Response to Comments - Agenda Item No. 35

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ÐP more electricity and natural gas per person than STRs, as shown in Table 2 and in the CalEEMod output 9 in Appendix B. Table 2. Operational Energy Use per Person Electricity Natural Gas Land Use kWh/yr/person kBTU/yr/person Hotel 6,773 13,974 Short Term Rentals 1,231 6,846 As a result of the increase in energy consumption when staying in a hotel instead of an STR, GHG emissions from energy consumption per person would increase by 179 percent. 6 An STR Ban Will Increase Fossil Fuel Usage In addition, increased VMT would require greater reliance on fossil fuels to power vehicle trips. Even with CaliforniaÓs policies to shift the vehicle fleet towards cleaner cars and trucks, vehicle usage will continue to rely on gasoline for car and truck trips for years to come. The STR ban therefore results in greater reliance on fossil fuels, inconsistent with regional and state climate policy. The estimated fuel use is summarized in Table 3 and utilizes the same assumptions from Table 1. Additional calculation 10 details can be found in Appendix A. Table 3. Daily Mobile Fuel Consumption Gasoline Diesel Land Use Gallons per day Gallons per day Hotels 6,916 197 Short Term Rentals 1,272 36 Percent Increase with Hotel Use 444% 447% 7 An STR Ban Could Concentrate Traffic Resulting in Potential Noise and Health Impacts The potential ban of short-term rentals in Santa Ana could result in concentrated traffic on roadways going to hotels in the area, which could have noise and health impacts to the surrounding land uses. As described above, removing short term rentals as a means for lodging in Santa Ana would result in visitors needing to rely on hotels for their stay. Currently, there are over 20 hotels in the city limits of Santa Ana and over half of them are located in one concentrated area in the southeastern part of the City along Highway 55. It can be assumed that if more people will need stay in hotels instead of STRs, then the traffic to this part of town would increase significantly as it is likely all of this traffic would be concentrated to the roadways surrounding the hotel zone area. In comparison, traffic caused from 9 The CalEEMod analysis is based on 134 dwelling units, which is the amount of STRs that would accommodate the same number of people as a 250 room hotel. However, the energy use per person and percent increase in GHG emission is independent of the absolute number of short-term rentals in Santa Ana. 10 The fuel usage is based on 1,000 STRs in Santa Ana. However, the percent increase is independent of the number of short-term rentals in Santa Ana. 8/14