Newport Beach’s vacation rental ban up for renewal

Newport Beach may extend its pandemic-driven moratorium on short-term rentals.

The City Council will consider Tuesday renewing the temporary ban, or modifying restrictions to require a minimum stay to reduce visitor turnover in the dense seaside neighborhoods where the vacation homes concentrate. If allowed to expire, the moratorium will end as soon as May 20.

Over the objections of several vacation home owners and managers who said they needed the income and who feared ripple effects into the summer, the council voted in early April to bar short-term rentals, a key component of the local tourism economy, for six weeks to tamp down on visitors during the coronavirus pandemic.

Officials noted that market forces — driven by stay-at-home orders in California and nationwide intended to stem the spread of the virus that causes the respiratory illness COVID-19 — had eliminated almost all local short-term rental business. But the city remains an attractive getaway, and since the council enacted the moratorium, code enforcement officers have received 65 complaints and confirmed 11 violations by alleged scofflaws. Four of those were for a single property.

The council would decide a new end date or minimum stay Tuesday, should it decide to extend or modify the restrictions.

More than 1,500 homes in Newport Beach hold short-term lodging permits, concentrated on the Balboa Peninsula and Balboa Island and in Corona del Mar neighborhoods.

The city has a heritage of seaside vacation home rentals that predates the Airbnb era by decades. State and county pandemic directives don’t give guidance on short-term rentals, however, leaving it to local authorities.

The vacation rental blackout is among other continuing coronavirus-driven restrictions in Newport including closures of piers, boardwalks and beach parking lots — although the sand itself bounced back from a state-ordered temporary hard closure this week when the state approved the city’s “active recreation” visitor management plan.

Tuesday’s meeting starts at 4 p.m. and will be broadcast live on the city website and the NBTV cable television channel. To watch the meeting online or for information on how to participate remotely, visit newportbeachca.gov.

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