A letter to City Council regarding multi-family VHRs

Dear City Council,

Hello my name is Michael Siino. My wife Sabrina Siino spoke at your council meeting two weeks ago about our guesthouse that we rent as a vacation rental. Our VHR is a studio, and we are ideal onsite VHR operators. We have never had a single complaint. My wife and I are working people, employed by the casinos and our VHR is how we make ends meet to live in this city that we love. We are not so different than the people you are advocating for in trying to create affordable housing. In Tahoe we work for low wages and the cost of housing comparatively is high. Nonetheless, we are active, productive, progressive community members who take opportunities to give back to our community. We aren’t uncaring out of town investors who don’t give a hoot about affordable housing and other people like ourselves making ends meet.

Many of the people affected by this change to the VHR ordinance are like us, we are not apartment building owners converting long term rentals to VHR’s but homeowners and residents renting out small in-law units & guesthouses on the property where we personally reside. We feel that you are asking us to give up a lot and we deserve an explanation. We want to know why we have never been formally notified about your intent. We question how much affordable housing this proposed change will actually create, and why we aren’t focused on better solutions. And finally, we also want to know where are the facts, let us see the study to back up this decision.

Michael Siino