Tribeagainst Palm Springs short-term rentals ban

Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians informs City of Palm Springs they are against a ban on short-term vacation rentals

It’s a major topic for the city of Palm Springs and according to Mayor Robert Moon and the City Attorney David Ready, there are some big oversights and inconstancies with the ballot measure.

It was one of the most sparsely attended Palm Springs City Council meetings in recent memory. Many of the people who did show up are on both sides of the passionate issue, short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods.

{“url”:”https://twitter.com/JoeGalliNews/status/971567852741259267″,”author_name”:”Joe Galli”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/JoeGalliNews”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Where is everybody?! Very light attendance for &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PalmSprings?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#PalmSprings&#lt;/a&#gt; city council meeting. Maybe things will move quickly tonight. One can only hope. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/hduduQYHaD”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/hduduQYHaD&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Joe Galli (@JoeGalliNews) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/JoeGalliNews/status/971567852741259267?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;March 8, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}

“The city admitted in their impact report that there are half a million people are coming out of 28,000 homes in R1 neighborhoods who wants to live like that,” said Rob Grimm, campaign manager for “Neighbors for Neighborhoods”, an anti-vacation rentals group.

“It is not only the heart and soul of Palm Springs it is the brain of Palm Springs,” said Judith Aner, a Palm Springs resident.

Mayor Moon said he is concerned about a letter sent by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians where the tribe stated they are against any ban.

“We are partners in the city with the tribe and we should be addressing a very major issue with the tribe in advance and we did not this time,” Moon said.

According to the city, there are about 770 vacation rental permits on homes located on tribal land, that makes up one-third of all vacation rentals in the city.

If voters decide to get rid of all vacation rental permits in R1 neighborhoods, those that are on tribal land could still potentially operate.

“We would end up with no money to fund enforcement but yet we would still have 700 or 1000 or so vacation rentals on tribal land which we would not have the resources to enforce,” Moon said.

People on both sides of the issue see a major problem with that.

“The tribe kind of sets their own rules and when you buy on leased tribal land you have to go by their rules and that you know when you buy there. That’s why people buy there because they get better prices on their homes,” Grimm said.

“The tribe is very strong in Palm Springs. They have a casino here and they want the tourists to come to the casino,” Aner said.

Ready also said there were inconsistencies in the language of the ballot measure where in some parts. Home shares were allowed and in other parts where they would be banned.

Palm Springs voters will decide whether to implement a ban on the June 5th ballot.