Off-year elections don’t often draw big money or take on major issues.
Locally, Tuesday’s votes were on school boards and a water board. But in San Francisco, one ballot measure in particular had local implications (not to mention voters dumping the progressive sheriff, whose countless missteps and bad press made his re-election about as probable as the San Francisco 49ers scoring a touchdown). That would be the vote on vacation rentals.
As anyone living in an area frequented by lots of tourists knows, the move toward homeowners renting out their properties short term using popular online sites such as AirBnB has infuriated some neighbors and caused widespread gnashing of teeth by city and county officials.
In Santa Cruz recently, the city council decided to hold off on imposing an emergency 45-day moratorium on the creation of new short-term and vacation rentals in the city, voting instead to have city staff review vacation rental-managing ordinances in other cities. The city reported 220 vacation rentals were registered, with owners paying transient occupancy taxes. That number was considered just a fraction of the total number of hosts.
But any thoughts of clamping down on vacation rentals might be tempered after Tuesday’s vote in San Francisco, where voters gave a one-sided victory to residents who want to use their homes for vacation rentals.
Proposition F, which went down by more than 10 percentage points, sought to limit vacation rentals to 75 days a year while strengthening enforcement of limits and jacking up penalties, while also setting up lucrative renumeration for neighbors and others who sued rental scofflaws.
Too much Big Government even in a liberal city? Well, maybe. But a closer examination shows that what really proved decisive was in a high cost of living area — sound familiar? — was that cash-strapped residents need to find a way to raise money just to pay their bills.
Oh, and one other thing: do not overlook the power of social media. AirBnB spent millions of dollars to defeat the proposition — and mobilized a huge number of AirBnB hosts and renters to spread the message. Since the measure also would have cracked down on other sites allowing residents to rent out properties short term — HomeAway/VRBO, FlipKey and Craigslist also are popular — the housing activists, hotel unions and neighborhood groups who backed F were overwhelmed.
AirBnB claimed that 138,000 city residents either stayed in AirBnB properties or hosted guests themselves over the past year. And the site, which started in San Francisco, urged each and every one of them to vote against the measure.
Backers actually had and have a decent case, arguing that the trend toward vacation rentals has diverted scarce housing stock and caused rents to skyrocket. Moreover, the sites are virtually unregulated even though AirBnB reported it has paid $12 million a year in taxes to San Francisco. But that is probably only a fraction of what would be collected if all hosts registered their properties as vacation rentals.
AirBnB reportedly spent more than $8 million to defeat the measure; the hotel workers’ unions contributed most of the $482,000 raised by Prop. F backers. AirBnB could afford it — the company is valued at $25.5 billion and has more than 2 million rental listings in 190 countries.
The San Francisco measure was so far the first, and only, election where voters weighed in on vacation rentals.
Considering the outcome, it might be the last.
