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Home My WebLink About2026-06-17-Angel Law Supplemental Ltr to City Council 2601 Ocean Park Blvd. • Suite 205 • Santa Monica, CA 90405 (310) 314-6433 • www.angellaw.com • fangel@angellaw.com June 17, 2026 Honorable Mayor Tran and Members of the San Bernardino City Council 290 North D Street San Bernardino, CA 92401 Via email to mayor@sbcity.org, sanchez_th@sbcity.org, ibarra_sa@sbcity.org, figueroa_ju@sbcity.org, shorett_fr@sbcity.org, knaus_ki@sbcity.org, flores_ma@sbcity.org, and ortiz_tr@sbcity.org Re: June 17, 2026 Meeting -- Agenda Item 8, Adoption of Ordinance No. MC-1661 Banning Short-Term Rentals (All Wards) -- Supplemental Comments Dear Mayor Tran and Honorable City Councilmembers, On behalf of interested short-term rental (STR) stakeholders, we write to supplement our letter from May 8, 2026, in response to Ordinance No. MC-1661 (hereafter sometimes the STR Ordinance) scheduled for your consideration tonight, June 17. We respectfully request that the City Council reject the STR Ordinance as proposed. In addition to the crucial issues we highlighted previously regarding the practical and legal realities of a total STR ban -- especially when compared with the immense benefits of a reasonable STR regulatory program -- we wish to emphasize that the STR Ordinance contains fundamental defects that, among other significant legal risks, constitutes a violation of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Exempting Ordinance No. MC-1661 from Environmental Review Violates CEQA; The “Common Sense” CEQA Exemption Recommended by Staff is Legally Indefensible For the City Council to adopt the STR Ordinance while avoiding environmental review under CEQA will be a prejudicial abuse of discretion. The ordinance relies on section 15061, subdivision (b)(3) of the CEQA Guidelines for an exemption on the basis that the project will “not result in a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change to the environment.” This provision, known as the “common sense exemption,” exempts from CEQA review projects “where it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment[.]” (Id.)1 1 CEQA defines “significant effect on the environment” as “a substantial, or potentially substantial, adverse change in the environment.” (Pub. Resources Code, § 21068, italics added.) Honorable Mayor Tran And Members of the San Bernardino City Council June 17, 2026 Page 2 This is a high hurdle for a local agency to clear. (See Davidon Homes v. City of San Jose (1997) 54 Cal.App.4th 106, 117.) The City must, based on substantial evidence, establish not a probability, but a “certainty” that there is “no possibility the project may cause significant environmental impacts.” (Ibid.) On the other hand, the burden on a party objecting to the exemption is “slight,” requiring the objector to raise only legitimate questions or any dispute on the possibility of an impact: “If legitimate questions can be raised about whether the project might have a significant impact and there is any dispute about the possibility of such an impact, the agency cannot find with certainty that a project is exempt.” (Ibid.) The commonsense exemption is inappropriate here for two reasons: (1) the City has provided no evidence that it can be certain that there is no possibility the new STR restrictions may cause any significant environmental impact; and (2) the evidence in the record of the City Council’s proceeding, at a minimum, shows a legitimate possibility of significant impacts, due to the expected shutdown of at least 108 currently operating STRs in the City. First, Section 5 of Ordinance No. MC-1661 simply states that the Mayor and City Council “finds that there is no substantial evidence supporting a fair argument that approval of the ban . . . will result in a significant effect on the environment . . .” Neither of the staff reports prepared for the City Council meetings on April 15 and June 17, 2026, however, include further statements or discussion of any kind explaining this determination. This is anything but substantial evidence to support the common sense exemption. Rather, it is a bare legal conclusion; it only shows that the record of the City’s proceedings is devoid of evidence, proving to a degree of certainty, that there is no possibility that the loss of STR lodging capacity in the City will not have any significant effects on the environment. Second, a total city-wide STR ban, without exceptions, will eliminate a large number of overnight accommodations in the City. The April 15 staff report explained that Deckard Technologies has identified approximately 108 STR properties actively operating in San Bernardino, the loss of which would cause the City to lose out on as much as $324,000 annually in Transient Occupancy Taxes associated with a robust regulatory program.2 But would-be, displaced visitors to these properties do not simply disappear; they will book elsewhere. Some will drive from neighboring jurisdictions to reach the same San Bernardino destinations, increasing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and attendant greenhouse gas (GHG) and air quality impacts, with attendant increases in tailpipe air pollutant emissions including carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter. Others will be absorbed into the City's already-constrained hotel stock, concentrating demand at a handful of properties and increasing pressure for new hotel construction to fill the gap. Significant effects cognizable under CEQA include, but are not limited to, “Indirect or secondary effects which are caused by the project and are later in time or farther removed in distance, but are still reasonably foreseeable. Indirect or secondary effects may include growth-inducing 2 See April 15, 2026, Staff Report, at pp. 7–8, 15. Honorable Mayor Tran And Members of the San Bernardino City Council June 17, 2026 Page 3 effects and other effects related to induced changes in the pattern of land use, population density, or growth rate, and related effects on air and water and other natural systems, including ecosystems. (Ibid.)3 New hotel development carries precisely the kinds of significant physical environmental effects -- construction impacts, traffic, noise, land use change -- that CEQA is designed to evaluate in advance. This is only magnified by the well-documented higher per- capita energy consumption associated with hotels compared to STRs. Together, these are reasonably foreseeable significant effects that preclude the City from using the common sense exemption to shirk its environmental review and accountability duties under CEQA. (See CEQA Guidelines, §§ 15064(d), 15146(b) [indirect and secondary effects are cognizable under CEQA].) The City cannot project a massive reduction in overnight accommodation revenue -- the direct, necessary consequence of the significant changes in lodging patterns the Revised Draft Ordinances will cause -- and, at the same time, claim with legal certainty that there is "no possibility" the Revised Draft Ordinances may have any significant effect on the environment. The council may not take approval action while relying on an inapplicable and unsupported CEQA exemption. The exemption is legally indefensible and, if adopted, will present a textbook case of prejudicial abuse of discretion under CEQA. Conclusion Thank you for your consideration of the issues we have raised. We thus urge the City Council to decline to adopt this ordinance in its current form, and instead pursue a reasonable STR regulatory program, as recommended by the San Bernardino Planning Commission in December 2025, and as recommended by staff this past April. Sincerely, Frank P. Angel cc: Eric Levitt, City Manager, at levitt_er@sbcity.org 3 See CEQA Guidelines, § 15146, subd. (b); City of Redlands v. County of San Bernardino (2002) 96 Cal.App.4th 398, 409 (“Not only does CEQA apply to revisions or amendments to an agency’s general plan, but CEQA reaches beyond the mere changes in the language in the agency’s policy to the ultimate consequences of such changes to the physical environment.”); Davidon Homes, supra, 54 Cal.App.4th at p. 119 (“CEQA is not confined to the immediate effects of an agency's decisions but should be applied whenever physical changes to the environment are a reasonably foreseeable result of the activity. ([CEQA] Guidelines, § 15378, subd. (a); Bozung v. Local Agency Formation Com. [v. Local Agency Formation Com. (1975)] 13 Cal.3d [263,] 281-284; Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of University of California (1988) 47 Cal. 3d 376, 395.)”). Honorable Mayor Tran And Members of the San Bernardino City Council June 17, 2026 Page 4 Sonia Carvalho, City Attorney, at attorney@sbcity.org Gabriel Elliott, Director of Community Development & Housing, at elliott_ga@sbcity.org