Yesterday the Coalition hosted Carl Jaeger, Owner of Brush Creek Landing and Lyndsay Darrimon of Specialized Permitting to talk about the new Vacation Rental Ordinance for the unincorporated areas of Sonoma County.

Attendees of the webinar and members of the coalition receive an email with free access to the webinar recording and answers to the following FAQ's.

Here are just some of the questions that we answered in the webinar.

Licensing 

If someone recently obtained their permit in the last 6-12 months, would they already have a business license? 

 If you applied for your short term rental permit on May 10, 2023 or later, then a business license was required before you could start operating, so you should have applied for your license at that time. However, it was not automatically included with your permit so you need to make sure you filed that paperwork and were issued a license that would be LIC23-XXXX. You can search here to check if a license is in your permit history.

I have a ‘general’ business license (obtained about 10 years ago). Will that suffice? 

No, this is a new process and all short term rental permit holders in the unincorporated areas of Sonoma County (except the coastal zone) will need to apply and have their license APPROVED by June 15, 2024, to continue operating.

Compliance 

Is the county doing site checks to confirm information on the permit application — for example, about the lighting plan? Have any licenses been rejected due to lighting? 

No, the county is not doing site checks to confirm the information on the lighting plan unless code enforcement happens to be at your property for another reason, then they may notice lighting that is not compliant. We are not aware of any licenses being rejected due to lighting.

For management to change ownership, what are the procedures? A new permit and license or just a notice form? 

 PJR-132 is required to update your property manager with the county. If you are applying for your license at the same time, include your new property manager’s information on your PJR-146 form and include PJR-132 with your license application. Remember, you also need to file a TOT update if your previous property manager was filing your quarterly TOT returns.

So if you hold a vacation rental license but hold property in a trust currently but want to put it in an LLC, I can do that before obtaining a business license? 

Yes, if your vacation rental permit was paid for before June 16, 2023, you can change the property to be held in an LLC. Permits paid for after June 16, 2023, may only hold the property in a trust or individual names.

Daytime Guests 

No daytime guests? Our allows for 8 overnight guests. If we rent to 4 overnight guests, is the limit during the day 4 or 8? 

You may rent to less than your overnight occupancy but your limit for guests would 

What about daytime guests? Do I need a permit or license?

Technically, it’s not a vacation rental anymore. I want to host a birthday party for 4 hours and have kids use the pool. 

This is technically not allowed without a special event permit, but it really depends on your proximity to your neighbors, parking and noise levels.

Forms

On PJR 001 should you list the name of the trust as the owner?

Yes, you would put the name of the trust in the owner/applicant box followed by your name and (trustee) listed after it. If there are multiple owners/trustees, they would fill out the applicant box if you included your information in the owner box.

I thought you only had to submit PJR-001 and PJR-011 if you are renewing ? 

You will need to submit a PJR-001, PJR-011, PJR-146 and lighting plan.

For PJR-001, I missed where you should put spouse's information, please repeat. 

One spouse's information should be in the owner box and the other spouse’s information should be in the applicant box.

If we do not use an OTA (my ultimate goal) will there be a problem re the check boxes? 

For the PJR-146, the county is assuming that you are registered with an OTA (Airbnb, VRBO, etc.) if you have registered for a TOT number. For your license to approved, you will need to check all the boxes except for the following:

• Do you hold multiple STR permits in the unincorporated area?
• Is your property behind a locked gate?

Property Manager

In the past I took the property manager certificate test, passed, and was turned down because I'm on the Coast. When will they start to accept our passing the test and give us a certificate? 

Once the Local Coastal Plan is approved by the California Coastal Commission later this year, short term rental owners in the coastal area will be required to get a business license, which will require a property manager that is registered with the county. You will be able to take the test after that time to manage your property. Even homeowners that are acting as their own property manager need to pass the property manager certification exam with the county.

I don't have an official property manager. Is "property manager" the local contact person who has been certified? 

Yes, the property manager no longer needs to be within a 30 mile radius of the property, but they do need to be certified by Sonoma County.

So they are allowing owners to self manage? 

Yes, homeowners may self manage as long as they get certified by the county as a property manager.



Lighting 

No floodlights? At all? So all floodlights have to be motion only? 

You may have floodlights but they must be covered and have a motion detector.

Are low-voltage uplight landscaping lights allowed? 

No uplighting is allowed. If you have it and do not want to remove it, you may just disable it.

Site Plan 

What is the size of parking space required per car? 9’ x 20’ 

If you have several structures on the site, do you need to indicate all of them and “call out” the vacation rental? 

Yes, you need to show all structures and label which ones will be used as part of your short term rental.

Missed the Webinar ?

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