Long-term solution to short-term rentals expected before Long Beach City Council by fall

The process for developing short-term rental (STR) regulations in Long Beach will end this fall, and participants remain uncertain as to the best path forward.
After attending the first of three community-input workshops on the topic, Long Beach resident Kevin Johnson felt confident that STRs need to be regulated, but he was unsure of the best approach. Like several others leaving the second workshop at the Museum of Latin American Art Saturday, Johnson was still uncertain.
“I still think [STRs] need to be regulated,” Johnson said. “I don’t know how, but I am not a city official– I don’t have to come up with that answer.”
City officials expect to have a proposal for an STR ordinance presented to Long Beach City Council by November, and the community workshop series is intended to inform the direction of that proposal.
An STR is a property that is furnished and rented for short periods of time. The growth of home-sharing sites such as Airbnb and HomeAway prompted 2nd District Councilmember Jeannine Pearce to present an item to the city council in March 2017, directing the City to review its STR regulations, according to a press release from Long Beach Development Services.
Saturday’s presentation by that city department shared public-input findings from the first workshop, a subsequent online survey that brought in responses from slightly less than 600 people, stakeholder interviews and case studies of surrounding cities.
Nearly half of the online survey participants submitted that they support STRs in Long Beach with regulations. A little more than 35 percent were supportive without regulations, approximately 15 percent oppose STRs with or without regulations and the remaining participants were unsure of their position. Additional findings of the online survey and the presentation slides are available online at lbds.info/lbshorttermrental.
Pearce, whose district is highly impacted, gave opening remarks and said she is hopeful that the process will help determine the “Long Beach way” to approach STRs.
“We have to set a good path forward that fits for Long Beach,” Pearce said. “I’ve got eight other councilmembers, so we’ll see what takes shape, but from looking at the results today, I think people are pretty receptive to having STRs, which I think is great. I think having some good regulations – a process for permitting, is all really important for making sure our neighborhoods are safe.”
Long Beach has more than 1,300 active STR units, which Long Beach Development Services indicates is approximately .75 percent of the city’s housing stock.
“We don’t have 10,000 STRs– we’ve got about 1,500,” Pearce said. “So what I’m looking for, hopefully, is to get a recommendation around using some of the fees to go into maintaining our existing housing stock. We know we have old housing stock, particularly in central Long Beach and the west side and in my district, so is there a fund we can use to help landlords upkeep those before they start kicking people out to redo them completely? We want to make sure that we find the right model for us and not set our goals too high that we can’t reach them.”

After the presentation, attendees received a paper survey, not available online, to review a specific set of six key themes: Sense of Community; Enforcement; Housing Supply and Housing Affordability; Parking; Noise and Parties; and Safety and Liability.
Comments were mixed, ranging from full support of STRs to total opposition. The latter included noise complaints and parking issues at STRs where property owners do not live in the rented units.
“I do not want my cardiologist up all night long before he performs a triple bypass in the morning,” Naples Island resident Beverly Butters wrote.
Butters is a HomeAway host, and she emphasized safety concerns in situations with “absentee hosts” who live too far away from their units to be present in the case of a problem. The City’s code allows STRs with specific limitations, for example the owner must live on the premises and loud parties are prohibited.
“I am a responsible host,” Butters said. “I know how to screen my people. We can’t have party houses, and, sadly, there is no way to police it. It is a double-edged sword.”
Other comments expressed support for STRs and their positive impact on the Long Beach economy. Long Beach has 960 Airbnb hosts, according to an Airbnb report of the guest economic impact on the city. The report indicates that, from 2017 to 2018, 70,000 guests spent an estimate of $42 million on food, shopping, transportation, entertainment, etc. in Long Beach.
Julie Dean, a member of the Belmont Shore Residents Association and an Airbnb host, gives credit for the economic boost to hosts who make recommendations to their guests.

“Hosts recommend Long Beach businesses, restaurants, shops, entertainment, stores […] and that is increasing that money for the city,” Dean said. “And the other thing […] is that [hosts] have improved their landscaping and their homes, therefore increasing the value. And a lot of times, when they improve their landscaping, then other people in the neighborhood start doing it as well. I think there are a lot of positives for the city and for our neighborhood.”
Dean said she has loved the overall hosting experience, but she understands the perspectives of those who want STR regulations. She shared a story about one problem she experienced as a host, when she was able to intervene because she lives in her unit and rents out two of the rooms.
“They were like freshmen in college, and I couldn’t tell by their picture how young they were,” she said. “And I smelled pot. I texted them and I was like, ‘Are you guys smoking?’ He goes, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. My friend forgot to read the rules.’ I’m like, ‘OK, but you read the rules. And you’re in the room with him.’ So they stopped, and that was that.”
Johnson left the workshop with the impression that three community workshops and the level of community involvement are “good enough,” given the range of opinions, the limited number of people participating in the process and his own persisting uncertainty of the best direction for STR regulations.
“[The first workshop] was a lot more crowded– there were a lot more people there,” Johnson said. “Airbnb showed their support last time, and then this time there were not as many people there. I mean, they had 600 people respond via email, and there’s half a million people in Long Beach. So not very many people are involved.”
Approximately 200 people attended the workshop, and the majority wore sky-blue T-shirts with the words “We Share Long Beach” and hashtag Airbnb written on the back.
“I think each part of the city has a different turn-out, a different issue that is important to them,” Pearce said regarding the number of people in attendance. “I am still looking for some more community outreach, making sure all the stakeholders are being heard. The best outcome is one where everyone has a seat at the table.”