Correspondence - Item 21 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

require banning rentals of all lengths. Id. at 733. The court refused to accept such an absurd result. Keen v. City of Manhattan Beach, 77 Cal. App. 5th 142 (2022), is even more on point. In 2015, Manhattan Beach passed an ordinance banning short-term rentals. In 2019, it adopted an enforcement mechanism for those ordinances. That led the city to cite a property owner (Keen) for violating the short-term rental ban. Keen sued because the City had not gotten the California Coastal Commission to sign off on the ban, rendering it invalid. The trial court agreed and enjoined enforcement of the short-term rental ban. On appeal, the City argued that the short-term rental ban was irrelevant because short-term rentals were not expressly authorized by the city's zoning code, so, under permissive zoning principles, they had always been banned as a matter of law. The Court of Appeal rejected Manhattan Beach's arguments. It noted that "it is legal to build a residential house or an apartment building in the City's zoning code. Once it is built, you can reside there. Anyone can. This all makes sense. It would be surprising if it were otherwise." Id. at 149. The court asked: "Why ... are renters allowed in? Because residential renters are common in cities, as everyone knows, and nothing in the ordinance takes the unusual step of banning all renting in the residential areas of the City." Id. "The City's zoning thus permits you to rent a house or an apartment in Manhattan Beach, which accords with common experience. The City's zoning does not regulate how long your stay can be." Id. at 150. Keen ridiculed Manhattan Beach's "proposed distinction between long- and short-term rentals —the former always allowed, and the latter always forbidden" as having "no textual or logical basis." Id. And it dispatched the city's "permissive zoning" argument in one paragraph. Id. The same reasoning applies here. Indeed, Santa Ana's code is materially identical to Manhattan Beach's code. It allows people to rent homes. It does not regulate the length of occupancy. And renting a property for a short period of time does not alter its use. See Coastal Protection Alliance Inc. v. Airbnb, Inc., 95 Cal. App. 5th 207, 270 ("Applying the reasoning in Keen, where residential zoning code is silent regarding STRs, using a residence as an STR is a residential use, not a change in use, and thus not a development."). Moreover, Keen recognized an inherent flaw in Manhattan Beach's argument: if short- term rentals had always been banned, why did the city need to adopt an ordinance in 2015 banning them? The same flaw exists here, as the City imposed a 45-day moratorium on short- term rentals in September 2015. Exhibit B. The City Council voted against extending the moratorium and tabled the matter indefinitely, with several council members expressing support for short-term rentals. Exhibit C (pages 21-22). I have attached the opinions in Keen and Venice Suites to this letter as Exhibits D and E. They are dispositive. They preclude the City from taking further action against Ms. Tran related to the Property. 2