Airbnb at Center of Citywide Debate in Bay Area

The town of Pacifica is divided — literally — over Airbnb and other short-term rentals.

The Bay Area community south of San Francisco implemented strict new regulations for short-term rentals last year that have already driven away many permitted Airbnbs, Vrbo properties and other similar vacation rentals, but the rules only applied to inland Pacifica east of Pacific Coast Highway, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Now, neighborhoods along the coast are in a holding pattern as the California Coastal Commission mulls approval of the ordinance. The state agency has jurisdiction over the area, leaving neighborhoods like Sharp Park and Pedro Point as short-term rental hotspots in the town.

“We’ve basically converted this entire street… into a row of unregulated hotels,” one local resident told the Chronicle, calling out multiple short-term rentals near her home on Beach Boulevard, including a three-bedroom house owned by a vacation rental company next door. Another Pacifica resident said “it’s like living next to a dive bar and a Holiday Inn.”

The California Coastal Commission will consider the matter at its meeting next week. If the agency makes a decision, it will conclude a saga that has dragged on for years as short-term rentals in California face various municipal and state regulations depending on location. Coastal Commission staff have recommended approving the ordinance in a memo last week, despite calling the “stringent” rules that would be “some of the most severe in the coastal zone at this point.” A final vote on the matter is expected by early April, though it could be postponed by up to a year.

The strict rules require hosts to prove that a unit is their primary residence and caps unhosted rentals at 60 nights per year, lower than San Francisco’s 90-night cap and San Jose’s 180-night limit. Before the ordinance took effect following city council approval last July, Pacifica had 147 permitted short-term rentals, below the citywide cap of 150. Once the regulations were implemented, nearly half of those permit holders did not renew their credentials, including approximately 23 on the coast and 50 inland, according to a city memo cited by the Chronicle.

— Chris Malone Méndez