A Santa Clara County town is on the way to joining Sausalito in prohibiting any kind of short-term rentals and making advertising any such property a punishable crime. At a Jan. 21 Saratoga City Council meeting, council members voted 4-1 to explicitly ban short-term rentals and promotion of the listings on any platform, with fines ranging from $1,500 for a first offense and up to $5,000 for a third violation.
Located at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the city of 30,000 appears to be closely following in Sausalito’s footsteps. In October of last year, the Marin County town passed an ordinance prohibiting any ads for short-term rentals, including Airbnb and Vrbo postings, with fines for each violation matching those proposed by Saratoga.
During the meeting, Saratoga’s community development director, Bryan Swanson, presented findings from the planning commission, noting that penalizing any promotion of the rentals would save staff time and make it easier to enforce the ordinance banning the illegal rentals. The city is looking to work with a third-party company that scours sites for listings to catch violators…