Changes in store for Palm Springs vacation rental ordinance

A major source of revenue for the city of Palm Springs could soon see some changes, in hopes of keeping rowdy people out of neighborhoods and keeping full-time residents happy. The City Council voted Wednesday to have staff update its vacation rental ordinance.

There are 1,300 registered vacation rental homes in Palm Springs alone. For a tourism-driven city, the homes make up a major part of the economy. “They generate $3 million in taxes for the city that benefits the residents of Palm Springs each year,” said Rob Kincaid, co-owner of Vacation Palm Springs.

After complaints from full-time residents accumulated over the last year, mostly regarding noise levels, the city council decided to have staff take another look at the original rental ordinance from 2008. “What we’d like to do is find a good balance between vacation rentals in the neighborhood and obviously not create any nuisances in the neighborhood,” said David Ready, the city manager of Palm Springs.

Some of the proposed changes include increasing the registration fee for rental owners and increasing the minimum renter age from 18 to 25, something Kincaid fully supports, because he says his company and others already require renters to be 25 years old. “We live here, we work here,” said Kincaid. “We know how important the quiet and peaceful nature of our desert is.”

But not everyone agrees. Some feel the addition of the Hard Rock Hotel invited a new, younger crowd to Palm Springs. They believe the ordinance could halt some of that momentum. “I just feel like we have a series of items where we send mixed messages to appeal to these groups, but then discourage them from coming from some of these units,” said Reggie Cameron, with the Warm Sands Neighborhood Organization; messages like the one put out by the Palm Springs Bureau of Tourism last year.

A website was geared specifically towards college students on Spring Break, most of them between 18 and 22. Cameron says they’re not always the ones making noise.

“A number of the complaints that we’ve had in terms of these residents are with young children playing, during the day and making noise by the pool,” said Cameron.

The city plans to implement changes to the ordinance over its next few council meetings.