A cozy Belmont Heights beach house. A shared penthouse loft. A hummingbird hideaway in California Heights.

Airbnb listings in Long Beach offer just about anything a visitor would want — often for a fraction of the price of a hotel.

The city has long known about the myriad options, having estimated in 2017 that there were more than 1,100 short-term rental listings in the city, about 980 of which were on Airbnb. And yet Long Beach still doesn’t regulate them.

But that could soon change. The City Council will vote on a proposed ordinance to govern short-term rentals at the panel’s Tuesday, Jan. 21, meeting.

The ordinance will go before the council more than a year after the panel asked the City Attorney’s Office to draft it and more than two years after the idea was first introduced.

In that time, Long Beach residents have expressed an array of concerns with the suggested regulations.

For property owners who offer short-term rentals, the service has proven a convenient way to make some extra cash. Many have said they should be entitled to use their homes as they see fit.

“The things I’ve been able to do with that money,” Airbnb host Mikki Popovich said while attending a city workshop series on the topic in 2018, “has been incredible.”

Some of their neighbors, on the other hand, have complained about issues with noise and parking in residential areas that have seen an influx of temporary guests.

“It’s been hellacious,” Jason Kantor said when officials considered the idea in 2017. “The entire summer was basically coming home after work and having a revolving fraternity house living next to me.”

Still others in Long Beach see another issue with the proposal: Every house or apartment that’s listed on Airbnb is a place where a local resident could live.

“The pressure that’s placed on Long Beach’s already tight housing market by short-term rentals has begun to pose a challenge to our residents,” Councilwoman Jeannine Pearce said when she introduced the idea of a new policy. “If we don’t begin to look for a middle ground, even more families will be priced out of our city.”

Since then, officials have worked to try to balance every concern.

The ordinance that will go to the City Council on Tuesday includes caveats intended to appease each group: owners can host two short-term rentals in the city, or three if the host lives in one of them; quiet hours are required from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., including in outdoor pools and hot tubs; and a maximum of 1% of Long Beach’s housing stock can be used for short-term rentals where a host doesn’t live, among other regulations.

But it already appears as if those compromises aren’t enough for some folks in the community.

The Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs & A Healthy Community, for example, called for adjustments on Friday, Jan. 17, including a hard cap of 500 short-term rentals on properties where the host doesn’t live.

Tuesday’s vote, a first reading, would represent the first of two approvals needed by the council for the ordinance to become law. If council members make significant changes, the proposal would have to come back for another first reading at a later date.

When the panel last discussed the issue, Councilman Rex Richardson sounded a note of optimism despite the many discordant voices who spoke.

“I know there will be changes,” he said, “but it seems like things are headed in the right direction.”

If You Go

What: City Council meeting

When: 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 21

Where: Civic Chambers, 411 W. Ocean Blvd.

Information: longbeach.gov