Dana Point council authorizes limited new short‑term rental permits, approves Deckard monitoring contract

The Dana Point City Council on May 6 authorized staff to issue 15 short‑term rental permits outside the coastal zone and directed the city manager to enter a contract with Deckard Technologies to improve monitoring of online advertisements and transient‑occupancy‑tax (TOT) reporting.

The action follows a staff update on the city’s short‑term rental (STR) program and a lengthy public comment period in which residents of the Ritz Point gated community urged the city to enforce master‑association rules that they say prohibit rentals of less than 30 days.

City planning manager John Ciampa and code‑enforcement staff told the council the city has phased the STR program since 2023, with separate caps for inside and outside the coastal zone. Staff reported 96 active permits inside the coastal zone and 59 outside, for a total of 155 active permits against a program cap of 130 inside the zone and a phased cap system overall. Staff recommended issuing 15 permits from the wait list outside the coastal zone (a mix of homestay, primary and multifamily homestay permits), maintaining the nonprimary (investor) wait list, and pursuing a Deckard Technologies contract to detect illegal advertising and assist TOT auditing.

Residents from the Corniche Master Association and the Monarch Hills condominium subassociation described what they said were hundreds of rule violations in their gated community and asked the council to approve a Coastal Development Permit filed by the Corniche Master Association that would impose a 30‑day rental minimum across the master association. Dalita Cobold, president of the Corniche Master Association, said the master CC&Rs were recorded before subassociation documents and therefore govern rentals across the gated community. Other speakers, including Brandon Spruill and Joseph Jager, urged the city to honor the master association’s CDP application and to vacate existing STR permits they called “illegal.” City staff and the city attorney cautioned the council that the CDP would follow a separate process (planning commission review and potential appeals to the council) and that comments received tonight could not substitute for that noticed process.

Ciampa told the council the city’s enforcement program has improved coordination among community development, code enforcement and the sheriff’s department, and that a third‑party monitoring effort has aided enforcement. Staff described a two‑week Deckard trial that identified 16 suspected violations and resulted in three citations. Deckard’s tools include daily scraping of public listings across platforms, image‑similarity checks and time‑of‑day ad tracking to surface ads that are modified to evade detection.

Council members debated whether to grant staff broader authority to issue permits without returning to council each time. After discussion about data needs and enforcement capacity, the council approved the staff‑recommended issuance of 15 permits and authorized the Deckard contract and annual reporting, while directing staff to allow nonprimary permits to continue to decline through attrition rather than proactively issuing new nonprimary investor permits. The motion passed on a voice vote, 4–1.

The council also asked staff for ongoing updates: an annual February report and an additional late‑summer (September/October) status update on complaints, violation breakdowns by permit type, and TOT audit results produced with Deckard’s data. Council members said they expect additional audit work comparing Deckard’s detected bookings against TOT remittances and that staff retain authority to revoke permits that accrue multiple substantiated violations (the municipal code allows permit revocation after three violations).

The council emphasized that enforcement remains complaint‑driven but that the city now has more proactive tools to find unpermitted listings and to audit TOT remittances. Staff said the next formal program update will be in February 2026, with more frequent operational reports anticipated.

Votes at a glance: City Council approved issuing 15 permits outside the coastal zone (mixture of homestay, primary and multifamily homestay), authorized the city manager to contract with Deckard Technologies, and directed staff to continue annual reporting. The council preserved the nonprimary cap and will allow nonprimary permits to decline through attrition.