STVR public hearing splits residents and City Council
by Laura Garber The Hermosa Beach City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday to permit short-term vacation rentals in the Coastal Zone and keep them banned elsewhere. The vote cleared the way for the City to license operators and start collecting a transient occupancy tax, or hotel tax, that staff estimate will bring in roughly $1 million a year. Staff presented three options. Option 1 permits STVRs in the Coastal Zone and prohibits them elsewhere, with a review after one year. Option 2 adopts the same interim approach but directs staff to bring a full regulatory program back to the Coastal Commission. Option 3 would have permitted STVRs citywide. The options before Council stemmed from Koerner v. City of Hermosa Beach. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled in March that the city’s decade-old ban on short-term rentals in the Coastal Zone was unenforceable because Hermosa Beach didn’t obtain Coastal Commission approval for the ban. The council voted 4-1 in closed session in May not to appeal the court decision. Of the city’s 5,404 homes in the Coastal Zone, staff estimate an average of 65 residential units operating on a monthly cycle. Roughly 225 residential units are advertised, according…
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