Though the city planner said most of Crescent City’s vacation rentals were concentrated on Pebble Beach Drive, Candace Tinkler brought up Gainard Street to illustrate the need for stricter regulations.
According to the mayor pro tem, “every single house that has gone up for sale is flipped” into a short-term rental and there are only “one or maybe two long-term neighbors.”
But her argument that vacation rentals are changing the character of Crescent City’s neighborhoods didn’t land with her colleagues Monday. One, Councilor Jason Greenough, said there are already laws on the books that address many of her concerns. He also disputed her statement regarding Gainard Street.
“I know of several homes that have sold that are single-family homes,” he said. “So, what you’re citing is incorrect for that street specifically.”
Greenough and his fellow councilman Ray Altman were inclined to put the discussion to rest with Altman calling it a waste of time. Mayor Isaiah Wright said he shared their opinion for the most part, but he wanted to make sure everyone who operates a vacation rental paid the same taxes hotels and motels remit to the city.
Wright said he also wanted to hear from appointed Councilman Steve Shamblin. Shamblin had asked staff for information about regulating vacation rentals, but was absent on Monday.
Though it’s been years since anyone has sought to operate a formal bed and breakfast in Crescent City, there are 53 active business licenses for short-term rentals, said Ethan Lawton, a planner with Eureka-based SHN who is contracted to work with the city. Most are on Pebble Beach Drive, he said, and account for 2.68% of the housing stock within the city limits.
According to City Manager Eric Wier, that number includes both multi-family housing units and single-family homes.
The number of vacation rental applications has fluctuated over the past five years, ranging from a peak of 14 in 2022 to six in 2024, Lawton said. The city has received three short-term rental applications in 2026 so far, he said.
Vacation rentals in Crescent City are governed under its bed and breakfast establishment ordinance, which includes provisions for residents offering a room in their home as well as formal bed and breakfasts.
In addition to receiving permission to operate a vacation rental either through a ministerial permit from city staff or from the Crescent City Planning Commission, a vacation rental host must obtain a business license and pay transiency occupancy taxes, or TOT, Lawton said.
Crescent City’s TOT is 10% and is paid quarterly. In fiscal year 2024-25 the city received a total of $342,894 in revenue from 51 active short-term rentals, according to Lawton’s staff report.
Lawton noted that the City Council had three potential options when it came to regulating short-term rentals. One is maintaining its existing requirements, which allows staff to offer ministerial approval for a vacation rental and only gets the Planning Commission involved in the case of a formal bed and breakfast.
The second option is to clean up the existing regulations, clarify them and “maybe add a couple here and there,” Lawton said.
The third is to establish a formal short-term rental ordinance, which would require the public to provide input either through a workshop or a hearing, Lawton said.
The potential ordinance could set a cap on the percentage of short-term rental permits allowed based on the city’s housing stock, the contract planner said. In other communities, those caps vary from 1% to 15%, he said, with Crescent City’s being less than 3%.
The city can set limits on the density of short-term rentals allowed in single-family residential zones as well as apply owner-occupancy standards and other requirements, Lawton said.
Though Wright wasn’t inclined to want to regulate short-term rentals, he said he wanted to know how many were charging TOT and remitting that payment to the city.
State law allows cities to request information from Airbnb, VRBO and similar platforms to determine what’s currently listed and whether the operator has a business license and is registered to pay TOT, Lawton said.
City Manager Eric Wier said the finance department has conducted audits that involve combing VRBO and Airbnb sites to see if the operators listed have a business license and are paying their TOT. But they weren’t very extensive.
The city manager suggested hiring a third-party firm who could conduct such an audit, but Wright recommended reaching out to the platforms first to see what information they could provide. He noted that anytime he’s rented from Airbnb or VRBO, the TOT fee is listed on the receipt.
Tinkler said she disagreed with Lawton’s statement that short-term rentals only account for 2.68% of the overall housing units in Crescent City. She asked if it included apartments. Wier said that it did.
Still, Tinkler asked for the percentage of single-family homes that have been turned into short-term rentals, speculating that it would probably result in an increased percentage than 2.68%.
“I don’t think there are a whole lot of apartment buildings here in town that (anyone) is doing Airbnb out of,” she said.
Tinkler, who lives on Pebble Beach Drive near Brother Jonathan Park, said she and her neighbors have noticed noise and disturbances associated with the short-term rentals in their area. Some don’t have a property manager that could be called to deal with the disturbances either, she said.
City resident Mark Bower said he agreed with Tinkler, he doesn’t think homes meant to hold six or seven people shouldn’t be rented out to 20. But most of the guests who stay in his vacation rental are from the midwest and the East Coast and want to see Redwood National and State Parks.
“One time in the last six years I had one issue and it was taken care of immediately. Those people were asked to leave,” he said. “That’s what vacation rentals are supposed to be. It’s about family coming together enjoying the beautiful countryside we have.”
Bower said if the city, which owns Lighthouse Cove RV Park, was going to limit the number of vacation rentals it should start “get rid of theirs first.”
Patricia Black, another city resident who frequents Airbnbs with her husband when they travel, said she agreed with Tinkler that the percentage of vacation rentals was more than 2.68% of the housing stock.
“I walked around my neighborhood and I can’t begin to tell you how many of those houses have those key pads to get into the house,” Black said. “You know how many of them are Airbnbs if you just walk around a little bit. On our little section of the street there are three duplexes… at least one whole building is Airbnb.”
Michael Duvall, who moved to Crescent City from Idyllwild in Southern California, which heavily regulates its vacation rentals, urged the city to look at specific segments of the community, particularly the coastal area. He noted that few people are renting vacation homes in the winter and said that many neighborhoods are hollowed out from about November to April.
“I don’t have neighbors and I don’t even have visitors and I think that’s a problem,” he said. “Communities rely on year-round residents, and when there aren’t year-round residents, you don’t have community.”
Wright asked city staff to determine if all short-term rental operators were paying their TOT. Then, he said he’d like to determine what exactly the percentage of short-term rentals are within the city limits.
City Attorney Martha Rice said if Wright wanted to know how many single-family homes were used as vacation rentals, the percentage Lawton gave in his presentation didn’t have that information. It would be a valuable piece of information to have, she said, as would knowing how other communities go about capping the percentage of vacation rentals.
“If you’re doing a 5% cap, is that all units (or) is that single-family?” Rice said. “It’s just trying the information. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to change anything, but maybe it would because we don’t have the information yet.”
Altman, however, said that the people that own vacation rentals are property owners and the city doesn’t discriminate between some property owners and others. He also pointed out that vacation rental owners also have to pay their TOT and pay for a business license.
“Everyone should pay their taxes, but I’ve been up here for six years having everyone preach to support small business and there’s been few instances that we have,” Altman said.
