More than a year after the Santa Fe City Council passed an ordinance regulating the capital's short-term rental industry, nobody seems happy with it.

Councilor Rebecca Wurzburger, sponsor of the bill, has concluded that the practice is "not the great problem that we thought it was." And enforcing the rules might not be the "best way to spend staff time."

Owners complain that the permit fee — as much as $1,000 — is too high.

And some people who live near short-term rentals say the enforcement burden falls too heavily on them.

Later this summer, the City Council will revisit the program and the fees. A local judge upheld the ordinance, but ordered the city to reconsider the cost of permits.

Heated debates preceded adoption of the rules. Property owners and cleaning, landscape and maintenance workers who depend on the industry sparred with residents who said the practice made their neighborhoods feel more like hotel parking lots.

The city finally established a system that was intended to limit the number of homes in neighborhoods that could be used for vacation rentals and enforce rules about parking, occupancy, noise and other issues.

The new rules did allow the city to get a handle on the number of short-term rentals. Although estimates of existing short-term rentals ranged from hundreds to thousands, the city has issued only 363 permits so far — suggesting there were actually fewer of these properties than thought, or that property owners decided the permit cost too much.

Meanwhile, according to a recent staff report, the city has spent about $249,000 enforcing the ordinance so far.

The cost includes mailing 6,000 letters, conducting 387 occupancy inspections and 442 fire-code inspections, and investigating more than 400 Internet advertisements for vacation homes.

Revenues from permit fees were $302,000.

Casas de Santa Fe holds more than 60 permits for short-term rentals in the city. Property manager Todd Davis said the rules have been detrimental and called the city's efforts "a waste."

"I think we all, in the years leading up to the decision regarding the ordinance, believed that there were hundreds and hundreds of rentals, and that has proved not to be the case," he told city councilors at a recent meeting. "There has been an inordinate amount of time spent policing that with not a lot of results. ... We have never gotten a call about parking or trash or too many tenants."

John Stranger, who works in the real-estate industry, said permit fees are onerous for some homeowners who might be forced to sell their properties instead of renting them, precipitating a "further deterioration of real-estate values in Santa Fe."

Dena Aquilina, who lives on Sanchez Street in the South Capitol neighborhood, attended many of the hearings last summer about the regulations. Of the 12 homes on her street, two are short-term rentals. Although both her neighboring properties received permits from the city, Aquilina said she does not have faith in the city's enforcement and believes there are un-permitted rentals operating in the city.

"It still seems to be up the neighbors, meaning us, to monitor how often they are being rented," she said. "It seems like some of them are being rented more frequently than they should be."

Karen Heldmeyer, a city councilor who raised red flags about the short-term rental industry but whose own efforts at writing regulations failed, said the rules in place today have not made a big difference. Although she knows of one east-side resident who is happy that the permit fees forced some rentals to stop operating on his street, Heldmeyer said others are still unhappy that enforcement depends on their complaints.

Although the rules allow the city to impose penalties on property owners who violate the rules, there have been no prosecutions so far.

Assistant City Attorney Alfred Walker prepared three complaints against area property owners accused of operating vacation homes without a permit last year. He then worked with the defendants to get their papers in order instead of seeking a judgment against them in Municipal Court.

All the cases "were all resolved short of any kind of conviction," said Walker. "We are satisfied that (they are) complying with the law now."

The city is not receiving a deluge of complaints about vacation rentals, according to enforcement officer Tomas Herrera. Of the 110 complaints he's logged, most have been inquiries about whether a particular property has a rental permit.

If you have a question or concern about a vacation rental in your neighborhood, contact the city at 955-6001.

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.