Truckee extends short-term rental permit moratorium
- Nov 16, 2021 | Jennifer Sokolowsky
Truckee, California, has extended a moratorium on new short-term rental registrations until June 15, 2022. Previously, the Town Council had issued a 45-day moratorium on September 28, 2021. The moratorium does not apply to short-term rental applications that were received prior to September 28 and 2022 renewals of existing licenses.
The extension is in response to Truckee’s housing shortage and will provide time for the town to review the existing short-term rental rules and study laws in other communities, working with an advisory committee.
Within Truckee, nearly 1,200 short-term rentals are operating with town-issued permits, with about 100 in process.
Truckee’s short-term rental rules went into effect on January 1, 2021. Those rules require Truckee short-term rental hosts to:
- Apply for annual short-term rental permits
- Designate a contact who can respond to issues within 30 minutes
- Complete a fire code and defensible space self-certification yearly and a Truckee Fire Protection District inspection once every three years
- Abide by occupancy limits
- Supply paved guest parking on-site
- Follow rules for trash service, including having a bear-resistant trash enclosure
- Observe quiet hours
Violations of the ordinance can result in administrative penalties of up to $1,000 per day, and the town will revoke a property’s license if it has three violation citations within 12 months.
Short-term rental hosts must also collect the town’s transient occupancy tax and Truckee Tourism Business Improvement District (TTBID) assessment from guests and remit them to town tax authorities. While Airbnb and Vrbo automatically collect short-term lodging taxes from guests on behalf of hosts in some California cities, they do not do so in Truckee. MyLodgeTax can help California short-term rental hosts automate lodging tax to streamline and simplify their lodging tax compliance.
Vacation rentals are a hot topic in the Lake Tahoe area, with several communities taking action to regulate them over the past several years.
In August, Placer County issued a 45-day moratorium on new permits as well in order to review the current law that went into effect in January 2020.
In July, a United States District Court ruling delayed implementation of parts of a new short-term rental law in Douglas County, Nevada. However, some elements of the law have moved forward, including a tiered short-term rental permit system based on home size and a limit to the number of vacation rental permits in Tahoe Township.
This spring, Washoe County, Nevada, passed a law regulating short-term rentals for the first time. The ordinance requires vacation rental hosts to obtain permits and insurance; abide by occupancy, parking, noise, and trash disposal rules; and collect lodging taxes from guests, among other regulations.
Last year, the city of South Lake Tahoe approved a new ordinance allowing hosted short-term rentals in the city and El Dorado County capped the number of short-term rentals, limiting them to 900 in unincorporated parts of the Lake Tahoe Basin.
For more on lodging taxes in California, see our state Lodging Tax Guide. If you have tax questions related to vacation rental properties, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you with answers.
