Short Term Rental Regulations Clarified: Reply to Mrs Snortland

Ms. Ellen Snortland recently wrote several columns in the Pasadena Weekly in which she laments the impending short-term regulations.

What the average Pasadena Weekly reader may not understand (since the paper’s name includes Pasadena) is that the regulations Ms. Snortland is complaining about have nothing to do with the City of Pasadena’s short-term rental ordinance. Mrs. Snortland and her husband live in Altadena, part of unincorporated Los Angeles County, NOT Pasadena.

Pasadena’s short-term rental ordinance is fair and the result of three years of communication, cooperation and hard work between city staff, council, neighborhood leaders, residents and short-term rental hosts.

So if you want to rent a room to a guest coming to Pasadena, carefully review the listing description and find the host’s permit number (or message the host to make sure they’re registered). If you are a Pasadena resident and would like to rent a room to guests, please register with the city (email [email protected]). For short-term rental information in Pasadena, visit bit.ly/3VcYCgf. Permit applications can be found at bit.ly/4buJvV9.

The county’s proposed rules are much stricter than Pasadena’s, and compliance will be more difficult for most hosts because the rules impose many restrictions/limits on how hosting services can be provided, as well as a high permit fee. It’s unfortunate that the county has chosen this path, which is more like Los Angeles than Pasadena.

In 2015 in Pasadena, a group of hosts who were members of the Pasadena HomeSharing Network realized that governments around the world, and more importantly in our region, were starting to take a critical look at the growing room rental and short-term rental industry. We have seen that regulations created without our input can be harmful to us and the entire city – depriving us of income and visiting family members in inexpensive places to stay in the vicinity of loved ones.

We surveyed our hosts and found that the majority of hosts in our network are older women or young families with a stable rental income in expensive Pasadena.

Our survey also shows that a high percentage of our guests come to visit family in Pasadena to research at The Huntington, work at JPL or other institutions. There are also tourists who are grateful for the shared experiences and value our personal recommendations on what to see, where to eat, etc. We are proud to consider ourselves individual ambassadors for Pasadena. We cannot afford to lose rental income and we know we bring value to our community.

That’s why in 2015 we mobilized our members in a positive and collaborative way to actively engage with the city before any regulations or ordinances were introduced. We went to the planning department and asked for licenses or permits or something like that because nothing existed. This request led to a three-year collaborative process.

The result of three years of meetings with city staff, City Council and neighborhood associations, and attending city-sponsored community hearings, is the Fair Short-Term Rental Ordinance published in 2018. Airbnb joined us in part of this effort, but most of the work was done by our hosts – Pasadena residents and stakeholders.

The ordinance allows hosts to rent their primary residence, rooms in their primary residence, or an ADU (built before 2017) on the property of their primary residence after registering with the city and obtaining a short-term rental permit.

We do not want to see “party houses” or many unattended short-term rentals in Pasadena. We do not want to withdraw apartments from the long-term rental market. Our short-term rental rooms or ADUs are properties that we would not consider renting long-term. But their rental income allows us to live in this community we love. Pasadena’s short-term rental ordinance allows us to do this and contribute to the experience of others in our community.

We are sorry that the County is not following Pasadena’s example.

In 2018, we met with a group representing hosts in Altadena and other unincorporated areas to share with them the steps we were taking and encourage them to contact the county immediately. Clearly, something has gone wrong with their efforts to persuade county officials to weigh the interests of homesteaders equally with those of other interested parties.

Ms. Snortland wrote: “What we did with our property in Altadena was create a plan to age in a place that you want to take away from us. … We love renting to people who are here for a short time and often travel with their dogs. We are an ideal solution for many people who work short-term jobs out of necessity – visiting grandparents whose children have no space for them, interns at the Jet Propulsion Lab, visiting professors at CalTech, fellows at the Huntington Library… ill-considered regulations would also harm them! “

Pasadena hosts feel the same way, and we’re sorry the county doesn’t recognize the value of short-term rentals.