In wake of Orinda shooting, city council to discuss short-term rentals this week

ORINDA, Calif. - In the wake of the death of five people at a party in a short-term-rental house in their city this past Thursday night, Orinda City Council members on Tuesday will talk about possible changes to the city's short-term rental rules.

Orinda's rules for operating short-term rental properties are fairly typical. Since October 2017, the City of Orinda has required owners of short-term rental properties to register with the city. Those owners are required to pay 8.5 percent of that rental income to the city, via quarterly payments.

The maximum occupancy of any space used for short-term rental is two people per bedroom plus three other people.

Some cities and towns, including Danville, ban short-term rentals entirely. Others, such as Sunnyvale, allow such rentals only if the property owners remain on-site.

On Saturday, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said his firm is enacting new measures to ban "party houses" from that platform, including expanding manual screening of high-risk reservations flagged by its risk-detection technology; creating a dedicated "party house" rapid response team, and taking immediate action against users who violate Airbnb polices against having too many people in a given rental property.

These moves come in direct response to Thursday night's shootings that killed five guests at "secret mansion party" that attracted more than 100 guests.

Tuesday's meeting begins at 7 p.m. inside the Orinda Library auditorium, 26 Orinda Way.