Renting out estate mansions in Sonoma Valley for events that swell into noisy, night-long booze-bashes has become such a problem that Sonoma County officials are considering a crackdown this summer on the vacation rental business.
While an estimated 1,000 homes in the county fall into the ?vacation rental by owner? category, about a dozen in Sonoma Valley have generated many of the complaints that prompted a 2?-hour hearing Tuesday before the Board of Supervisors.
Residents living on Lawndale Road in Kenwood, on Sobre Vista Road south of Glen Ellen and on Hoff Road near the Ledson winery said they feared a plague of parties was set to descend upon them again this summer.
?When you get people paying $3,000 a night for renting a seven-bedroom estate that sleeps 20, you get people who want to get their money?s worth and it is no longer a vacation rental,? said Larry Lang, a Sobre Vista Road resident who came armed with a petition signed by 30 neighbors.
Weddings and bachelor parties are most common, but the plethora of Wine Country events, such as the annual jazz and film festivals and celebrity golf tournament, also attract sponsors willing to pay local residents big bucks to house special guests.
Supervisor Valerie Brown, whose district covers the Sonoma Valley, said her office has catalogued mounting complaints of late-night party noise, rock bands playing at high volume, screeching disc jockeys, people frolicking nude in hot tubs, limousine traffic tying up narrow roads and party-goers passed out in front lawns.
?For three years we have been working on coming up with solutions,? Brown said. ?We have exhausted every solution we have come up with.?
Temporary rental of private homes for vacations and extended stays is largely unregulated, primarily because zoning officials view the practice as not much different than property owners renting their houses to tenants. However, the cachet of a big event weekend in the Wine Country has brought out-of-towners willing to spend thousands a night for an estate with multiple bedrooms.
Many of these homes are independently advertised on the Internet, while others also appear on established Web sites, such as vrbo.com.
?Bachelor parties. Bachelorette parties. It might as well have dancing girls on the site,? said Supervisor Shirlee Zane, reciting advertised features. ?Optional nude sunbathing. You can do anything you want. This problematic group is damaging the whole tourism industry.?
Chris and Emily Connors, who acknowledged being co-owners of one of the controversial Sobre Vista Road homes, apologized to neighbors and to Brown for several incidents.
?One was my own wedding, one was the Sonoma Film Festival and one was after a marriage ceremony. A lot of guests came back to celebrate,? Emily Connors said. ?We are not a hotel, and we need to keep it as the family home.?
Chris Connors acknowledged threats of regulation had gotten their attention. But he noted the local economy could suffer because ?there are high-end people that bring their high-end people like their hair dressers and chefs.?
Potential regulation has prompted several leaders in the vacation rental business to step forward with self-policing proposals, including hiring a private security company to respond to complaints.
?We have come up with 11 items on a code of conduct that limits the number of events and number of people,? said Ron Goldman, who owns two vacation rental properties in Schellville and who convened a group of Sonoma Valley property owners. ?We ask for the opportunity to clean up our own act.?
But Del Rydman, president of the Valley of the Moon Alliance, called for supervisors to enact strict regulations, even to the point of banning home vacation rentals, as is the case in the cities of Sonoma and Napa.
?I am surprised that hotels and bed and breakfasts are not supportive because it takes business away from their operations,? Rydman said. ?The neighbors are paying the price for vacation rentals that are out of control.?
Rydman and others at the hearing complained that the county?s lack of a noise ordinance covering unincorporated areas gives sheriff?s deputies little authority when they respond to calls. A second call usually results in a request that the complainant sign a ?citizen?s arrest? statement, something that Brown said most people are reluctant to do.
During general plan deliberations last year, the supervisors considered, at great length, drafting a noise ordinance. However, enforcement of decibel-level readings was deemed to difficult to enforce and county planners said noise constraints could best be regulated through the use permit process.
Because vacation home rentals don?t require use permits, zoning enforcement officers say tougher measures are necessary. Brown and Supervisor Efren Carrillo agreed to head a subcommittee that will meet with vacation home renters, tourism officials and county planners to consider proposed regulations.
Ben Neuman, code enforcement manager, said supervisors could take the most extreme step of defining all homes with six or more rooms for rent as a hotel, which effectively prohibits them from being in rural residential areas. Or, he said, supervisors could prohibit transient occupancy rentals in Sonoma Valley while allowing them on the coast or Russian River where tourism is pervasive.
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