Correspondence - Item 25 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Flores, Dora From:Moana Dherlin <mdherlin@gmail.com> Sent:Wednesday, April To:eComment Subject:Concerned over STR ban Attention: This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana. Use caution when opening attachments or links. Dear City Counsel members, Hello my name is Moana Bertin-Hugault, I am a mother, a wife, a high school choir teacher, a strong community member and a STR airbnb owner. When we first move into Santa Ana, Riverview west neighborhood with our family we wanted to reinvigorate our neighborhood, we started by renovating our home from from the top to bottom, putting in lots of sweet, love and long hours. We hired local professions whenever we couldn’t do the work our selves and bought building materials from the Home Depot down the street. What we saw next was almost magical. The neighbors next door re-painted their house, then across the street they did the same, then another re-did their yard, then a roof and so on and so on. Two years later the pride of ownership gleamed on our small cul-de-sac. Forward to 4 years later the whole neighborhood has transformed to a safer and more beautiful place for the many families living here. After our renovation we were able to tap into the sweat equity in our home to take out just enough to convert our garage into a JADU (one that we payed hefty permit fees on). Being able to short term rent this ADU has been a dream for our family. Not only has it been a joy to host travels and professionals alike but most importantly building a short term rental on our property has allowed us to provid a strong future for our girls! You see with a ban on STR you are not supporting the community but hurting it and in turn hurting so many small business owners like myself who are supporting our families and communities. As a teacher for the past 16 year, I have wonderful career that I love, however the modest salary means it is often tight to provide for my family. Our STR means things like I will be able to pay for our daughters to attend college or take them on family vacations. We are here to grow and support the community. I was in utter disbelief at the lack of care and respect shown to your citizens at last nights meeting. We too are citizens and residence of Santa Ana and by voting for the immediate ban you hurt your citizen. We pay taxes, fix up neighborhoods and are community members trying to support our families. By passing ordinance 21 you gave us no action plan, no time frame to switch our business model. So that you could go after 84 “out of town” owners you hurt all the other 1000 STR Santa owners. We moved here because Santa Ana was a city of opportunity that celebrated diversity. I think targeting STR but not targeting fireworks, and houses with 7 cars in front, is a huge disservice to our coumminty. We are here because we love Santa Ana and want it to reach its full potential. I am here to stop this potential ban on STR in Santa Ana because it’s not what’s best for the community. It’s what best for hotels and developers but not for the families of Santa Ana. Please consider permits and tax so that we can regulate and provided STR providers with legal pathway. 2