Vacation rentals impact good faith neighbors

(This letter is in response to Supervisor Susan Gorin’s recent column)

Dear Supervisor 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