Living in a resort town has many perks. Beautiful weather, tons of outdoor recreation, world class skiing, great events and so much more. However, some may feel that there are some setbacks that come with the package. On a busy holiday weekend, it is not uncommon to hear a local grumbling about the packed grocery stores, backed up traffic and the loud party at the vacation rental across the street.
While not all vacation rentals are packed with loud partiers, local residents have been making complaints to the police and sheriff departments about the lack of parking, trash left out for the bears and the high noise level being produced from these homes well into the early morning hours. So much that South Lake Tahoe Police Chief, Brian Uhler, gave a presentation on the Vacation Home Rental Policy to the City Council and Mayor. First item he mentioned was that vacation rentals generated over $2,000,000 in Transient Occupancy Taxes fiscal year 2014.
While only about 1,500 homes within the city limits of South Lake Tahoe have actual vacation home permits, about 160 of the noise complaints called into the SLT police department were about vacation homes. About 35% of those required more than one police visit. There are ordinances in place to prevent these types of situations so that renters and residences can co-exist peacefully. For example, the maximum amount of people that can stay in a permitted vacation residence is 2 per each bedroom plus 4. Large parties, commercial events and weddings are not allowed at these properties. Additionally, parking is determined by the size of the driveway. There appear to be more complaints from vacation rental homes that do not use a local management company.
The most recent council meeting had a mixed bag of comments from community members. A couple of people felt that everything was fine, while some felt that policies needed to be stricter. Truly, local residents don’t want vacationers to feel unwelcome, but they would like them to understand that people do live here year round, have jobs, and can’t have disturbances disrupting their life the whole time a property is being occupied. They just want the policies enforced so that everyone can enjoy Lake Tahoe together. There were also discussions about the Transient Occupancy Tax these properties bring in and possibly adding an officer specifically to handle these issues during the times the complaints are usually made (10p-3a). Other ideas were adding bear boxes to these properties, having to turn off hot tub jets at a certain time to diminish the issue of people being loud and talking over the jets, or just removing the hot tubs all together.
El Dorado County has started a good neighbor policy with a new brochure to give to all guests and local homeowners with contact numbers to call if there is a problem.
In the meantime, staff for the City of South Lake Tahoe will be researching these issues and working on revised verbiage for the ordinance. This will be back on the agenda in late January or early February.
Pinnacle Lake Tahoe Getaways has taken an active part in the discussions, attending meetings with the City of South Lake Tahoe vacation rental code enforcement officers, El Dorado County vacation rental officials and the City of South Lake Tahoe City Council meetings. We are working hard to ensure a peaceful and enjoyable visits for our guests and all the local neighbors.
