To the Rancho Santa Fe Homeowner’s Association Board of Governors:
Before I commence, let me extend my sincere gratitude for the volunteering of your time to represent the best interests of our cherished community.
In regards to your recent proposal to regulate rentals of private residential property for less than 30 days I am in complete opposition. It is an absolute and direct infringement of personal property rights. It is over-reaching, unnecessary and surely will welcome a wave of costly legal opposition and negative press which this community absolutely does not need now or ever. Our property values already are lower than they should be and this would drive a stake in the prospect of this community regaining its desirability.
Despite the gaping vacancies and shameful lack of a retail scene in our downtown village sector, you report that you cannot incur regulations to prevent the commercial property owners from leaving their darkened storefronts empty for months and years a time or from renting to the myriad of banks, real estate offices, wealth mangers and attorneys who can afford the astronomical rental rates. Indeed, many times over (from members of this board and prior boards) I have heard that as an Association you have no rights to infringe on what property owners do to the interiors or rent to as occupants of their personal property.
This is no different. I am not clear on what or who started building a defense for this regulation. If there are noise issues associated with special event rentals then I would support the issuance of special-use permits and noise abatement standards. I happen to reside on a street where there appear to be frequent special events, and at no time have I been inconvenienced by parking, traffic or disturbing noise.
To take a position that the Association can impose itself in the private short-term rental of a property and the advertising of said properties is not at all reasonable. What business or merit is there in burdening one of our Association staff members to scrutinize the internet and print/broadcast media to ensure that members are not advertising for short term rentals? The world is evolving and we cannot benefit by such overbearing and archaic notions.
The entirety of Item 7 : require that the private property owners/members actually notify the Association with the names of all occupants, the make(s), model(s) and license number(s) of all occupants’ vehicles, the telephone number(s), and the e mail(s) for the tenants, the number and type of pets kept by the occupants and a complete copy of the lease is absurd. Is the Patrol supposed to take on the burden of constantly investigating the private goings-on of each property and then compare the reported profile of occupants including their e mail addresses or breed of dogs at each property on a regular basis?
Most of our homes are intentionally private and cannot be seen from the street. This resolution has the clear tone of a police state. There are many private residential property owners who specifically purchased property as a high-end rental for all or part of the year and they manage their private rentals with zero disturbance to the community. Would you presume to deny them of their income from these properties? Would you also deny the rights of future property sellers to sell their property to high end investor buyers? What right does the Board of Governors have to impose themselves in this arena especially when there are so many other glaring areas of attention and action needed to enhance and preserve our beloved Covenant?
This proposal in its entirety needs to be scrubbed and we need to look to revitalizing and at long last effectively marketing our community and all it has to offer.
Janet Lawless Christ