Passions run high at City's vacation home rental meeting

An overflowing audience of South Lake Tahoe residents, home owners, vacation home owners, real estate agents, property managers, vacation rental companies, locals and city officials were on hand Tuesday night at the Vacation Home Rental (VHR) community workshop held in City Council chambers at the airport.

City Manager Nancy Kerry ran the meeting, giving everyone a chance to speak their opinion after a short presentation.

A couple of times Kerry had to remind everyone that each person is entitled to their opinion. One instance was after a vacation rental company owner and Heavenly Valley area homeowner almost came to blows.

The issue at hand are the renters of the City's 1,574 VHRs, all of which are in neighborhoods full of residents wanting to maintain their quiet lifestyle.

With a growing tourist economy, the visitors to South Lake Tahoe are looking more at vacation homes to rent rather than the traditional motels and hotels. Due to an increase in use of the VHRs, complaints are also rising as well as the size of the homes. Some local "single family homes" are being built in city limits that will have 13-15 bedrooms.

Trying to find a balance between the community, the residents and the tourist industry is what the upcoming changes to the Vacation Home Ordinance is trying to accomplish.

Residents want their quality of life protected, the community wants jobs, protection of the environment and good real estate values while the industry is a tourist based economy.

Noise, trash and parking are the three issues at hand that most were at the meeting to voice complaints were concerned with. The City Council will be looking at these three concerns when they bring the ordinance back to the table for a vote in the future. It was evident during the meeting that this won't be anytime soon as there are so many differing viewpoints on the situation.

Suggestions for controls on the number of occupants were plentiful during the meeting as was the voiced need for enforcement of the ordinance. Many said they felt the noise complaints would go down if the number of occupants went down. Property managers said the income generated for the vacation homes would be adversely affected if that happened.

Kathy Liebhardt, owner of Tahoe Destination Vacation Rentals, spoke about how she is affected three ways by the rental homes. She lives in the Tahoe Keys, she owns a vacation rental and she runs a vacation rental business. She said she agreed with one of the proposals to reduce the current occupancy rate of two people per bedroom plus four others to two people per bedroom plus two. Liebhardt said "It's getting out of hand" and the absentee homeowners need to know what's going on.

City Attorney Tom Watson recorded all of the ideas and complains generated from the audience. He will take those and write them out for the Council to review.

One idea on the table for a proposed change to the ordinance is to increase fees collected for vacation homes. They will consider doubled fees for homes not locally managed since complaints aren't immediately addressed in those situations.

Kerry is urging a Good Neighbor Policy, much as the County is currently offering. It asks for renters to be respectful while in our neighborhoods. A suggestion from one local was to make the minimum stay five days so the weekend partiers (where most noise complaints are generated) wouldn't rent local homes. The thought behind that would be that someone staying five days would be a bit more connected to the community.

"Get the word out that you have to be respectful and considerate when renting in South Lake Tahoe and it will happen," according to one speaker, Ken. "I can tell you horror stories about experiences with renters."

Some communities with vacation home properties have enforced very strict rules, including the requirement that a vacation rental can only be located in a commercial zone.

Jerry Birdwell, the owner of Black Bear Inn on Ski Run with Kevin Chandler, spoke about the unbalanced treatment of commercial lodging properties when compared to vacation home rentals. Lodging businesses have to obtain Tourist Accommodation Units (TAUs), pay mitigation fees to TRPA, have to provide off street parking, comply to ADA rules, have hot tubs with county health permits and handicapped access.

Birdwell said that its only fair if vacation home rentals have to play by the same rules as commercial lodging properties since they're competition for each other.

TahoeChamber CEO "B" Gorman said the subject is a complicated issue with lots of differing opinions. She suggested that data be collected this summer with increased enforcement of the current ordinance. "Instead of knee jerk actions, get data and make well informed decisions," Gorman said.

The discussion on Tuesday night went almost three hours, with everyone getting a chance to speak that wanted to.

A few people in the Council Chambers thanked Kerry for running a fair and efficient meeting.