Pacific Grove’s lottery on home rentals random, unfair to responsible landlords

Imagine if your ability to keep your home depended on the outcome of a random lottery. Unfortunately, this may become a reality for my husband, Bill, and me, because Pacific Grove decided that it could raffle off my property rights.

Home-sharing — a homeowners’ ability to offer their home to guests as a short-term vacation rental — is popular in Pacific Grove, a Monterey County community where tourists come from near and far to relax and enjoy our town. My husband and I have been conducting short-term rentals since 2013 at our home called Seadance. The home is a part of my family — my parents retired there years ago. When my mother had to move into an assisted living facility, we decided to get a short-term rental license and offer the home for rent to help offset the cost of my mother’s care. Bill and I worked hard and dipped into our family’s savings to turn the old home into a beautiful oceanfront property. I inherited Seadance after my mother passed away.

We believed that we would have no problem recouping the restoration costs through the vacation rentals and relied on the extra income to be able keep our home long into the future. But Pacific Grove is taking this future away from us.

It used to be that anyone in Pacific Grove could rent their homes as long as the owner got a city permit. In fact, the city told us those permits couldn’t be revoked so long as we followed the rules and our guests didn’t cause disturbances. But this year, the city put a new cap on the number of homes that could be offered as short-term rentals.

In May, Pacific Grove held a drawing to determine which homeowners would be able to continue renting out their homes. It was completely random — actually conducted on the kind of ping-pong ball machine usually reserved for bingo tournaments — meaning responsible homeowners could lose their permits while irresponsible ones who’d received many complaints might be allowed to keep theirs.

Bill and I were among the unlucky ones — this lottery determined that we would lose our short-term rental permit next year. We’ve never had a complaint related to our home’s rental, but it didn’t matter.

In fact, we didn’t just lose our permit: We may lose our livelihood as well. Without the income we get from short-term rentals, we may not be able to afford to keep the home that’s been in my family for decades, the one we carefully restored. A lawsuit filed against the city of Pacific Grove may restore our right to rent out our home, but we still worry about what the future holds for Seadance.

We know we’re not alone — there are others like us here in Pacific Grove, and in communities around the country where cities are passing laws to take away rights from people like me. But it’s different when it happens to you, when government passes a law that takes away your right, that impacts your family, that harms your community.

Seadance is where I grew up, and I love it dearly. Visitors who have rented it love it, too. Bill and I just want to keep sharing our home with guests who visit Pacific Grove. We shouldn’t have to wonder about our home’s future because the city decided it could give away our property rights. Sue Hobbs is a retired social worker and a longtime resident of Monterey County. She and her husband Bill own Seadance, an oceanfront home they offer as a short-term rental. With the help of the Goldwater Institute, they have filed a civil rights complaint against the city and City Council of Pacific Grove.