Santa Cruz County Vacation Rental Ordinance - Updated May 2011

I want to share with you the latest about Vacation Rental Ordinace.

Santa Cruz County has curbed the right of homeowners to use their homes for economic benefit as they see fit. This is so screwed up as we now have more government interference and regulation.

So if you are considering buying a vacation rental, you might want to check and see if you are adversely affect by this Santa Cruz County Vacation rental ordinance.

Santa Cruz County limits the rights of property owners in the Live Oak and Rio Del Mar Beach and Seacliff Beach areas, as those areas have the best and most beaches, which attract vacationers here to enjoy our community and spend their dollars here. Locally Capitola has a very narrow vacation rental zone in the village proper for rentals of less than one month.

Monterey and Carmel limit those less than one month vacation times as well. I guess this plays into the hotels well, which the county gets their TOT (transient occupancy tax) with ease and regularity. Just another way for the government to dip into homeowners pockets in my opinion.

Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 with Pirie (Rio Del Mar and Seacliff-La Selva) and Leopold ( Live Oak) voting in favor of this. The lone abstention was Supervisor Greg Caput.

Since there seem to be more of the surf crowd, i.e younger vacationers in Live Oak, they have a short leash in many categories, whereas Rio Del Mar has more latitude, as it is a more mature area.

Outside of the Live Oak area get their vacation license in perpetuity, under the new law, whereas Live Oak residents will have to apply every 5 years and have severe restrictions, in my opinion.

Live Oak, vacation rentals are limited to 15 percent for the area and 20 percent for any one block, which when you have 10 homes on the water means only 2 can be rentals. Licenses would have to be renewed every five years. As it is now, if there was a problem you called the police and if quite problematic took the owner to small claims court for nuisance.

I think Supervisor Caput has it right "excessive noise, litter and public intoxication, among the most frequent complaints - all can be handled under existing laws, and did not want to add new layers of rules for homeowners. "Caput said. "If we can't catch the ones that are abusing something, we're going to round up everybody." Government using the m-80 to solve a problem, not a fly swatter for individual pests is how I see it.