Huntington Beach Considers Dropping Its Law Banning Weekly Rentals

Huntington Beach has spent millions trying to rid itself of its freewheeling, party-town image. Now a councilwoman’s proposal to scrap a law banning most weekly dwelling rentals has some worried.

Currently, most of the city’s homes, condos and townhomes cannot legally be rented by the week -- which sets Huntington Beach apart from other Southern California beach cities, where landlords make large profits renting to tourists.

Councilwoman Pam Julien Houchen would like to see the city tap into that money by adopting an ordinance similar to one in neighboring Newport Beach, where weekly rentals are common. Under her proposal, financially strapped Huntington Beach would collect an occupancy tax on the weekly rentals.

“People are looking for vacation homes all the time,” Houchen said. How much revenue would be generated for the city has yet to be determined.

Newport Beach’s experience with weekly rentals has caused some skepticism among Huntington Beach officials, who worry about a strain on city services and parking. Although property owners and the city would benefit, the ordinance could bring problems.

Some residents fear houses full of vacationers drinking, playing music and making noise late into the night if the city allows weekly rentals. Under the current law, only properties 10,000 square feet or larger can be rented by the week.

Even with these large properties, other current restrictions, including a review of the property’s design, emergency access and utility service, mean “it is unlikely that any property in a residential district would actually meet” the requirements to allow weekly rentals, Houchen said in a memo to the council.

Council members voted 5 to 2 at a recent meeting to have city staff supply more information by next month on how the program would work and the effect it would have on the city.

Councilwoman Debbie Cook opposes weekly rentals.

“Huntington Beach is changing,” she said. “We’re getting a lot more permanent residents, and people who are living there don’t want to have the kind of summer atmosphere of partying” that goes with weekly rentals.

Response to the proposal among residents is mixed. Some said the city could use the income, while others worry about noise and parking along streets where homes are tightly packed and often do not have garages.

“In the nice part of the summer you have doors and windows open,” said longtime downtown resident Loretta Wolfe. “When you’re tired and come home from work, and there’s somebody having a party, and they don’t care [that they are disturbing the neighbors], you’re not going to be very happy.”

Houchen said it is common knowledge that homeowners routinely violate the ordinance and rent their properties by the week.

“People have been doing it, not realizing it’s illegal,” she said. At least if the ban is lifted, she said, the city would benefit.

Houchen, a real estate agent, turned aside conflict-of-interest questions. “Unless I have a business that does vacation rentals, which I don’t, then I don’t benefit financially,” she said.

Houchen said Newport Beach took in about $1 million in 2002 in short-term rental occupancy taxes.

But at a cost, Newport Beach officials say.

“Short-term rentals add a lot of demand to our services -- trash pickup, police and fire. Hotels do not,” said Mayor Tod W. Ridgeway, a developer and owner of apartment buildings.

Most Newport Beach short-term rentals are concentrated on the peninsula, Balboa Island and west Newport, said Councilman Steve Bromberg.

In the summer, four and five families crowd into one home and take three or four additional parking spaces, he said. Parking woes are especially acute on Balboa Island, where Bromberg said the off-season population of about 3,100 is nearly tripled during the summer.

But it’s a moneymaker for the homeowners, who, he said, can make the same amount in one summer week that they do in one winter month.

Some real estate agents also stand to profit if the proposal passes.

“I manage some properties for out-of-town owners who would love [weekly] vacation rentals,” said real estate agent Dan Noonan. “They don’t like not being able to do it because it’s lost revenue.”

But he agreed that weekly rentals “could be a can of worms” for the city.

“Most places are not air-conditioned,” Noonan said, “so they leave the windows open. What’s already a noisy condition [in the summer] is only going to get worse.”