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1 91. Beyond its legally flawed premise, the City Council's extreme approach of banning <br /> 2 STRs was also unsupported by the record before the City Council. In the less than three-page staff <br /> 3 report with one page of"discussion" supporting both the Urgency Ordinance and the STR Ban, <br /> 4 the City stated that STRs "are often associated with excessive noise, parking problems, trash, and <br /> 5 degradation of a neighborhood's character." Yet, the only alleged negative impacts the report <br /> 6 identified were "112 confirmed active cases of STRs that have received enforcement notices and <br /> 7 citations," noting that 36 involve owners residing on-site, and 84 involve properties that are not <br /> 8 owner-occupied. <br /> 9 92. The City did not provide any further detail on these active cases or what the <br /> 10 complaints entail. On information and belief, many of these enforcement notices have nothing to <br /> 11 do with excessive noise, parking problems, trash, or degradation of a neighborhood's character, <br /> 12 and, instead, were based on the City's incorrect position that the Municipal Code prohibits STRs. <br /> 13 In any event, the City Council did not have the evidentiary basis to adopt its draconian ban given <br /> 14 the complete lack of a record before it. Moreover, the City ignored Chapter 17 of its own Code, <br /> 15 which provides several existing enforcement mechanisms to mitigate public nuisances. See Santa <br /> 16 Ana Mun. Code, Ch. 17. <br /> 17 93. The City also lacked sufficient evidence of the effect of STRs on housing <br /> 18 availability in the City to support the ban. The Staff Report for the April 2, 2024, City Council <br /> 19 meeting stated that, according to data from STR platforms,there are 1,100 active STRs in the City, <br /> 20 and the City's Regional Housing Needs Allocation for 2021-2029 is 3,137 permanent housing <br /> 21 units, implying that banning STRs would add 1,100 homes to the long-term housing market. This <br /> 22 implication is wrong. A review of the City's Housing Element reveals that the City does not <br /> 23 mention STRs anywhere in that document. In the section of the Housing Element discussing <br /> 24 "Housing Constraints," the City notes that various factors influence the City's ability to meet its <br /> 25 housing goals including market factors (land costs, construction and rehabilitation costs, <br /> 26 availability of financing, and recent trends in foreclosures), governmental factors (land use <br /> 27 <br /> 28 <br /> VERTFTED PETTTTON FOR WRTT OF MANDATE <br /> 24 AND COMPLATNT <br />