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PREVIOUSLY: Humboldt Planning Commission OKs Draft Short-Term Rental Ordinance After Months of Deliberation

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After more than four hours of deliberation, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved the county’s long-anticipated Short-Term Rental (STR) Ordinance. 

The ordinance establishes a permitting process for individuals and entities operating STRs (dwelling units that are rented to guests for 30 consecutive days or less, through services such as Airbnb or Vrbo) within unincorporated areas of the county. The new rules put a cap on the total number of STRs in unincorporated Humboldt and impose additional restrictions on STRs located in more populous areas where housing availability is limited.

Once the ordinance takes effect at the beginning of April, existing STR operators can send in their permit applications for consideration. However, STR operators in the coastal zone will have to wait until the ordinance is certified by the California Coastal Commission, likely in the next month or so. Existing operators without unresolved property violations will be given first priority. 

The main point of contention during Tuesday’s meeting revolved around how many STRs should be allowed to operate in a given area to balance the needs of property owners, tenants and neighbors.

The Humboldt County Planning Commission encountered the same issue during its deliberations on the subject and agreed to a two percent cap on the total number of STR units in the “Greater Humboldt Bay Area” – including the Community Plan Areas (CPA) for Arcata, Blue Lake, Carlotta, Eureka, Fieldbrook, Fortuna, Freshwater, Glendale, Hydesville, Jacoby Creek, McKinleyville, Rio Dell, Trinidad and Westhaven – where housing is already scarce. The commission also set a five percent cap on STRs in all other CPAs, with the exception of the inland portion of Shelter Cove “where the standard does not apply” due to specific zoning rules.

During the board’s last discussion on the matter, Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone advocated for both Big Lagoon and Willow Creek to be included in the two percent cap.

Speaking during public comment, Shannon Hughes, a member of the Willow Creek Community Services District (CSD) board of directors, urged the board to look into the matter further to get “a full scope of the opinion out in Willow Creek.”

“[W]hat we lack in Willow Creek is the affordable housing,” she said. “The [STR] houses that would become vacant are probably not going to be the types of rentals that people in Willow Creek – with an average income of around $50,000 [per year] – would be able to afford. We do lack affordable housing, and I will definitely repeat that, but we also lack lodging.”

Willow Creek resident Riley Morrison felt similarly, noting that many of the STRs in the area are second homes and wouldn’t be available for rent otherwise. “The problem exists not because of the shortage of available housing, but because of the shortage of available, affordable housing,” he said. “The wage gap and socioeconomic divide in our community is truly at the forefront.”

Following public comment, Madrone spoke in favor of moving forward with the two percent cap on STRs in Willow Creek but acknowledged that it was a divided issue.

“I suspect if we polled the whole community we probably see a similar split,” he said. “There’s not going to be a consensus on one side or the other. I mean, my preference would actually be to apply this cap to every CSD area, as I stated earlier, but that may be a heavy lift for this board to consider. At this point, I’m willing to go ahead and let the Willow Creek thing pan out into the future.”

The board nixed the Willow Creek alternative but agreed to include the Big Lagoon Park Subdivision and the Big Lagoon Estates Subdivision, along Roundhouse Creek Road, in the Trinidad CPA.

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson said he would be willing to support the cap in Willow Creek, noting, “I don’t know what the future is going to bring.”

“We could do five percent caps in those various zones, just as a holding spot so we [can] have somebody come back and evaluate,” he said. “Right now it’s no cap, and I think … that’s a weird precedent for us to have countywide. Maybe everything outside these zones … we could just do countywide a two percent cap and then let the concentrations happen where the concentrations happen.”

Wilson went on to say that not having a cap in certain communities implies that the county has “absolutely no concern that there’s going to be any sort of impacts in relation to housing” in the future and suggested that the board implement a five or ten percent countywide cap. “Even if we had a liberal cap, that would be better than no cap at all.”

Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell argued that a cap – especially one as low as two or five percent – was not necessary in some of the county’s more rural communities.

“If you had [gone] to the community meetings in the other areas, Supervisor Wilson, you may know why the [cap] adjustment came [about],” she said. “Two percent is not ‘liberal’ by any means. In your space maybe, not in mine. … [T]hose areas outside are barely hanging on by a thread right now.”

Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo said she could understand where Wilson was coming from “in theory,” but said she could also understand Bushnell’s point that STRs provide critical income for some rural property owners. “I’d love for us to find a way that that works for all our communities.”

After a bit of tense back and forth between board members, the board agreed to implement a five percent countywide cap on STRs with a provision that would allow residents outside of CPAs to apply for a special permit even if the cap was exceeded. 

Earlier in the meeting, the board explored the possibility of allowing permit transfers but ultimately decided to go with the Planning Commission’s original recommendation to not allow transfers. 

The board also agreed to add language to accommodate units that are rented out for a portion of the year. Under the ordinance, properties “rented on a short-term basis for 60 consecutive days or fewer” are considered part-time and are not subject to the cap.

The board unanimously approved the ordinance 5-0.

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Other notable bits from the meeting:

• The board selected McKinleyville resident Lorna McFarlane to fill the at-large vacancy on the Humboldt County Planning Commission, which was recently vacated by Commissioner Brian Mitchell. McFarlane currently works as a senior environmental scientist with Caltrans’ Climate Change Adaptation Branch and has extensive experience in environmental management and climate change science. Her two-year appointment was unanimously approved by the board.
• The board received a presentation from Humboldt County Public Health Officer Dr. Candy Stockton on the last two years of local drug poisoning and fentanyl-related deaths. Accidental overdose deaths went down slightly between 2022 and 2023, from 83 to 79, according to Stockton.
• Representatives of the Health and Social Policy Institute (HASPI) presented the Board of Supervisors with the California Public Health Leadership Award in recognition of the board’s leadership in adopting a Comprehensive Tobacco Retailer License Ordinance in July of 2023. The award is the first of its kind to be given to a northern California government entity.