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Residents press council on short-term rentals; council directs staff to study policy options
Summary
During oral communications a resident urged limits on short-term rentals, citing local saturation and school-enrollment concerns; councilmembers agreed to research neighboring-city rules and bring a study-session item for policy options.
A resident raised concerns about short-term rentals during public comment at the June 3 Placentia City Council meeting, and the council directed staff to research policy options and schedule a study session to consider possible restrictions.
Sarah Schnebly, who identified herself as a Placentia resident and teacher, told the council she has lived in the city most of her life and said she and neighbors are worried short-term rentals are "taking away houses from families." Schnebly said she believed the city had between 100 and 125 short-term rental listings and cited a single website reporting a 105% growth rate in the prior year; she linked the trend to declines in student enrollment and teacher retention.
Councilmember Yamaguchi said he has been in contact with Airbnb's government affairs team about policy tools and suggested the council consider increasing the transient occupancy tax (TOT) as one possible deterrent and revenue source. The mayor asked Schnebly to share the sources of her statistics with staff so the city could compare them to internal records. Councilmembers agreed to return a short-term rental study session that would summarize what neighboring cities are doing and present policy options.
The council gave staff direction to gather data, the public commenters and neighboring-city policies and to return with options for a study session; no formal regulation was adopted at the meeting.
