oct. 28. That proposal would have limited all property owners to just one non-transferable vacation rental. Licenses would have had to be renewed every two years and could have been revoked if renters committed two violations of health, safety, noise and trash disposal regulations.
The revised proposal, which commissioners approved on a 4-1 vote, would allow operators who currently have multiple units to continue operating up to three of them. It would permit family members to inherit an S.T.R. license when their spouse or parent dies. Licenses would be revoked after three violations, and property owners would be provided an opportunity to appeal.
The commissioners added children to the parties who can inherit a license despite a consideration raised by Sarah Jones, director of the Community Development Agency.
“It is cementing in place those historical patterns of property ownership,” Ms. Jones said. “One of the things for your commission to consider is how that plays out from a fairness standpoint.”
The commissioners agreed to cap the number of S.T.R.s at the levels where they stood in 2018, when the county approved its first short-term rental regulations. Those rules included various good-neighbor policies but did not set limits on the number of S.T.R.s.
County planners had recommended setting caps at the levels they had reached in West Marin last year, when the county imposed a two-year moratorium on S.T.R.s. Their original draft recommended a cap of 551 units. Although county staff is still calculating the precise 2018 numbers, they could potentially bring the cap down to 480.
The caps would be phased in as current S.T.R. operators leave the market. Commissioners decided not to cap S.T.R.s in Dillon Beach and Seadrift because they are almost exclusively vacation destinations.
The proposed regulations have proved controversial at the many previous meetings and workshops held by the county, and Tuesday’s hearing was no exception. Everyone could find something to disagree with, but housing advocates were generally pleased with the commissioners’ decisions, and S.T.R. operators who oppose any limits at all were disappointed.
“The Planning Commission voted to recommend limits that would drastically reduce visitor access to the most desirable parts of West Marin and Point Reyes National Seashore, far beyond what county staff had recommended,” said Sean Callagy, a spokesman for the West Marin Access Coalition who owns an S.T.R. in Inverness.
He called the board’s proposal “shockingly anti-visitor” and said the county had presented no data to show that short-term rentals reduce the supply of long-term, affordable housing.
Affordable housing advocate Leila Monroe of Bolinas, a spokeswoman for West Marin Residents for Housing, was pleased that the commissioners agreed to a substantial reduction in the caps.
“I think that this was a major improvement, and it reflected the feedback that the commissioners were hearing from the community,” said Ms. Monroe, a co-owner of Smiley’s Schooner Saloon and Hotel in Bolinas.
But without tougher enforcement provisions, Ms. Monroe said, it will take a long time for the caps to be reached. The draft relies on neighbors to report violations and does not provide for extra county staff to enforce the rules.
As the regulations now stand, hosted S.T.R.s—those that are within the primary residence of the owner or a long-term tenant—are included in the proposed caps.
Several members of the public who spoke at the hearing said they depended on hosted rental income to finance their mortgages or retirement and would have to leave West Marin if they couldn’t operate an S.T.R.
“The S.T.R. allows us to live and thrive in our community,” said Eric Joost, who retired to Bolinas with his wife three years ago. “If this is removed from our options, we will literally be forced to sell our home and move. It is the stark reality for us and for many elders and young homeowners.”
Some of the commissioners seemed open to eliminating hosted rentals from the caps, but said they needed to see more precise definitions in the regulations before considering the question.
Planning staff has set an ambitious schedule for approving the new regulations before the moratorium on new S.T.R.s expires in May. Several people attending Monday’s workshop suggested that the board was moving too quickly and needed more time to deliberate.
Commissioner Don Dickenson proposed limiting the number of days a host could rent an S.T.R. rather than placing a cap on the number of licenses. He advocated a 90-day annual limit like the one enacted in San Francisco and several other Bay Area communities. That approach would deter corporate investors from buying up the housing stock while allowing all owners of second homes to rent their houses for part of the year.
Jonathan Kaplan, who owns a house in West Marin but didn’t register an S.T.R. before the moratorium, said it was unfair to grant licenses to all current operators but lock homeowners like him out of the
market.
“There is no reason to believe that banning people like me, who just want to rent our house a few weeks in the year, will do anything to improve the long-term housing problem,” he said.
County staff considered the possibility of capping the number of nights a host could rent but concluded that it would be very difficult to enforce without hiring a large cadre of inspectors.
The lone dissenting vote on the final proposal approved by the commission on Monday was cast by Mr. Dickenson, who said he needed more time to evaluate the rules before voting. He urged the commissioners to hold another meeting before sending the proposal to the Board of Supervisors.
Commissioner Margot Biehle did not attend the session due to illness. Commissioner Chris Desser, who represents West Marin, was also absent.
Ms. Desser recused herself after some housing advocates—as well as the publishers of the Light, David Briggs and Tess Elliott—called on her to do so because she owns an S.T.R. in Marshall. Mr. Briggs and Ms. Elliott sent an email raising concerns about possible conflicts of interest to commissioners and supervisors on Sunday.
Many of the modifications to the original draft regulations were proposed by Ms. Desser at the Oct. 28 work session. At that session and several meetings before it, Ms. Desser had disclosed that she operated an S.T.R.
“I didn’t think there was a conflict of interest, but I didn’t want this to be about me,” Ms. Desser told the Light on Tuesday. “I want it to be about how we ended up with the best ordinance for our communities.”