Two years ago, Paige Annon and her husband found their dream home.

After spending 25 years in the East County, where they owned a home and raised their children, the couple decided to move to Bayside Landing, a new residential development at the edge of Imperial Beach.

Their home is just south of a protected wildlife refuge, a 15-minute walk to the beach, and connected to the Bayshore Bikeway, a scenic path that takes cyclists to Coronado or Downtown San Diego. Oh, there is also a pool, hot tub and several outdoor grills in the development complex.

“We said, ‘OK we are not leaving this house until they take us to a nursing home,’” Annon said.


But last week, she and her husband began looking for a new home.

What ruined their coastal paradise? Short-term rentals.

Over the last two years, the number of short-term rentals in Bayside Landing has more than doubled. Of the development’s 187 units, more than 20 are currently full-time short-term rentals. In October, there were less than 10.

This proliferation of short-term rentals in what was pitched to home buyers as a residential neighborhood is diminishing the quality of life and destroying the sense of community, according to several residents interviewed by The San Diego Union-Tribune.


Fed up by the loud partying, discarded cigarette butts, glass bottles of beer left in the hot tub and broken grills that property owners are going to have to pay to replace, residents of Bayside Landing are asking Imperial Beach to do something.

“If this keeps up, we are not going to be able to live in this community,” Annon said. “That breaks my heart. I love it here, I love my neighbors, I love being right by the bike path.”

Imperial Beach only allows short-term rentals in properties located within mixed-use and commercial zones. Bayside Landing is in a mixed-use zone.

Therefore, property owners are allowed to turn their homes into short-term rentals at Bayside Landing, as long as they register with the city, pay taxes, and follow existing laws regarding occupation limits.


In response to complaints from residents during an April 17 City Council meeting, the city plans to increase enforcement and issue citations to property owners with code violations, according to City Manager Andy Hall.

“We have some tools in our toolbox and we are going to start implementing those and start using those on the short-term rentals,” he said. “In this instance, since people are there for a short period of time and then they are gone, I think they are going to be a lot more aggressive.”

While residents welcome immediate enforcement, they want the city to prevent more short-term rentals from coming to Bayside Landing.

Residents fear that unless the city stops the proliferation of short-term rentals, the community will go down the path of Mission Beach, where roughly 44 percent of the housing stock is short-term rentals.


Imperial Beach residents aren’t the only people in San Diego who don’t want to become the next Mission Beach. In Coronado, where the city prohibits renting for less than 26 days, residents sing a similar tune.

“That comment from IB is a very common in Coronado, too,” said City Manager Blair King. “No one wants to be Mission Beach. That seems to be the common refrain in Coronado.”

Cities around the state have struggled to regulate short-term rentals. Constituents ask them to balance maintaining the residential community with a property owner’s ability to earn extra income by renting their home.

Santa Monica requires short-term rentals to have a host present at all times.


Oceanside is currently proposing new limits on rentals that would establish inspections, occupancy limits, parking requirements, permit fees and increase code enforcement. San Diego tried to limit short-term rentals on second homes but rescinded that decision after public backlash and an opposition campaign funded by companies like Airbnb and Expedia.

Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina worries that the growth of short-term rentals puts more pressure on the housing shortage. Those 20 full-time rentals in Bayside Landing mean 20 units that could be bought or rented by people who actually want to live in the city are off the market.

Dedina called short-term rentals a threat that can exacerbate the existing housing crisis.

“The situation at Bayside Landing is just an example of what could go wrong and why short-term rentals are a threat,” he said.


The mayor said he wants to be “as aggressive as possible” in enforcing current regulations. He also expressed concern that what is happening at Bayside Landing could spread to other parts of Imperial Beach, particularly along Palm Avenue, which is also in a mixed-use zone.

On Wednesday, Dedina and the City Council will listen to Annon, Rogers and other Bayside Landing residents raise their concerns of short-term rentals in their community during the bi-monthly council meeting.

In addition to enforcing current regulations, the city could propose limiting short-term rentals in other ways. For example, they could limit them to only a certain percentage within a development, or adopt a tougher stance like Coronado did.

Bayside Landing is in a coastal zone, so rezoning it to a residential zone would be an uphill battle because the California Coastal Commission supports short-term rentals as a way to increase access to the coast, Hall said.


Whatever the answer ends up being, Bayside Landing residents are willing to fight.

“We don’t want to throw in the towel on this community,” said resident Kelli Kelly. “We want to fix the problem so we can enjoy it again.”

As the group strategizes about what to say to the City Council, they trade war stories of how vacationers have changed Bayside Landing.

Vacationers stand out, locals say, because they are easily impressed by the weather on gloomy days.


“It’s easy to spot a renter because most Californians aren’t jumping in the pool at 62 degrees outside,” Annon said. “We’re big babies. But I guess if you’re from Canada or Minnesota that’s warm weather.”

Locals have seen groups of men eat buckets of fried chicken while inside the hot tub and rinse their hands in the water, unsupervised children doing belly flops in the pool and spilling chlorine all over the landscaping, and families breaking the communal grills by not realizing they operate on a timer.

Kelly has had to pull small chicken bones out of her dogs’ mouths during her nightly walks.

She and her husband, who is in the Navy, moved to Bayside Landing so that her husband could be close to a new Naval Base currently under construction along the Silver Strand. They are one of many military families who moved to the area because of its proximity to the base.


Bayside Landing wasn’t built to withstand so much use. As a result, the homeowners association has had to pay the pool maintenance to clean the area three times a week instead of twice. The HOA has also pulled money out of its reserves to replace the broken grills.

With summer around the corner and more short-term rentals coming online, locals are anxious.

“This is the first home we bought, we were super excited about it,” said Stefanie Sansoterra. “I’m starting to have regrets about living here.”

