The most significant change to the rental landscape is occurring in South Lake Tahoe, where approximately 1,400 short-term rentals will be whittled down to 400, concentrated in the city’s downtown tourism area. Other popular locations, including Truckee and parts of the lake’s west shore, have recently taken steps to regulate vacation rentals and rein in issues associated with them, such as noise, litter and parking problems.

It’s part of a region-wide reckoning for an industry that, fueled by the proliferation of rentals on Airbnb and Vrbo, many locals say has transformed their quiet communities into year-round party zones for out-of-towners.

“Every other house is an Airbnb now,” says Jan Jones, a 30-year resident of Tahoe City. “It’s out of control.”

The effort to regulate short-term rentals, which are defined as units rented for 30 or fewer days at a time, isn’t new; for the past three years, Tahoe communities on the California side of the lake have been instituting rules to assuage the mounting tensions between locals and tourists and lay the groundwork for future regulations.

South Lake Tahoe, home to about 22,000 residents, has taken the most aggressive approach, one that started in 2018 after voters approved Measure T. The law froze new permits and permit renewals for hosting short-term rentals in residential areas.

But when the coronavirus pandemic hit, remote-working urbanites decamped to the mountains, blowing up Tahoe’s housing market and underscoring the urgency of the situation. Officials in Placer County and Truckee rolled out new procedures for rentals as the region swelled with tourists over the summer.

In eastern Placer, which covers a 50-mile expanse of unincorporated territory on the western side of Tahoe, the county launched its first short-term rental permit program in January 2020. The county created a database of the area’s 3,500 rental properties with details on how many occupants and vehicles are allowed at each one — useful information for enforcement officers responding to neighborhood complaints.

Code officers in Placer have had difficulty reaching out-of-town homeowners when complaints and violations occur. The new program requires that each property lists a contact who lives nearby and is available at any time to respond to issues within 60 minutes. It could be a professional property manager or a trustworthy neighbor.

“We allow reports of violations to be addressed by these local contacts,” said Jayme Paine, Placer County supervising code compliance officer. “After an hour, if they don’t, that’s when our enforcement team steps in.”

Paine said her team has grown in response to the needs of the program. There soon will be two full-time compliance officers, supported by local police officers on neighborhood patrols, plus two administrators responsible for managing the program.

“The way the program is set up, we have a high level of compliance among homeowners,” Paine said. “With the local contacts, we have been able to cut down the number of citations we’ve had to issue.”

After a summer boom, Truckee approved a new ordinance modeled on Placer County’s program.

“Before the pandemic, we had a very laissez-faire approach to short-term rentals,” said Nicole Casey, Truckee’s finance manager. Property owners have until March 31 to apply for a permit to operate for the remainder of 2021. Casey called it a first step toward regulating vacation rentals, with more developments to follow next year.

“A lot of our full-time residents were feeling the strain of having those extra people here,” Casey said. The people aren’t the problem, but street congestion and a constant party atmosphere wears on full-time residents. Noise, litter and illegal parking are the most common complaints Tahoe officials receive.

There’s an obvious downside to some of the regulations: Local governments depend on rentals as a key source of tax dollars to help fund public services ranging from infrastructure maintenance to law enforcement. Tahoe officials have the tough task of balancing demands from millions of tourists with the needs of tens of thousands of year-round residents.

As South Lake Tahoe phases out 1,000 short-term rentals this year, its transient occupancy tax revenue will surely take a significant hit.

“People will stay somewhere besides the city,” said Maureen Stuhlman, South Lake Tahoe’s code enforcement investigator. “It’s a great revenue loss.”

In a statement, Airbnb regional policy lead Matt Middlebrook pointed out that vacation rentals have long been a fixture of Tahoe and its tourism economy.

“As community leaders begin to deliberate short-term rental rules, we are committed to working with them to achieve common sense policies that protect the benefits of home sharing and preserve quality of life for local residents,” he wrote in an email to The Chronicle.

A new South Lake Tahoe ordinance, enacted in December, will allow up to 200 permits for residents to rent out individual rooms in their homes (rather than entire properties) once statewide pandemic restrictions ease up. Up to six guests will be allowed at once, and owners must be onsite and available to handle any issues that arise.

And though there will be more enforcement on noise complaints in Placer, the main goal is not limiting tourist activities but heading off issues before neighbors become enraged. Paine said the county isn’t mounting a zero-tolerance approach.

“If it’s a family on a deck with noise traveling to neighbors’ homes, and it’s a first complaint, that’s probably a warning,” she said. “If it’s a big party on Friday or Saturday night and it’s still going on after we leave, they’ll get a citation.”

Despite the stringent new rules in South Lake Tahoe, Stulhman expects that not everyone will comply, at least in these early days.

“There will still be people renting underground,” she said.

Gregory Thomas is The San Francisco Chronicle’s editor of lifestyle & outdoors. Email: gthomas@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @GregRThomas