The City of Paso Robles has received many complaints about short-term rentals creating noise in residential areas, especially at rentals that have pools, and some residents are now surrounded by Airbnb's.
"So, up for discussion with this review the short-term rental ordinance was whether there should be the type of a regulation on pools or not," said Darren Nash, Paso Robles City Planner.
Earlier this month, the planning commission asked the Paso Robles City Council to consider some type of regulation.
"As a result of the council's review of the ordinance, they did not have a specific change to that," said Nash.
Resident and Airbnb owner, Nixon Hazard, says he and his family aren't bothered by noise from Airbnb residents, and the only time they notice noise is when guests are speaking loudly while walking back to their Airbnb at night after visiting a festival or bar in downtown Paso Robles.
"Yeah they're talking, they're having a good time and they're going back to wherever they're staying, which in this area would be an Airbnb because there are no hotels out in this area," said Nixon Hazard, neighbor & Airbnb Owner.
Hazard runs an Airbnb out of a portion of his home and is a neighbor to multiple Airbnb operations on his street.
The City of Paso Robles caps the number of unoccupied short-term rentals at 325, they do not put a limit on the number of rentals where the owner is renting out a portion of their home while living under the same roof.
"Being a homeowner who is affected by vacation rentals in my neighborhood, and then also having worked in the vacation rental insdustry and now currently having a vacation rental, I feel a bit conflicted about it," said Hazard.
He knows Airbnb's benefit the city financially by driving tourism, but it takes away from the close knit community he once knew on this street.
"I used to play down here. I have a lot of friends who have houses right down here, and now with young kids, there's not as many families," said Hazard.
As for the noise ordinance, Nash encourages residents to call the already-established hotline for short-term rental noise complaints.
"There's a complaint hotline set up with the short-term rentals in the city of Paso Robles, so working through that already-established process is the best way to work with complaints," said Nash.
That hotline is available to Paso Robles residents 24/7 and the city encourages residents to call again if the issue is not resolved within 30 minutes.
