Palm Springs votes to end vacation rentals in apartment buildings

The City of Palm Springs is taking another look at policies around vacation rental properties. On Wendesday, the council decided to make some big changes to apartment buildings that are being used for short term rentals. The city has voted to not allow apartment buildings to be used as vacation rental properties. The vote was unanimous although council member Chris Mills was not at the meeting. The owners of these building say switching to being a regular apartment or become a full-fledge hotel would be too costly and would ruin them financially. There was a small turnout for the sometimes jam-packed council meeting. Council members were deciding the fate of 143 apartments being used as vacation rental properties. Council members Geoff Kors and J.R. Roberts headed the subcommittee to look into this issue. “It is very unfair that our small hotels have to abide by all these rules and requirements when a similar sized building that is operating exactly like a hotel, and is marketing like a hotel, but is not,” said Kors. According to Kors, the city needs to stop the steady increase in permits being pulled to use apartment buildings as vacation rental properties to ensure there is enough low income housing. “We want to be proactive and avoid losing more of our rental housing stock to vacation rentals,” Kors said. Opponents of vacation rentals say they want to see more restrictions. “We want that moratorium expanded to single family homes. We don’t see a difference between two or more units or one or more units. And when people stay in vacation rentals, in my neighborhood for example, they consider that their resort,” said Mike Ziskind the chairman of the group Protect our Neighborhoods. People who own these vacation rental properties say renting to regular long-term tenants won’t make enough money to pay the mortgage. “If I convert to long term rentals, there is an income loss of 40 to 60 percent, which doesn’t meet the debt obligations of the building,” said Jamie Kowal who is the owner of Amado, an apartment building being used as a vacation rental property. Some owners said they would be forced to fire employees and the thousands of dollars put into their business will be for nothing. Selling the property isn’t an option either. “The property values, according to my realtor, would be 25 to 40 percent less because the income would not be available to vacation rentals,” said Kowal. People who own these apartments could potentially convert the buildings into hotels, which would cost several thousand dollars to get the permit, could require physical changes to the building, and require multiple safety inspections. Property owners will have until January 2019 to make changes to the buildings. JOE GALLI CAN BE FOUND ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER!