The Brief

Airbnb, Vrbo, and other short-term rental hosts will need to follow new regulations by this fall for properties in the unincorporated areas of the county, which spans more than 2,650 square miles and is home to about a million people.

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the set of rules Tuesday, and they’ll go into effect 180 days from now, in mid-September.

The regulations aim to strike a balance between the amount of long-term housing and the quality of life in those neighborhoods, with the financial benefits to short-term rental hosts, according to a treasurer and tax collector letter to the board.

What hosts need to know 

Hosts will be required to register with the county and pay an annual fee of $914.

A subsidy may be available during the first year for lower income homeowners looking to earn extra income with rentals. County officials said they planned to further discuss options for those homeowners.

Other rules include:

• ADUs, guesthouses, vacation homes, recreation rooms, or boats cannot be listed as short-term rentals. Hosts will be limited to renting out their primary residence only.
• Hosts cannot run more than one short-term rental in these areas at a time, and they cannot accept more than one booking per night. 
• All short-term rentals must be 30 consecutive days or less, with minimum booking requirements depending on if the host is staying on the property while guests are there.
• A maximum of 12 people are allowed per reservation, and the rentals cannot be used to host parties, commercial events, corporate banquets, or anything with an admission fee.

How will it be enforced?

If a short-term rental property is out of compliance, the host could get their registration revoked by the county, and they’d be required to cancel any future bookings and take down their listings.

For each violation, hosts may also face a $2,000 fine per day, or two times the average nightly rate charged, whichever is higher.

They can also file an appeal for fines, fees, or a notice of noncompliance with the county.

If Airbnb, Vrbo, or other hosting platforms don’t verify the short-term rental registration number issued by the county for each property, or if they don’t have it listed on all of those advertisements, the companies could be fined $1,000 per day, per violation.

What opponents say

Opponents argue the regulations are unnecessary and are unfair to hosts and landlords.

Michele Zack, who identified herself as a 10-year Airbnb host in Altadena, said during public comment that hosting provides income for her and her husband, who are both retired.

“We provide an important service to Altadena, which doesn’t have a single hotel room,” she said. “We are not converting apartment buildings to Airbnbs. We are not absentee landlords for party houses.”

Jeremiah Small called the rules a de facto ban on short-term rentals in a written public comment.

“This ordinance is a draconian restriction on small businesses in unincorporated L.A. County,” Small wrote in a public comment. “It is bad for residents and bad for local businesses.”

What supporters say

Proponents say the county needs to do all it can to protect long-term housing for residents, and short-term rentals make neighborhoods less affordable for everyone.

Andrew Davidov, who lives in District 1, said in a written public comment that un-hosted short-term rentals, which is when a host is not staying at the property with guests, takes up valuable housing that would otherwise be available to people looking to live in the area.

“The [regulations] will help safeguard housing for our families and friends who want to remain in the L.A. communities they love,” Davidov wrote in a public comment.

May gray has come and gone, and now it's time for June gloom.

Overcast skies will be present this morning, especially along the beaches and valleys closest to the coast. Otherwise, we're in for a partly cloudy afternoon.

Today's temperatures at L.A. County beaches will stay around 66 to 71 degrees, and reach 76 to 80 degrees for places more inland.

In Orange County, expect similar temperatures with highs from 67 to 74 degrees for Huntington Beach and surrounding areas. More inland areas like Anaheim and Garden Grove will see temperatures of up to 79 degrees.

Moving on to L.A. County valleys, expect high temperatures in the low to mid 80s.

In the Inland Empire, temperatures will range 80 to 89 degrees.

Election Day is here, but now comes the waiting.

Do you have something to watch on Netflix? Maybe you've been meaning to pick up a hobby — how about crochet? Whatever you do, take a deep breath and keep busy because it could be days (or weeks) before we get some California election results.

The state is often knocked by the rest of the country as being "slow" to count votes. But here's the deal: that's a feature, not a bug, of the election system.

The backstory

Things take a while here largely because California works so hard to expand the ways people can vote. For example:

• Californians in recent years overwhelmingly vote by mail — nearly 90% of votes cast in the 2024 presidential election were mail-in ballots. In that same year's primary the percentage was just as high. Those ballots can be postmarked up to and including Election Day. They're counted as long as the ballot arrives within seven days (for the June primary, that's June 9).
• California offers same-day voter registration at any voting center. These new voters must cast a provisional ballot, which is counted once election officials confirm their eligibility (they are overwhelmingly accepted — for example, Los Angeles County reports that historically between 85% to 90% have been counted.
• Voters also have the right to cast provisional ballots if there's any problem on election day — like if poll workers aren't able to void an outstanding mail-in ballot, or if there’s any issue calling up voter information from e-pollbooks. Again (see above), provisionals take longer to process because eligibility has to be confirmed.
• Vote-by-mail ballots require signature matching. When the one received doesn't match the one on file, county registrars must contact that voter to let them know — and give them the chance to correct it.
• And, with more than 23 million registered voters, we're really, really big. In the 2024 general election more than 16 million Californians voted (down from nearly 18 million in the 2020 presidential election). Either way, that’s more people than the total populations of all but three other states.

Why things have sped up, some

But things have sped up considerably in the 30 counties that have adopted a 2016 law called the Voter's Choice Act, including L.A., Orange and Riverside counties. In recent elections, the changes associated with that law — like voters not being locked into a designated polling location — drastically cut down the number of provisional ballots cast, which helped move things along faster than they had before.

A closer look at ballot counting times in California where an increasing number of vote-by-mail ballots has slowed ballot counts.

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Courtesy California Voter Foundation

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Still, accuracy and a commitment to "expanding the franchise" — translation: allowing more people to vote — means the process is not designed to produce instantaneous results.

Why you should take a deep breath Election Night

You'll have to get that endorphin hit elsewhere on June 2.

A few things to keep in mind: You may recall that during the 2024 primary, it took about a week to call the results for L.A. City Council races in District 4, where incumbent Nithya Raman was fighting to avoid a runoff election, and District 14, where challenger Ysabel Jurado wound up overtaking incumbent Kevin de León by just a few hundred votes.

It took an even longer 15 days to call the results of Prop. 1, during which opponents conceded, walked back that concession, and conceded again when the measure won by a razor-thin 0.4% margin. And it took 23 days to call the second-place winner for Orange County's 45th congressional district — it ultimately went to Democrat Derek Tran who went on to beat Republican Michelle Steel in the general election. Tran is now up for reelection and rematch with Steel is considered likely in November.

Depending on how close some of these races end up being, we may face similar waits this election cycle.

TL;DR: Officially, county and state election officials have until July 10 to certify election results — including a mandatory audit that requires hand-counting all of the ballots at 1% of precincts. Nevertheless, you're going to see a lot of national media headlines about California's relative "slowness." Brush it off. We have sunshine, beaches, and a highly enfranchised population.