2 admit to unregistered home sharing as vacation rental debate continues in Palm Springs
Friday marked round 2 of Palm Springs leaders addressing illegal vacation rentals in the city.
“These appeals boards meetings are a great opportunity for anyone interested in the community to really see the process in action,” City Attorney Edward Kotkin said.
The meeting’s agenda originally included four appeal cases.
One case involving a home related to former State Assembly candidate Greg Rodriguez.
Another was related to Palm Springs realtor Andrew Linsky, who according to the organization Protect Our Neighborhoods, has been against the vacation rental industry.
“We believe from correspondence that he had had with Protect Our Neighborhoods that he was a supporter of ending short-term vacation rentals,” Mark Owens said. “So, to find him on the agenda (Friday) morning was quite shocking.”
However, both cases were removed after the meeting started after Kotkin said both men admitted to un-registered home sharing and withdrew their appeals.
“They admitted the truth of the citation that the city issued to them, and they also agreed to a corrective action plan that allows the city to keep a pretty tight reign on those two properties,” Kotkin said.
Kotkin also stated both Linsky and Rodriguez have been cited and fined, but are not subject to penalty under the current vacation rental ordinance.
He also said the definition of a vacation rental in the ordinance does not currently include home sharing.
“Just because those two actions were taken off the appeals board agenda, does not mean that we’re not regulating home shares,” Kotkin said. “We certainly are, and to the extent that the ordinance needs to be amended, we’re going to fix that.”
But city leaders said they intend on amending the city ordinance while making sure everyone remains on the same playing field.
“This really comes back to making sure that people are registered, making sure that they’re following the rules and that the city is enforcing those rules, whether they’re home sharing or vacation rentals,” Kelly McLean with the Vacation Rental Tourism Association said.
Rodriguez had no comment, while Linsky did not return our call for comment Friday.
Kotkin said city leaders plan to present amendments to the ordinance in September.
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