November 14, 2019
By Christina Sandefur
Last year, officials in
Pacific Grove, California, a small coastal city in Monterey County, decided to raffle
off residents’ property rights—literally.
Although Pacific Grove is a tourist community where people have for decades
rented out their homes to overnight guests seeking a relaxing getaway, city
leaders chose to revoke the rights of some homeowners—not on the basis of whether
their guests caused disturbances, or how much time and money owners invested to
fix up their houses. Instead, they operated a lottery which randomly selected
some property owners to have their rental permits revoked.
The Goldwater Institute
sued, arguing among other things that
this arbitrary action violated
the Coastal Act, which requires approval from the California Coastal Commission
whenever a city seeks to regulate
development in the state’s coastal zone in ways that affect public access. Although Pacific
Grove has been restricting home-sharing in the Coastal Zone for years, it had
never bothered to comply with this legal requirement.
And we won. In June, the trial
court ruled that Pacific Grove’s actions were illegal; its anti-home-sharing
regulations—including its property-rights lottery—had not received the required
Coastal Commission approval.
But rather than respect the rights of Pacific Grove
homeowners, the city has decided to go ahead and submit its anti-home-sharing rules
for Coastal Commission review at a meeting tomorrow. We sent a letter
urging the Commission to reject the city’s arbitrary lottery scheme, noting
that the Commission itself has repeatedly said that home-sharing “play[s] a
critical role in providing lower-cost accommodations” and is a reasonable,
environmentally friendly means for visitors to access California’s coastline. The
Commission has even opposed bans and excessive regulations on home-sharing, on
the grounds that cities should only adopt “reasonable and balanced regulations that can be tailored to address the specific issues” of a
community. And those home-sharing regulations that the Commission has approved
in the past have been targeted at actual disturbances—addressing specific nuisance
concerns, parking requirements, occupancy limitations, and so forth—as opposed
to imposing
one-size-fits-all bans that are
more aimed at appeasing NIMBYs than at mitigating genuine problems.
It’s unfortunate that
instead of respecting the rights of its citizens, Pacific Grove has chosen to
push forward with its unjust and counterproductive restrictions, including its
arbitrary lottery scheme. Home-sharing is a benefit to local communities—especially
to local businesses that are patronized by visitors, and to local residents who
are able to afford their bills and housing payments thanks to home-sharing—but
also to the environment and to the countless visitors who would otherwise have
less opportunity to visit the California coast. But rather than focus on
addressing specific concerns, the city is seeking to unjustly eliminate the
rights of people who have committed no wrongs and harmed nobody.
Still, however the
Commission decides, the court’s ruling sends an important message to California’s
coastal cities: Commission approval is required before coastal zone cities
deprive homeowners of the right to allow visitors in their homes. That’s
significant because cities have immense authority over property owners, and that
concentrated, local power is too often wielded to the detriment of local
residents. Requiring cities to seek Commission approval serves as a valuable
check to safeguard their rights.
Christina
Sandefur is the Executive Vice President at the Goldwater Institute.
