Redding, CA Short-Term Rentals: Primary-Residence-Only Rule (2026)

180(B) draws its central short-term rental distinction around owner occupancy. " That owner-occupied requirement is reinforced operationally in subsection E(4), which requires that "the owner shall be the applicant" for a hosted homestay permit. where, for compensation, overnight accommodations are provided for a period of less than thirty days and the owner may or may not reside within the dwelling unit for the term of the rental," meaning a vacation rental permit is available for a second home or a pure rental investment property with no residency requirement at all.

The tradeoff is regulatory: hosted homestays get the lighter administrative Letter of Determination process precisely because an owner lives on site and can supervise guests directly, while non-owner-occupied vacation rentals face the heavier discretionary Site Development Permit, a citywide cap of four hundred active permits under subsection F(2)(b), six-hundred-foot spacing from other vacation rentals under subsection F(2)(a)(2), and a mandatory twenty-four-hour local contact person under subsection F(2)(e) to stand in for the absent owner. An owner who wants to rent out an entire home without living there cannot use the hosted homestay track at all; the ordinance channels that use exclusively into the vacation rental permit and its stricter, capped process.