Huntington Beach continues examining short-term rentals

Huntington Beach City Council members received an update on the city’s short-term rental program during a study session Tuesday evening.

Short-term rentals were officially prohibited in Surf City before 2021, when the city adopted a highly restrictive short-term rental ordinance allowing for hosted rentals.

Tuesday’s report presented by deputy director for community development Jill Bos revealed there are more than 200 STRs in the city, generating nearly $1 million in transient occupancy taxes.

The amount of unpermitted short-term rentals, or STRs, declined dramatically, from 867 in 2020 to 135 last year. Of those, the concentration is largely in the downtown area or in the coastal zone.

Update considerations, Bos said, include an enhanced online portal, enforcing active reporting of violations, setting a cap on unhosted STRs, introducing a wait list process for new permits and undertaking regular auditing to ensure compliance.

“The policy we brought forward back in 2021 was a very conservative, incremental approach,” Councilman Dan Kalmick said. “I think a lot of the strategy here is trying to balance property rights with the rental market. One of the things I don’t want to do is to take rental units or for sale units farther away from where something can be considered affordable or attainable off the market, and turning it into an STR.”

Unhosted rentals are currently only allowed in Sunset Beach, though potential expansion has been discussed.

“I’m very sensitive to this, as it relates to quality of life incidents and disturbances,” Councilman Casey McKeon said. “For me, if I was going to consider any kind of expansion, I would like to understand how code enforcement could have a rapid response team when there is a quality of life disturbance — noise, parking.”

A map of permitted short-term rentals in the city of Huntington Beach.

(Courtesy of city of Huntington Beach)

Code enforcement supervisor Jimmy Hoang responded that each complaint is followed up on either the same day or the next day.

“When there’s a noise complaint, let’s say it’s at 2 o’clock in the morning, we do have the hotline set up,” Hoang said. “People can call that number and they can be connected to the live operator.”

The operator will try to contact the owner to correct the noise issue. If the owner is unavailable, the operator will contact Huntington Beach Police Department’s non-emergency number for a response.

McKeon later said that he’d be interested in a pilot program for expansion that would capture a summer season next year, before making it permanent.

Kathryn Levassiur, a longtime Airbnb host in the city, said there is room for improvement in the process.

“The feedback I get from hosts in Huntington Beach, and my own personal experience for applying for an STR permit, is so frustrating that it leaves many hosts angry at the city for making the permit process so difficult,” she said during public comments Tuesday. “It can’t be good for staff, either. This is hard because I’m always trying to be positive, but if I was grading the city right now for the current short-term rental program, I’d give the city a D-minus.”