Correspondence - Item 21 - Laserfiche WebLink

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• The City has failed to conduct the necessary analysis of the potential environmental impacts of an STR prohibition under the California Environmental Quality Act. • There has been no evidence put forward that existing STRs constitute a nuisance or are impacting housing availability in Santa Ana. • The City has no basis to adopt an urgency ordinance given the complete lack of evidence that STRs are in any way adversely impacting public peace, health, or safety in the City. • STRs provide significant benefits to the City, its residents, and its visitors, and these benefits are being completely ignored in the one-sided proposal now before the City Council. • The decision to bring the prohibition forward immediately following the Easter holiday without engaging in meaningful outreach to hosts raises significant concerns that require additional understanding prior to any decision on the proposal. For all of these reasons, we respectfully request that you decline advancing the Ordinances at your April 2 City Council hearing and instead direct Staff to work with all stakeholders to develop an ordinance that authorizes STRs to continue operating subject to reasonable regulations. STRs are an Existing Lawful Use of Residential Property in Santa Ana The Ordinances are flawed from the start because they rest on a false assumption: that because Santa Ana's current Municipal Code does not expressly, and specifically, list STRs as a permitted use, STRs are therefore prohibited. That assumption is demonstrably wrong. Case law from California and state supreme courts across the country hold that STRs are a lawful, residential use of property under zoning ordinances like the City's. Accordingly, far from "reaffirm[ing] existing law," as Staff incorrectly states (Staff Report at 2), the proposed Ordinances would upend longstanding and settled law and now make an existing, lawful residential use of one's property illegal. California Staff's position that STRs are currently unlawful under the City's current zoning ordinance is refuted by the California Court of Appeal's decision in Keen a City of Manhattan Beach. (77 Cal. App. 5th 142 (Cal. Ct. App. 2022).) There, the court considered a permissive zoning ordinance from Manhattan Beach that is very similar to Santa Ana's current zoning ordinance. Manhattan Beach's ordinance permitted "single-family residential" and "multi -family residential" uses, but did not say anything about STRs. (Id. at 149.) As a result, people in Manhattan Beach had "[f]or quite some time, ... rented residential units in Manhattan Beach on both long- and short-term bases," and "[t]he City knew about that practice and occasionally got complaints about a rental property[.]" (Id. at 146.) Then, in 2015, Manhattan Beach passed an ordinance banning STRs and claimed —much like Staff has done here —that it was merely "reiterating" the City's supposedly existing "implicit" ban on STRs. (Ibid.) OA