Ashley McDermott: "I don't want to sleep in my house if my husband's not there."

Living in a $7.5-million beach-front home can be downright "scary."

That is, if you live next door to a short-term rental.

"There's so many scary people hanging out in the streets," says Ashley McDermott who lives on the 2000 block of South Pacific Street in Oceanside. "I don't want to sleep in my own house if my husband is not home. That's because there are so many sketchy people sleeping all around me. We call the police but they don't come."

Jeff McDermott: "The city council ignored you."

McDermott's house, which has been in her family since 1957, was featured in the November issue of Architectural Digest. The article invites readers to "Tour a French Normandy-Style Compound on the California Coast." 

That article didn't mention the house next door at 2031 South Pacific Street which began hosting short-term renters four years ago. Income from those guests generate $300,000 annually for David Fischbach and his Oceanside-based Beachfront Only vacation rental business.

The McDermott French Normandy-Style house in November's Architectural Digest.

According to the city records, Fischbach and corporations connected with Fischbach operate 77 legal short-term rental homes in Oceanside. Fischbach owns some of those properties including 2031 South Pacific Street.

Fischbach says he will turn in plans soon to tear down the 90-year-old, three-bedroom house at 2031 South Pacific Street and replace it with a ten-bedroom house which will accommodate many more short-term renters.

Will this short-term rental at 2031 So Pacific be remodeled to provide beach access?

The city of Oceanside's occupancy maximum for short-term rentals allows for two people per bedroom plus an extra two. This means that this new home on South Pacific will increase its overnight short term rental occupancy from its current eight to 22.

Ashley's husband, Jeffrey McDermott, isn't having it. He just filed a 50-page lawsuit against Fischbach that claims that his South Oceanside neighborhood is zoned R-1 (residential only) and that Fischbach is actually a hotel operator who has a history of violating zoning laws in a deceptive fashion.

This stairway at South Oceanside's Cassidy Street leads to riprap, not beach.

City of Oceanside

"If it was a Marriott or Hilton coming to do this, the city would stop them in their tracks," says McDermott. "But because they are using the fiction of being an individual property owner, they are getting away with it. He is infesting our neighborhoods with short-term rentals."

On a recent Saturday afternoon McDermot invited some 30 neighbors to a neighbor's house where he unveiled his Neighborhoods are for Neighbors group to fight back against short term rental businesses operating in residential zones. "We're not against residential homeowners having their own STRs. We're against corporate-run STRs that are destroying neighborhoods. We're against STR slums."

This illustration provided by Jeff McDermott shows what he says are Oceanside short-term rental houses (in red).

McDermott had yard signs made, put up a website and hired lobbyists to help torpedo Fischbach. When asked why he is suing Fischbach instead of the City of Oceanside which is allowing Fischbach to run all these beach-front hotels, McDermott said he preferred not to comment on legal matters.

A new ten-bedroom house at 2031 South Pacific might outrage neighbors, so Fischbach is proposing something that he hopes will push it through. He says his plans call for the installation of a walkway which will provide public access to the beach. Currently there is no beach access in South Oceanside.

Fischbach says he expects the beach-front neighbors to recoil at the thought of the public descending on the beach in front of their house. But he reckons that the city at large and the state Coastal Commission will appreciate the beach access angle and help him get approved.

"Currently all beach accesses south of Buccaneer Beach are closed," says Shari Mackin, former deputy mayor and longtime beach access advocate. She notes that walkways at Cassidy Street and 1919 South Pacific are either closed or do not lead to the beach. "I wholeheartedly support the opening and dedication of land for public beach access."

McDermott says that a rumor that he filed the Fischbach lawsuit because of the public access issue is not true. McDermott says he has no problem with a public pathway to the beach next to his house.

The city of Oceanside has long been overly cozy with the short-term rental industry, says McDermott. He says its biggest champion was former councilman Jack Feller. From 2010 to 2020 Fischbach donated $25,000 to Feller's re-elections.

"[Feller] was the main guy who empowered Fischbach,  says McDermott. Feller's 20 years in office ended in 2020.

(The McDermotts and another family member have contributed $16,000 to councilman Ryan Keim's current campaign for mayor and the McDermotts contributed to a PAC called Friends of the Coast gave Keim an additional $5500.)

The Oceanside city council showed a sea change with short-term rentals in December when councilman Peter Weiss instructed city staff to come back with an ordinance which would prevent any new short-term rentals in residential zones. The council unanimously agreed.

As of December there were 719 legal short-term rentals in the coastal district and 1013 in the entire city.

Fischbach, a retired anesthesiologist who lives in Rancho Santa Fe, has been the target of neighbors peeved with high-density vacation rentals and sober living group homes he dropped in their neighborhood.

Five years ago twenty neighbors who lived in Oceanside's Fire Mountain neighborhood claimed Fischbach used deceptive means to open a sober living facility. "He lied through his teeth," claimed one neighbor. "They've taken a crown jewel of a home and made it into a fortress of people living up there."

KIm Dillon, owner of Oceanside Beach Rentals, has a different view of Fischbach. "Before David came we were all managing [short-term rental beachfront] homes] that were rundown. He came in with decorators and remodeled his homes. We had to up our game. Oceanside would not have enjoyed the turnaround it has experienced without David's decision to make Oceanside a top destination. These fine restaurants we have now depend on our [short term rental] customers."

Dillon says beach-front vacation renters have a real impact on Oceanside's bottom line. She says they typically pay between $250 and $350 per night during the off season, and $900 to $2000 a night during peak summer months.

She says the city council's recent change of heart on short-term rentals... is not out of the blue. It's in direct correlation to the McDermott's lawsuit.

The city of Oceanside may itself be reluctant to cut back on the short-term rental business. In the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the city took in about $16-million in Transit Occupancy Tax. Of that, about half was from hotel guests while the other half was from short-term rentals. The city's Visit Oceanside marketing efforts rely almost entirely on transit occupancy taxes to pay its bills.

McDermott claims that if short-term rentals were eliminated from residential districts, it would only amount to a six percent reduction in transit occupancy tax revenue. It would not impact, for instance, North Coast Village near the harbor which is almost entirely populated by short-term renters.

The Oceanside police directed questions about calls for service to short-term rentals to Oceanside code enforcement.

The short-term rental issue will come before the Oceanside planning commission again March 25 and before the city council, tentatively, April 24.