On Short-Term Rentals, San Diego Needed Leadership, Not Easy Answers

Editor’s note: San Diego City Council District 2 candidates Richard Bailey and Nicole Crosby weighed in on the city’s vacation rental laws at Voice of San Diego’s Politifest.

Councilmember Jennifer Campbell represents San Diego Council District 2.

Few issues in San Diego have been as complex, or as politically charged, as short-term rentals.

For nearly a decade, San Diego has grappled with balancing neighborhood protections, housing, property rights, tourism, and public access to our coastline. There were no easy answers, and I learned there never would be.

Before becoming Council President, I watched the city try multiple approaches to this issue. In 2018, Council adopted a restrictive ordinance championed by then-Councilmember Barbara Bry to largely limit whole-home rentals. The short-term-rental industry responded by qualifying a referendum, which puts power directly into the hands of voters through a ballot measure. The Council ultimately repealed the ordinance.

When I took up the issue in 2021, I knew that simply choosing another side would not solve the problem.

The answer was to bring everyone into the conversation.

We engaged short-term rental hosts, the tourism industry, homeowners, renters, community leaders, and the Mission Beach community, which asked us to reduce allowable whole-home rentals to 30 percent. We met with the Labor Council and UNITE HERE Local 30, working toward an MOU with Expedia. We also considered housing advocates and residents who have experienced the impacts of poorly managed vacation rentals.

And we worked toward a compromise.

The result was San Diego’s Short-Term Residential Occupancy ordinance, that law passed to regulate short term rentals in San Diego. This law recognizes an important distinction: someone occasionally sharing their home is different from a commercial operator turning an entire residential property into a year-round vacation rental.

Our framework allows responsible home-sharing while placing limits on whole-home short-term rentals. It provides rules for accountability while preserving a role for short-term rentals in our tourism economy.

Tourism supports our restaurants, small businesses, hotels, transportation, and local jobs while generating city revenue. From July 2024 through June 2026, operators generated $117.8 million in Transient Occupancy Tax, including $8.2 million in FY2025 and FY2026 for basic city services. Responsible regulation protects neighborhoods while preserving this vital economic engine.

But there is another piece of this issue that people often overlook or don’t understand: the California Coastal Commission.

San Diego is different from many California cities because of the size and importance of our coastal zone. The Coastal Commission recognizes short-term rentals as one form of visitor accommodation that can expand access to coastal communities for those who may not be able to afford traditional hotels.

That means the Coastal Commission is always going to be part of this conversation.

After the city adopted its ordinance, the Coastal Commission required amendments before implementation could proceed. The process took nearly two years, reinforcing that coastal regulations require coordination beyond City Hall. Anyone working seriously on coastal policy must understand that the city cannot simply adopt a coastal regulation and assume the process ends at City Hall.

That’s one of the many nuances that make this issue so complicated.

And the politics were just as complicated as the policy.

The 2018 ordinance faced a referendum. After our 2021 ordinance passed, I faced an attempted recall. I prevailed.

That experience reinforced something I already knew: When you take on a complex issue with strong interests on every side, there will be people who disagree with you—and sometimes very loudly.

Leadership isn’t about avoiding those fights.

It’s about being willing to enter them with an open mind, understand the history, listen to the stakeholders, acknowledge the tradeoffs and ultimately make the best decision you can for the public.

That is why I believe candidates and public leaders should be careful before announcing sweeping positions on complicated issues.

Before promising to “ban” something, “eliminate” something or “fix” something overnight, understand the history. Understand the law, the jurisdiction, the economic consequences, the stakeholders, and the unintended consequences.

It’s easy to make a promise on the campaign trail.

It’s much harder to deliver when you’re sitting at the negotiating table and confronting the realities of governing.

San Diego’s short-term-rental debate is a perfect example.

A strong public servant doesn’t simply pick a side and promise the loudest audience what it wants to hear. A strong public servant brings people together, understands the nuances, finds common ground where possible and makes the difficult compromises necessary to move the city forward.

That’s how we addressed short-term rentals.

Not by pretending there was an easy answer, but by doing the hard work of finding a responsible one.

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