THE OCEANSIDER: ONA Committee Considers Adjusting Oceanside’s STR Cap

By Jerry Keene, Editor, The Oceansider

The Oceanside Neighborhood Association (ONA) Short Term Rental Cap Committee met last Monday (March 18) to begin talks on whether and how Oceansiders might wish to adjust the “cap” on STR licenses imposed by the County Commissioners in all unincorporated communities last summer. Oceanside is currently capped at 139 STR licenses, which is 20% of the 693 dwellings on record when the cap was adopted. (Click here to view a Map of Oceanside STRs.) There is currently only one person on the Oceanside STR wait list. ONA President Sharon Brown appointed the Committee in response to the county’s invitation to provide input about the cap to the County Commissioners. The committee includes Oceanside STR owners, managers and residents (including your friendly editor).

Committee Chair Terri Warren opened the meeting, which was then facilitated by county Community Development Director Sarah Absher and county Public Works Director Chris Laity. They summarized the events that led to the new county regulations and adoption of local STR caps. They also indicated that Oceanside poses the county’s toughest challenges in implementing the county’s new STR parking space requirements. Absher then opened the floor for comments on whether the current cap should be raised, lowered or kept as is for the time being. The county is expected to post a recording of the entire meeting on its website. In the meantime, here are a few highlights.

1. The county considers the current STR cap to be a “hard number” frozen at 139 STRs based on the number of dwellings in Oceanside when the cap was adopted. It does not calculate the cap as “20% of dwellings” which would allow for a future increase in the actual number of STRs as more dwellings are built.

2. The great majority of committee members and meeting participants (including some from Netarts) said they were initially inclined to maintain the cap at its current level while the new ordinance provisions aimed at parking, occupancy and complaint resolution play out over time.

3. Contrary to comments by county officials during the STR ordinance hearings last year, the county has ruled out eliminating the160 homesites in The Capes (where STRs are effectively prohibited). This matters because, if The Capes is excluded, the remaining areas of Oceanside have an STR percentage of 27%, not 20%. That is the highest percentage of any community in the county.

4. There are twice as many STRs in the “core village” of Oceanside as there are in the outlying areas.

Following the meeting, Chairman Warren indicated that she intends to arrange a well-publicized forum in order to allow for broader input about the STR cap from the entire community.

A Message from OVERT

Most homes in Oceanside lost internet service from Charter Spectrum for several hours last Thursday in areas where cell phone calls cannot be made without it. As a result, residents in those areas could not have contacted 911 in the event of a medical emergency or other event requiring aid from the first responders at the Netarts-Oceanside Fire Department (NOFD). This outage provided the first practical opportunity to activate our emergency radio network and confirm with NOFD that we were on alert. If you had needed help from NOFD, there was a volunteer living near you with a hand-held radio to relay such requests to NOFD while internet service was down. This raises an important question:

DO YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND THE RADIO VOLUNTEER IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD?

If not, we urge you to take a moment to identify your neighborhood’s Sector Captain on the maps in the OVERT Emergency Radio Network Guide. We recommend that you write it down and make sure all family members are aware of it because you will not be able to find it on the internet if it goes down during an emergency. Also, take a moment to thank your neighborhood volunteer for this valuable service.

Rob Hoeper, John Prather, Craig Child
OVERT Co-Chairs