630 sign petition supporting Los Osos vacation rental regulation
-July 11,2019-
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 Tuesday to deny an application for a new vacation rental (VR) permit on a large waterfront home in Baywood / Los Osos. The supervisors appeared to be swayed by an outpouring of concern from the community at this week’s meeting that the VR would be located right next door to an existing permitted vacation rental.
An organized group, Neighbors for Los Osos, had circulated a petition signed by 630 locals supporting density regulations on the number of short-term rentals allowed in a given neighborhood.
These proposed regulations are supported by the Los Osos Community Advisory Council but not considered official because the town’s Community Plan has yet to be adopted by the supervisors. That could come late this year, but many Los Osos residents don’t want to wait.
The supervisors got an earful from over 30 speakers who showed up to appeal both a hearing officer’s approval last March and now staff support for the VR application at 670 Santa Lucia Drive in Los Osos.
“I know Los Osos wants a set-back between vacation rentals of 500 feet” said swing-vote Supervisor John Peschong of Templeton and “ and that may be too much.But if this permit were to be approved there would “only be 3 feet “between the two short-term rentals, he reasoned.
“They would be right on top of each other “Peschong remarked as he announced he would vote with Los Osos district supervisor Bruce Gibson as well as Adam Hill to override the staff opinion.
Long time Los Osos residents came out in force this day worried that more vacation rentals would change the character of Los Osos for the worse.One resident said the clustering of vacation rentals was “akin to horizontal hotels and hotels do not belong in a residential neighborhood.”
Another remarked “we loose full time residents to visitors who do no have a stake in the community.”
Robin McPeak said “When too many vacation rentals are allowed in close proximity to one another, and in this case next-door, the character of a neighborhood changes. This steady stream of strangers displace permanent residents.”
Los Osos resident Sue Morgenthaler noted” no other community with vacation rental regulations allows side-by-side short term rentals” and all have some kind of spacing between VR permits. Despite strong community opinion on this – the county hearing officer and county staff ”completely disregarded all this” she complained.
“If you approve this it will set a precedent and you have to wonder – where will it stop” she argued.
One Baywood resident says he lives on Santa Maria St and” its a “walking street” where he often meets his neighbors and looks forward to the camaraderie. “It’s a quality of life issue” he says.
Another resident, Judy Green summed it up this way.”We want neighbors – not weekenders.”
Permit applicant Amy Thoman argued that she understood community concerns but that those density rules they talk about have not been adopted. She said her rental “would not be party place” and would be overseen by a property manager.
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“This is an upscale $2 million house and we will not be renting it” to someone who causes trouble, she maintained.
Thoman pointed to a staff estimate that there are just 35 vacation rentals out of a housing stock of 6200 in Los Osos.
Supervisors Debbie Arnold and Lynn Compton pointed to this small number of units in town that should minimize the negative impacts some were worried about.
Compton noted that the applicant should not be told no after they purchased the house and a denial might amount to a “property taking”. The applicant “got ambushed” by the strong reaction from the neighborhood, she remarked.
But supervisor Adam Hill appeared to get a positive opinion from county counsel at the meeting to support the idea that supervisors were not taking away any right and that they have “discretion” to approve or disapprove the request.
Debbie Arnold remarked that many beach houses were originally purchased as vacation units and now property owners might need to rent their units out to afford to fix them up.
But supporters of VR regulation say their proliferation is driving up both home an rental prices – a subject Gibson promises to the talk about at a Coastal Commission workshop on VRs later this week.