In 2011, “Time” declared the sharing economy as one of the “10 Ideas that will change the world,” and titled their article, “Don’t Own. Share.” The sharing economy would engender a sense of community, create “meaningful human connections” and even produce a biological “spike” of positive feelings. This new paradigm of collaborative consumption was born out of inspired necessity as a response to the global economic crisis when people were forced to rethink how we interact with each other and our resources. The idea brought us Zipcar, SnapGoods and even a group of people willing to let strangers couch surf in their homes for very little cost. In short, it was a great idea and in some areas, it remains so.
“Time” was correct – this idea has changed the world, but as with most things, there are unintended consequences. In 2015, we must address the reality that when it comes to vacation rentals: the sharing economy has morphed into the greed economy.
While some people are inviting strangers into their homes for very little cost, far too many vacation home operators are investors with little consideration for the neighborhoods and communities. AirBnB estimates that 30 percent of their listings are by people who list multiple properties. The decision to buy multiple homes and operate them as hotels induces few spikes of pleasure in their neighbors and is removing literally thousands of rental units from the market.
Municipalities across the globe are grappling with the fallout. Here in the Sonoma Valley, working class families are being regularly evicted from their homes in favor of short-term rentals that may provide increased income for the owners, but severely diminish the ability of anyone who is not a current homeowner to live here. Added to that, residents looking to buy a home are competing with cash buyers who have no intention of being a part of this community. Our workforce is increasingly pushed out and forced to commute here — or leave the area entirely for jobs closer to their homes. The trend has left businesses grappling to find people to fill increasing vacancies.
In the meantime, commercialization of our neighborhoods remains largely unregulated and untaxed. Sonoma County introduced regulation in 2010, but policies have not kept up with the trend and the results are predictable. The county receives complaints each week and often when we review the unpermitted rentals, we discover they are charging the current tax rate to their guests, but never passing it on to help offset the cost of roads, schools, or public safety services.
We are hurtling toward a non-community where the homes are owned by people who do not live here and are occupied by transient residents who are often oblivious of their effect on others. Many visitors are quiet and do not disturb their neighbors, probably because property managers and owners carefully screen their prospective guests. But sadly, all too often, property owners are unwilling to take responsibility for screening and enforcing rules that respect our neighbors and communities.
We have reports of loud parties until the middle of the night, unofficial event centers without adequate parking, lining residential streets with vehicles, people behaving lewdly in the full view of neighbors, trespassing on private property, and the list goes on. Notably, we do not receive many complaints about professionally managed vacation homes or those where the owner is present and renting out a room.
There are many areas to consider, but for today, I will focus on three: the current crisis in our rental market, over-concentration in neighborhoods, and changes in neighborhood character.
The current rental market in Sonoma Valley is dismal. We have a vacancy rate of less than one percent, and if a resident is able to find a property, it is often out of reach financially. I often hear from families who are struggling, even after devoting more than half of their income to housing. There are many reasons for the shortage of rentals in the Valley and some are out of our control, but one is within our purview: the removal of long term rental units in favor or short term rentals that may benefit the owner, but do not serve the health of a community. This element is particularly prevalent in the Springs area of the Valley.
The Springs has its origins in vacationers who built small homes to use during the summer months when people would come to the Valley via train to visit the hot springs and enjoy the weather. Over the next several decades, the Springs became an area that was within reach for our working class families to own and rent homes. Today, I am hearing about families being evicted and realtors aggressively marketing tiny homes in dense neighborhoods as “vacation rental investment opportunities.”
Current Sonoma County code allows for this use. Homes in this area can be rented short term, but only the entire home — not a single room. We are considering inverting this policy, to allow owners an opportunity to help finance housing, but the question of enforcement remains a difficult one and even this may not be a feasible plan.
What the policy inversion will not solve is over-concentration of short-term rentals in neighborhoods and the erosion of neighborhood character. This issue is of great concern to constituents throughout the Valley, whether it be dense residential or rural.
We are now seeing both areas converting from a majority of permanent residents to a majority of short-term rentals. We have entire neighborhoods converting to commercial zones and all that entails — neighbors changing weekly or even daily, parties every single weekend, and an overall diminishing of the foundation required to build long-term identity as a community.
We must ask ourselves what will happen if the majority of our homes become places to visit as opposed to places to live? We have to wonder whose children will fill our soccer fields in the fall and our graduation ceremonies in the spring? In 25 years, who will be at the Tuesday Night Farmers’ Market? Will we be content to walk down our streets of strangers and never see a friend? Will the short-term profit of some be enough to sustain this place for all?
We need stable neighborhoods. We need young children and families. We need neighbors we can look to in times of need and in times of happiness. We need diversity of socioeconomic classes, ideology, and a commitment to protecting what makes Sonoma wonderful: the bucolic setting and the people who live here.
I am committed to tackling the issue of vacation rentals with an eye toward future generations of Sonomans. Some of you will read this and believe I want to ban all vacation rentals from the Valley, but that is incorrect. What I want is common sense, community balance, and the opportunity for your children to live here amongst their friends and family. I want you to watch your grandchildren on a soccer field and cheer for them at graduation. For old friends to remain something our community counts on rather than counting out.
