Palm Springs City Council’s revised vacation rental ordinance fails to pass

Following months of hammering out enhanced regulations intended to quell Palm Springs’ booming vacation rental industry, the city will operate without such restrictions on rental owners, as officials rescinded the city’s original ordinance, while a new amended ordinance failed to gain the requisite votes for passage.

The Palm Springs City Council voted 3-1 Wednesday on an “interim urgency ordinance,” which was drawn up after a referendum forced the pending rescission of the original measure, Ordinance 1907, which placed numerous restrictions on local rental owners.

The new ordinance would have eased the restrictions present in Ordinance 1907, which included limitations on how many properties an individual could own within the city and how many times those properties could be rented out annually.

However, four votes were required for the new ordinance’s passage, which Mayor Robert Moon felt made too many concessions to vacation rental owners. Moon said he was in favor of the original ordinance and wanted it put before the voters at the next municipal election this November.

“The only way to get the answer that is right for our community is let our community vote on this,” Moon said Wednesday prior to the vote. The council adopted the original ordinance in December in a bid to stem the booming growth of the vacation rental industry. City officials said the explosion of rental properties over the past decade reduced local affordable housing and led to an increase in noise violations, disorderly conduct, traffic congestion, vandalism and illegal parking.

Opposition was swift, with a referendum by Citizens For A Better Palm Springs gaining enough signatures to force the city to repeal the ordinance or submit it to the voters in a future ballot measure. The council opted to
rescind the ordinance Wednesday night.

Now, with both the original ordinance rescinded and the urgency ordinance failed to pass, no restrictions remain on how many properties a rental owner can have within the city. The other members of the council felt that an urgency ordinance, which would have been implemented immediately if passed, was needed to prevent rental owners from applying for multiple permits, something the council sought to prevent through its original ordinance.

A moratorium on any new rental permits might be the city’s next avenue for preventing rental owners from amassing multiple properties, which Moon suggested as a placeholder until a new ordinance could be established.

Though the urgency ordinance failed, the council did vote in favor of seeking a non-urgency ordinance, which would operate under many of the same principles. However, the council cannot vote on a new ordinance until the city’s planning commission reviews the new ordinance and provides recommendations.

City Attorney Douglas Holland estimated it could take 45 to 60 days before the new ordinance could come back to the City Council.

Kors said revisions made to the original ordinance, such as grandfathering in past properties and allowing four additional rentals during the summer season, helped garner what he said was a positive early reception
from local vacation rental industry members.

Other revisions included requiring rental owners to undergo periodic testing and training to ensure knowledge of the regulations, requiring each guest to be notified of the city’s regulations regarding rentals, restricting
guests to one car per occupied bedroom, and prohibiting rental owners from conducting pool or landscaping maintenance on weekends.