HomeMy WebLinkAboutSB 346 - Short Term Rentals - Letter of SUPPORTCity of San Luis Obispo, Office of the City Council, 990 Palm Street, San Luis Obispo, CA, 93401-3249, 805.781.7114,
slocity.org
March 13, 2025
The Honorable Senator Laird
Senate District 17
California State Capitol, Room #8720
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: SB 346 (Durazo) Local agencies: transient occupancy taxes: short-term rental facilitator.
Notice of SUPPORT (As Introduced on February 12, 2025)
Dear Senator Laird,
The City of San Luis Obispo supports SB 346, which would better equip cities to enforce local
ordinances related to the collection and remittance of transient occupancy taxes (TOT) for short-
term rentals.
Short-term rentals are regulated exclusively at the local level via the adoption of an ordinance that
often includes regulations on permitting, tax compliance, noise, parking, occupancy, as well as other
responsibilities for hosts and short-term rental facilitators. In some instances, ordinances limit the
number of short-term rentals allowed to operate lawfully, other ordinances ban short-term rentals
entirely.
Short-term rentals can present numerous challenges to neighborhoods and adjacent property
owners. They may create additional noise, traffic, parking, and public safety issues, decrease available
housing stock, and in some cases turn residential neighborhoods into de-facto hotel rows, collectively
creating additional demands on local public service providers.
Unfortunately, the enforcement of TOT ordinances and the collection and remittance of these taxes
from short-term rentals can be inconsistent, even when voluntary collection agreements are in place
with a short-term rental facilitator. Cities lack access to property addresses or other property-related
information, even under these agreements, resulting in a difficult choice to either accept tax
payments without any way to verify their accuracy and legality or attempt to collect taxes directly
from property owners—a costly and time-consuming process. Meanwhile, short-term rental
facilitators have full knowledge of these properties’ locations and resist disclosing this information.
Cities can only compel short-term rental facilitators to disclose this critical information through
certain legal action, such as subpoenas. This is not how oversight of public dollars should work.
SB 346 would address the above issues by providing cities with the assessor parcel number of each
short-term rental listed on the facilitator’s website and full audit authority of TOT dollars. These
changes would ensure the correct amount of TOT is being collected and remitted and would allow
for more efficient enforcement against unlicensed units.
For these reasons, the City of San Luis Obispo supports SB 346.
Sincerely,
Erica A. Stewart
Mayor
City of San Luis Obispo
Cc: Senator Maria Elena Durazo
Assembly Member Dawn Addis
Dave Mullinax, League of California Cities
Meg Desmond, League of California Cities, cityletters@cacities.org