The City of Santa Monica is clearly spending time and resources to ensure that the 200 vacation rentals in the city are shut down permanently.

In the meantime, I have a friend who lives a few blocks away in a rent-controlled building. Three of the units are being illegally rented at non-rent control rates, and upgrades were performed to these units without permits. The building owner recently cut down a tree in the front yard (without a permit). The building is in such bad shape that my friend lost a signifant number of clothes last winter when copious quantities of water fell through the roof and her clothes mildewed (she was away at the time). So far, despite her frequent complaints, the city has done nothing but fine the owners, who claim to be too poor to fix the building.

Perhaps the city should work harder on fixing this problem, which cannot possibly be unique to my friend's building, and spend less time shutting down 200 vacation rentals (whose owners would happily pay tax and licensing fees).

I emailed Council Member Kevin McKeown yesterday to see if we could now discuss the law against vacation rentals. Here is part of his responsse:

"In any case, it turns out the policy against vacation rentals
pre-dates the City's 2004 restriction on short-term rentals, which are defined as 30+ days but intended for persons who have another permanent place of abode.  I had hoped to share the findings from that 2004 ordinance with you, as requested, once you were in compliance, but that now seems neither relevant nor timely.

Vacation rentals are flat out prohibited in Santa Monica's OP-2
zone (SMMC 9.04.08.50.020, which dates back to the 80s).
 
Mayor pro tem Davis and I are asking the Council tomorrow night
to authorize staff evaluation of our prohibition on vacation rentals, but we are doing so to see if the current ordinance and penalties are sufficient to be effective, not to reconsider allowing vacation rentals.

I didn't want to be so rude as to ignore this latest email, and
would have felt such silence was unfair given the item we have placed on tomorrow night's agenda, but it also makes me very uncomfortable to be put in the position of knowing that an illegal activity apparently continues.  As a Councilmember I must be very careful to stick to policy, not enforcement.

I am copying the City Attorney on this response so that my
caution and discomfort are a part of the record."

Some of what he says is in regards to the calendar on this website, a calendar which I have not been able to update since late-June or early-July when I took my listing down from various websites.

I cannot attend the meeting tonight, but am disappointed that I received no notice about it from either Mr. McKeown or Mayor Davis. I guess I'm going to have to call the city tomorrow, see what steps are being taken and, perhaps, see what the staff member is doing in terms of research. I'm still hoping for a peaceful conclusion to this, but I don't think it's going to be easy.

I just got a call from a reporter at Fox 11 news. They're interested in doing a story about the ordinance in Santa Monica that makes it illegal for me to have a vacation rental. They'd like to interview me on TV. I'll let everyone know when I'll be on air.