El Dorado County supervisors make amendments to VHR ordinance and add advisory committee

EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. - The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved changes this week to its Vacation Home Rental (VHR) Program.

The County's VHR Program Manager, Brendan Ferry (who is also the county’s deputy director of Tahoe planning and stormwater) gave the same presentation to the Board on Tuesday that he did to the community during Supervisor Brooke Laine's April 19 forum at the Magnet School. Laine and Ferry were looking for input from the community and they presented many of those ideas to the Board during its May 2 meeting.

A motion was made by Supervisor Hidahl, seconded by Supervisor Parlin to:

1) Create an Advisory Committee with Supervisor Laine as a single decision
maker to include staff and stakeholders to explore potential program
adjustments and/or amendments to the Vacation Home Rental (VHR)
Ordinance.

2) Direct staff that the Board has decided that the following four elements will be amended within the VHR Ordinance:
- Include compliance with Vegetation Management Ordinance
- Increase fine amounts for health and safety violations - SB 60
- Include additional permit suspension options
- The local contact can be decertified

Over a dozen people made comments about VHRs during the board meeting, along with the many received during the April 19 meeting that was also attended by Supervisor Parlin. As with any conversation about the short-term rental usage of homes, there are those that are in favor, those that are against, and those that want more enforcement and tighter regulations - and that was true again this week.

One portion of the ordinance that was discussed but not changed at this time was a change to the cap of 900 on permitted VHRs at the lake portion of the county. No new homes can be permitted if within 500 feet of another VHR. Some feel this distance is accomplishing what it was meant to, but the cap and distance will remain for now. Supervisors wanted more discussion on this before amending the ordinance.

Another item that will be discussed in Laine's committee will be hosted rentals, and looking at what some homeowners are using as a workaround and thus creating an illegal VHR. There are currently 95 "hosted rentals" which means the homeowner MUST be present during a guest's stay.

Laine said they don't seem to be "grappling" well with these hosted rentals.

"How can we do this better?" asked Laine. "If you have rules that you aren’t enforcing, why have the rules? We need to do a better job of enforcement."

Prior to Measure T, South Lake Tahoe moved its code enforcement staff to a Friday-Monday night shift so they'd be on duty when the problems occurred. El Dorado County's one code enforcement staff member assigned to Lake Tahoe works Tuesday - Friday during the day, and they work on all codes, not just VHRs.

In 2022 there was a total of 212 VHR code and sheriff's reports with 97 resulting in cases opened. Of those cases, 15 were administrative, 42 were related to noise, 2 were for occupancy, seven for lack of correct signage, and 31 for being unpermitted. The total fines collected in 2022 were $36,250 for 71 cases.

The Board wanted to get the four amendments underway and continue the discussion for future adjustments.