No SFR expansion in June Lake
Mono County Board votes down zoning change.
What started out as a couple of homeowners in June Lake asking Mono County for permission, in the form of a zoning change, to rent out their homes on Nevada Street has tuned into a circus of personal attacks at Supervisors and the applicants.
“This ordinance is pitting neighbor against neighbor,” Patti Heinrich, President of the June Lake Citizens Advisory Committee, said at Tuesday’s Mono County Board of Supervisors meeting. She was referring to Chapter 25, Transient Overlay Districts, and Chapter 26, Transient Rental Standards and Enforcement, which the Supervisors amended in 2012 into the General Plan Land Use Element.
The amendments would “allow transient rentals within residential neighborhoods exhibiting support for allowing transient rentals to increase tourism opportunities and provide additional economic support to homeowners.”
June Lake resident Patrick Hoefer referred to the chapters as “an experiment that must stop,” and the nightly transient rentals as “a form of welfare.”
“I don’t understand why the Supervisors would allow two people to rent out their homes they can’t afford,” Hoefer said.
Tony Fodera of June Lake said that if people can’t afford to live here, they shouldn’t.
Patrick and Valorie Gail, the applicants and homeowners referred to, said they couldn’t afford to live in the area because local jobs hardly pay enough, so they have since moved to San Jose. They want to visit occasionally, and did not want to rent out their home year-round or even monthly, but they also don’t want to leave it empty, either. Patrick Gail said the allowable 30-day rental is their fallback plan.
The Gails said they would hire local people to maintain the property. They added that they were not doing, nor did they want to do anything illegal, but that they wanted to earn money for the county through transient occupancy rental tax. The comment made a few members of the public snicker.
June Lake resident Russ Biederman said it was time to put away the fake fronts and get down to the real issue—money. The transient nightly rentals are an incentive for people to refinance their homes with guaranteed income at the cost of their neighbors. He said he’s dealt with plenty of nightly renters; their dogs making a mess in his yard, their kids running amok. He said that out-of-towners that don’t know how to drive in the snow rip up the street in front of his house. He said the plan keeps him up, worrying all night.
Valorie Gail said that families are the demographic for transient rentals, not those who would party until the wee hours. She said most families don’t want to stay in a hotel and if they can’t find a suitable place to stay in June Lake, the family will go elsewhere.
Four rentals might sound like a small number, but if you let one or four in, four more will pop up, then more, Hoefer argued. He compared the nightly rentals to weeds.
Supervisor Tim Alpers, whose district includes June Lake, said he understands the strong community loyalty and that it is quick to defend the community it has built. And, once the zoning change is made, it would be hard to reverse. He said he couldn’t support the proposal without learning more about its impacts. He said the chapters added in 2012 have not yet passed “the stress test.”
Valorie Gail told The Sheet after the meeting that she and her husband’s proposal would make the perfect stress test.
The one Supervisor that was on the Board in 2012 when the chapters were amended, Larry Johnston, said this plan and the divisiveness it has created in the community is the stress test and the experiment is over.
Supervisor Fred Stump wanted more analysis and would not support the project. Supervisor Stacy Corless said the issue has grown beyond a zoning change and into discussions about road use, workforce housing and what the definition of a “neighborhood” is. She said she could not support the plan, either. Supervisor Tim Fesko said the issue is how will the rentals grow over time.
The Board ultimately voted down the Gails’ request for a zoning change. The Board offered no word on how it might address similar requests in the future. The Gails did not say if they would reapply.
