San Diego City Council President Jen Campbell estimates that her new plan to regulate vacation rentals, which the Council will debate Tuesday, could slash the number of whole-home rentals in the city by two-thirds.
Lisa Halverstadt got her hands on some new data on local rental listings that supports Campbell’s contention that the number of rentals would go down but suggests it wouldn’t be by as much. “The new numbers also offer a window into an industry affected by a pandemic that has decimated San Diego’s tourism industry,” Halverstadt writes.
Campbell’s plan would cap whole-home rentals at 1 percent of the city’s housing stock, and create a licensing process and a bolstered enforcement system. The proposal includes a carveout for Mission Beach.
Some key findings from the data:
- City budget analysts estimated the city might lose 1,651 to 2,781 whole-home vacation rental listings, numbers that would represent the equivalent of a 15 percent to 25 percent drop in whole-home listings.
- The budget analysts also estimated that decrease would bring with it a 14 percent to 23 percent drop in hotel-tax revenue.
- AirDNA data shows vacation rental listings on platforms Airbnb and VRBO were down 28 percent this January compared with January 2020. The number of listings with at least one booking in January also fell 39 percent – from 9,360 in January 2020 to 5,718 last month.
School District to Lay Out Reopening Plan
San Diego Unified plans to announce more details about its reopening plan on Tuesday, reports the Union-Tribune.
“District staff will explain San Diego Unified’s path to reopening and next steps,” the paper reported. “The district also will report on student attendance during distance learning and participation of students in the district’s limited “Phase One” in-person support services, according to the board agenda.”
Recent statements from district and union leaders have contained only vague commitments to reopening, without clarity on the precise metrics or triggers that will determine when and how reopening takes place. In the Politics Report on Saturday, we published a graphic created by the local teachers union that makes some of its demands more clear, including that it wants case rates to go down to the red tier, which means fewer than seven new cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people, before schools reopen.
Monday, the county was at 22 cases per 100,000 people. But the state’s official measurement of that case rate will come out tomorrow. It has been falling rapidly.
The lack of details or clear guideposts about when schools will reopen has frustrated parents and government leaders across the state. Mayor Todd Gloria wrote in a press release Friday that he wanted school districts “to provide clear, specific timelines on getting kids back in the classroom.”
Another Big Round of Changes to the Asylum System
A couple dozen asylum-seekers were allowed into the United States on Friday, as the Biden administration begins the process of dismantling President Donald Trump’s severe restrictions on seeking asylum in the United States.
In the latest Border Report, Maya Srikrishnan rounds up the ways the shift has played out on the ground at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and on both sides of the border. The first phase of the wind-down applies only to people who have active asylum cases. Some groups, like Haitian asylum-seekers, weren’t enrolled in the initial Remain in Mexico program and feel left out of the new process to end it.
The initial group of asylum-seekers allowed into the country were tested for COVID-19, and the San Diego Rapid Response Network is helping provide resources and connections for them as they continue their cases.
In Other News
- inewsource identified ongoing problems with the county-run hotel rooms provided to COVID-19 patients and those who need a safe place to isolate.
- The Union-Tribune obituary for longtime arts and LGBTQ advocate Larry Baza includes tributes from a long line of San Diegans whose lives he touched.
- A San Diego baseball player will officially continue being a San Diego baseball player. (10News)
- The DA’s office announced it has created a new unit to address workplace crimes. (NBC San Diego)
The Morning Report was written by Sara Libby, and edited by Scott Lewis.