Mayor postpones short-term rental hearing
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Monthlong delay will ensure more councilors can attend, Coss says
12/7/2007 -
Next week's hearing on a proposal to regulate Santa Fe's pervasive, illegal short-term rental industry won't occur as planned. Mayor David Coss said Friday that he will postpone Wednesday's scheduled public discussion of the issue for another month so more city councilors can participate.
Coss said he's been polling councilors to see where they stand, and if some members are absent — as Councilor Ron Trujillo plans to be — the measure has little chance of passing. The mayor also said he didn't want to break a tie on the issue because he wanted the council to agree.
"You know you always hope that you can find a consensus in the community and therefore in the council. ... You never stop working," he said.
The mayor made the decision late Friday afternoon, a day after a meeting with people who want more regulation on the long-standing industry and those who want the practice legalized.
No homes in residentially zoned areas are supposed to be rented for periods shorter than 30 days, but hundreds of homes in Santa Fe are available for rent by the night via Internet advertisements.
The city has condoned the practice by accepting lodger's taxes from illegal rentals and through its refusal to enforce current laws. Meanwhile, real-estate agents and property managers say short-term rentals bring wealthy tourists who want an alternative to hotels as well as allowing would-be retirees to plan ahead by buying homes here.
Bruce Kuehnle has spent the last eight years managing properties for vacation rentals, but Kuehnle's short-term rentals are legal because they are inside the city's downtown Business Capital District. In recent years, the supply of vacation rentals in residential areas has caused his business to suffer, he said.
"In general, we have too much inventory, too much supply. So if you have too much supply, there are price wars," he said, noting that some of his rentals complete with kitchens and living rooms are now going for as little as $50 per night just so he can attract business.
People who live near new infill projects that are used for vacation homes are ever-present at city debates. Jennifer Johnson, who has lived on Sunset Street north of the Plaza for eight years, said several multistory condos that were completed recently on her street are used as short-term rentals.
Some visitors stay two or three days and park monster sport-utility vehicles in front of her mailbox and front door, said Johnson. Little neighborhood courtesies are ignored, she said. For example, porch and garage lights stay on all night long, and no one takes the garbage cans back to the houses after pickup.
"The infill is not supporting local people," she said, "It's just supporting real-estate speculators who are absent. ... There are certain times you feel like you might as well be on Cerrillos Road at a motel with all the coming and going, and I don't think that is respectful of the people who live here."
But property manager Wendy Kapp, who rents out the condos near Johnson's house, said she doesn't appreciate being made out as "the bad guy," and she doesn't buy the argument that neighborhoods suffer because of vacation rentals.
"My opinion on this is that it is very good for Santa Fe and that we are a tourist industry and that neighborhoods are not being hurt in any way by short-term rentals. They should welcome our visitors. ... It brings lots of jobs to Santa Fe, and it brings a lot of revenue," she said "I mean, you can have a crack addict living next to you that you can't get rid of or you can have a rich Texan who visits and drops a lot of money into our economy."
Kapp pointed out that city officials didn't describe vacation rentals as "illegal" until recent debate. Changes to the city code about four years ago that were then described as "clean up" made that distinction.
"I think they should change the law and allow short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods. ... It's been a well-established practice in Santa Fe for a long time," she said. "I don't think anyone feels good about breaking laws, but there are such a thing as property-owner rights, and those are constitutional rights."
The proposal that was advertised for Wednesday's hearing and sponsored by the mayor, Councilors Miguel Chavez and Rebecca Wurzburger, is significantly different from several versions that councilors have weighed since this summer. It makes no provisions for new short-term rentals that are commercially operated, but allows homeowners more leeway to offer such rentals. The rules would phase out absentee-owner rentals by 2013.
Also at play is an amendment that Councilor Patti Bushee has introduced that would change zoning in some areas to allow short-term rentals if property owners all agree.
Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.