Breeze:
There is a fallacy to the economic benefits of vacation rentals. Allowing homes to be operated as vacation rentals is an economic loss to our community. They give rental owners tax deductions and income advantages that prospective permanent homeowners cannot compete, have contributed to housing price increases, and a decrease in homes available for purchase or rent.
Vacation rentals are taxed at as a source of income for cities that are in need of revenue. This has given incentive for local governments to attempt to legalize these business enterprises despite their illegally per existing zoning codes and laws.
The loss of residential zoned neighborhoods is at risk. The effect of vacation rentals cannot be measured in economic terms.
Reports and articles do not note the loss of traditional local business income. Vacation renters are seasonal. It is common sense that rentals decrease business income over a full time resident. Vacationers do not purchase automobiles; buy tires, gasoline, auto service, hair salons, barbers, or medical services, or insurance even for their rental home, plus a myriad of other services locally, including local charities. They do little more than service their owners and agencies. The vacancy period of a rental is a net loss to businesses that rely on repeat local customers.
There is a multiplier effect on every dollar spent in a community. Every dollar spent locally has a more than three and a half times fiscal impact. Ireland bases their low business taxes on this very principle, as did Canada in the 1980’s. A portion of every dollar spent keeps flowing to other local businesses at a diminishing rate to just over 3.5 times the original dollar spent. A full time resident has a greater positive economic impact over a vacationer due to their full time spending in their community. Where does the rental money go? It goes to the agency renting the property, the agency collecting the rent, and it goes to the owner, who for the most part lives in another community. If the money supply is reduced in a community so does the economy!
John and Carmel Whitman-Ventura
Editor:
If I took my car out tonight with no headlights, drove on the wrong side of the street, on the sidewalk, blowing through stop signs, I dare say that the local constabulary (that means “the fuzz”) would run me down and drag me off to the pokey for what would probably, and rightly, be a lengthy stay.
So why do you get to do it on a bicycle?
Yeah, yeah, I’m always picking on cyclists. I have nothing against them, I just don’t want to be responsible for killing any of them, and it would be helpful toward that end if they were to wear safety equipment, have lights fore and aft, ride on the right side of the street and follow the same rules of the road as we motorists do.
Alfred J. Lewis
Ventura
Alfred:
You will happy to know that on July 4th that the Ventura Police Department stepped up their Bike & Pedestrian Safety Enforcement Operations with focused enforcement on collision causing factors involving motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists.
The department has mapped out locations where pedestrian and bike collisions have occurred along with the violations that led to those crashes. Extra officers were on duty patrolling areas where bike and pedestrian traffic and crashes occur in an effort to lower deaths and injuries.
Officers were looking for violations made by drivers, bike riders and pedestrians alike that can lead to life changing injuries.
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
~ Voltaire (1764)
