Annual City Permit Holders Meeting Detailed Changes in Fees, Registration, and Code Enforcement

To a nearly packed house at the Newport Beach Civic Center yesterday afternoon, officials from the Newport Beach Revenue and Code Enforcement Departments laid out changes and updates to the Newport Beach Short Term Lodging program for the new year. As usual, permit renewal forms were handed out to those who RSVP’d, and if you didn’t make it, you can contact the Revenue Division to get your permit renewal forms now.

NBSTRA representatives were there at the meeting, and here’s our report on the top items discussed:

1. Fees are going up again, from $214 in 2025 to $336 for 2026. This is the second step of a two-part increase previously approved.

2. There are changes to both the permit application/renewal form and the TOT tax forms for 2026. Please review them carefully. Many of the changes center around the City’s ongoing push to match owners/permit holders and their declared agents so that the City can better determine cases in which the agent can file forms on behalf of their owners, and when the owner must file for themselves.

3. The TOT forms include spaces for TOT paid and nights rented per unit, rather than gross amounts, for those who hold more than one permit, including duplexes and the like.

4. The City also highlighted some code changes, including the expansion of both the size of the Safety Enhancement Zone and the expansion of the Zone from just the Fourth of July to include the whole weekend of the Fourth when it falls on or adjacent to a weekend, and the weekends of Memorial Day and Labor Day as well. Enforcement will be more aggressive when the Safety Enhancement Zone is in effect.

5. The City announced a change in policy for reinstatements of inactive permits. Currently, after two years of showing no rental activity and no TOT collected/paid, a short-term lodging permit suspended but can be easily and automatically reinstated multiple times. Under the new policy, a permit is only able to be reinstated once. After that, if the permit is suspended for no activity, it cannot be reinstated again.

6. The City also detailed the changes we have previously reported on for the 75 permits created in specified Mixed Use Zones in the City. To access these permits, an owner must have at least 20 units in the designated areas. This change will take effect in October after the California Coastal Commission gives final approval of the City Council adopted the code changes to comply with previous Coastal Commission requested amendments.

7. The City’s lead for Code Enforcement on the STLP spoke about the priorities they look for, including:

   1. Underage rentals (Under 25, including rentals where a parent/relative over 25 rented a house for underage guests and then don’t occupy the house with the underage guests.)

   2. Noise violations.

   3. Exceeding Occupancy.

8. As noted above, the City is really pushing for Owners who have designated agents to update/confirm their agent declaration forms, as they will stop accepting ANY filings from agents on behalf of permit owners whose agent declaration forms are not up to date. If the City cannot match an agent to an owner/permit, they will reject any filings. The city is also encouraging owners to update their 24/7 Contact Forms and Nuisance Response Plans.

9. The City also emphasized that the required postings in the units regarding Trash Disposal, Noise, Parking, and other Good Neighbor policies should be displayed in a prominent place in the unit.

10. Code enforcement also asked owners to schedule their off-season inspections, where code enforcement will be checking:

a.       Smoke detectors and Carbon Monoxide detectors

b.       Waste compliance in the 3 bins (Trash/Recycle/Organic)

c.       Square footage (approximate)

d.       Parking Availability (Actual vs advertised)

e.       Visual Address Posted (for emergency response)

f.        Peeling paint and overgrown vegetation

g.       Functional heating (A/C not required)

Owners are asked to email CodeEnforcement@NewportBeachCA.gov to schedule their inspections and offer several days in which the unit is available for inspection.

Code enforcement also noted that citations will not be issued out of these inspections, but “fix-it” tickets may be issued which will be removed once evidence of correction is sent to the City.

As always, renewal forms are due at City Hall by October 31, 2025, and this is a hard deadline at City Hall. Postmarks are not accepted. The City says they are working on a system for online submission of permits renewals and TOT payment but it is not available for this filing cycle.

In the Question & Answer session, staff noted that they have a new vendor for the complaint hotline monitoring and online complaint notices, and believe the new system is working well. They reminded owners that permits are transferable on sale of property, but the timing in which the transfer must be filed by both the seller and buyer is limited. They said enforcement is up for DACs and LUGOs due to rising complaints, but that permits are only at risk for repeat violators.

Overall, the meeting was informative and generally positive in tone but also highlighted the need for an active Alliance of permit-holders and managers to look out for our interests.

The materials from the meeting will be posted online from the City soon, and we will post those on the NBSTRA website when they are available.