As your Supervisor, I was elected to serve the constituents of the First District and this responsibility includes looking at both long and short term issues that will affect not only you, but also the Valley your children and grandchildren will inhabit for decades to come. This is why I have spent countless hours over the past two years talking about this issue and raising awareness at the county level. I have met with people from all sides of the issue – from vacation rental managers and owners to residents. I have met with the tax assessor and officials at the Permit Resource Management Division dozens of times.
This fall, the Board of Supervisors will vote on changes to the current ordinance that will include policy changes designed to address these issues. I hope you will be there to share your thoughts and ideas about maintaining our “meaningful human connection,” because it is this type of sharing economy that will produce “spikes” of positive feelings that will sustain us as a community.
Dear MS. Gorin,
I appreciate your stance but one severe negative impact that seems to be lumped in with the impact on a community or neighborhood as a whole is the plight of the immediate neighbors to Vacation Rentals
These people bought their properties in good faith that the county would enforce the zoning restrictions at the time of their purchase and their right to peaceful enjoyment of their property. The county has betrayed that trust by granting permits to rezone neighboring properties to commercial. Those people suffer greatly both emotionally due to the intensive use and misuse of the property and financially as inevitably there will a decrease in the value of their property from the stigmatism of being adjacent to a commercial zone. For every out of town investor who profits several long term residents suffer. This is just not fair and going forward who would want to buy property to live in Sonoma County when their investment and way of life is in constant jeopardy from being so severely and negatively impacted. Napa county’s total ban on Vacation Rentals makes it a much more attractive and stable place to live.. In fact I may turn my Sonoma County house into a lucrative vacation rental and move to peaceful Napa County
Regards
John Walker
Indeed, as someone who works in this valley in the hospitality industry and is raising children, we are finding ourselves priced out of what very few rental options exist. There’s another issue at hand that also needs to be addressed… hotels. Fact of the matter is that our small town is a destination. People from all across the globe save their money each year to come visit this community, but the hotels are at capacity and thus creative solutions have to be created to address this.
However, whenever the subject comes up about adding more dedicated transient occupancy to this community, a very vocal part of our community starts yelling hyperbolic statements about how we’re going to lose our small town identity and become the next Honolulu with 50 story condos and whatnot. Years ago, we had a wedding in which guests were staying as far away as Occidental because of a lack of hotel space. Today, those same people will stay in town because they are staying in houses that were otherwise being used for long-term rental residents such as my family. To further complicate things, because they are in a private home and not a hotel, they are indeed throwing parties there and upsetting the neighbors AND not going out to the local restaurants and bars and hiring taxis to support local businesses.
Like a lion roaring into the wind, you can complain all you want about the increasing flood of tourists, but, like the lion, it does not change the direction of the wind. So we as a community have two options…
A. Allow more dedicated hotels with REAL room capacities (a three story building won’t be the end of Sonoma, folks) to address this issue. A handful of “boutique” 6 room places doesn’t address the need.
B. Continue to have this transient occupancy issue solve itself with vacation rentals.
There really is no Option C, which is “neither A or B… make them go away so that we can pretend that it’s still 1950.” And don’t get me wrong… I avoid the square during the weekends and I also find myself frustrated as someone walks right in front of my car without looking, but I also understand that this is what keeps our businesses open and allows us to stay here after they go back to their homes. If you’ve retired here, that’s fantastic, but please know that the world is very different today than when you were in the workforce.
Small businesses can’t just survive on their community because they now compete with online shopping for the same product at better prices and free shipping. Working class individuals today have much less disposable income (especially with rental prices being what they are) and thus we’re FORCED to shop online or drive out to box shops to do our shopping. If you ask any business owner in the square, I imagine that they would love to have an additional 250-300 transient walking through the streets from just one 100 room hotel, that it would make paying their bills much more attainable.
Let’s face it — Sonoma County is growing. It is one of the TOP vacation destinations in the WORLD. We should all be happy that we live in such a wonderful, and yes, growing place. We are in the Bay Area as well, which means that we are expanding, like other counties in the SF Bay region. This talk about having “outsiders” come in is nonsense. It’s their right. I am born and raised here and have seen amazing change in my lifetime, and for us homeowners, we should all be pleased that our property values are expanding. Vacation rentals provide a much needed service to our Sonoma-bound travelers. How about we stick to enforcing those properties that are NOT permitted, do not pay their taxes, and are probably the problematic group? I see no real enforcement efforts, like other communities have initiated. That is the problem to address! Get with it Sonoma County!!
Try living in a community in decline due to the conversion of housing to these short-term tourist rental businesses! Glen Ellen’s population has dropped by more than 40% since 2000 (Census data, not just my pissed-off take on things). We no longer have a community. It’s Disneyland for drunks all the way. Even more fun: living “behind” one of these party houses. Law enforcement & the county have done little in response to calls for help, so the parties rage on.