Introduction of Ordinance Amending the Alameda Municipal Code by Amending Various Provisions of Section 3-61 (Transient Occupancy Tax) of Division IX (Taxes) of Article II (Taxation) of Chapter II (Finance and Taxation), Clarifying and Restating Hosting Platforms’ Responsibility to Collect and Remit Transient Occupancy Taxes.  (City Attorney 2310)
Thank you. Okay. And who is presenting that? That's the city attorney, right? Mayor, I have a very short report for you this year. Favorite kind. Yes, Madam Mayor, members of the. Council this year. The this ordinance before you is a very limited surgical ordinance that essentially does one thing. It restates and reinforces existing law. It does not create new law. It makes clear that hosting platforms who host online transactions for short term rentals are required to remit transient occupancy taxes to the city just like any other operator of a hotel . We believe that existing law. Already achieves this. Purpose. And the finance director already receives total taxes for short term rental transactions. However, in the excess of caution and in conversations with short term rental. Operators. And in light of our review of recent judicial decisions on short term rental local regulations, we're bringing this to you to reinforce, clarify and restate existing law. Thank you. Any questions on the staff report? For those who aren't eating. Yeah. And do we have any speakers on this? But we do have seven speakers on the other item, just so that will take some time on another item. Yeah. No, that's fine. Oh, Councilor. Vice Mayor. If we have no speakers, I'll move. Well, actually, I had a few things, too. I had a couple of things I wanted to say. Thank you for the staff report. I am looking at the email I sent to the city manager or the, uh, city attorney earlier today. So I am happy to note in this staff report you mentioned that the, and the whole issue of short term rentals, as they're called, these Airbnb vacation bay rentals will in the near future. Planning the Planning Department Building and transportation staff anticipate working on a forthcoming ordinance to more comprehensively regulate units offered up as short term rentals or home sharing. And this is important to me because of all the work I do at the local, regional and state level on our housing crisis and homelessness. And one of the concerns, well, that I have and I, I articulated to the city attorney is, first of all, I don't think we really have a good idea as we sit here today, how many residents in Alameda are used as short term rentals? It isn't the same as you'd know when you've got a hotel or a motel that that particular address should be remitting. They're transient occupancy taxes. So, you know, that's that's something that will be addressed. And then the so but but now I mean they do exist. They're here. And so we want to make sure that the city is collecting the revenue that they're due. But when we were a number of us for at the League of Californians these annual conference in Long Beach and maybe in September, October this year, and I know the city attorney, city manager and I attended an excellent session on short term rentals. And so I do want this to come back to us and to to even look at things that other cities are looking at, like limiting the number of those. There's rentals in the city, but that's not. What we're. We're here to do today. And so. Uh, yeah, with that, I think. Does anyone else want to comment? Councilmember Jason Well, great. Yeah, I'm very elated to see this being adopted. Back in 2015, I had brought forward a council referral on getting the TOTY from these entities at the time. My interpretation, my reading of the ordinance was that if you read the ordinance, it seems to capture Airbnbs, which is odd because this I don't even think the ordinance was written at a time when that was even it just, just the plain, simple interpretation of it. So to memorialize this officially, I think it's a long time coming. But so I certainly appreciate this. And I will second this. Did we did we have a guest? Was that a motion you made? No, I think yes. Yes. Okay. All right. Well, they're. Quick as ever. Okay. So we have had let's see, we what this is is a motion to adopt the proposed amendments. And so we've had a motion we've had a second all in favor of discussion. We have a. This is just this is not the end of this. This is just the beginning. Right? There's more to come. That's okay. To be continued. All right. All in favor, I. Okay. That passes unanimously. Four to nothing. Um, we now move on to our next item, and we'll just, you know, do our best. And I think our council colleague. Will be back. Okay, this one is six. The introduction of ordinance authorizing the city manager or designee to execute an amendment to the lease with Pacific shops for the Tidelands property located along Clement Street between Alameda Marine Drive and Willow Street, generally known as Alameda Marina.