For years the owners of a Bed and Breakfast in Big Bear have done everything in their power to stop the city of Big Bear Lake from allowing Private Home Rentals.  This group of people have taken the city of Big Bear Lake to both state and federal court arguing that renting out a private home is a business and the homes aren't zoned for this type of activity.  Needless to say, both the state and federal court dismissed the law suites.

The city of Big Bear Lake already has an ordinance in place to govern the private home rental industry.  The existing ordinance was well written and covers all issues come up when you rent out your home in a resort community.  Issues like too many cars parked at the rental are covered, too many people in the rental and most of all, noise and trash issues.  The rental industry has done a good job of policing their industry and it has worked out well in the past.

If anyone thought that this would be the end of problems from this group of Bed & Breakfast owners, then they were living in a bubble.  As they lost on the zoning issue, they chose to write a new ordinance that, id adopted would make it virtually impossible for a private home owner to comply with all of the new regulations.  Just to give you some idea as to what these people wanted, here are just a couple examples.  They proposed in the new ordinance that one in every forty homes comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  This would mean that all doors are wide enough for a wheel chair.  Ramps would be required for access to the homes, bathrooms would be required to have grab handles in the bathtub and near the toilet.  The ordnance would require each home owner to get a conditional use permit.  This ordinance was set to go to a vote this coming November.  If it passed the city would have lost over $1,000,000.00 a year in the bed tax as well.

Needless to say, the Real Estate industry are against this type of ordinance as was the city of Big Bear Lake.  A group of people got together to fight this ordinance and were successful in getting it before a judge.  Below is what was reported on the KBHRNewsWebsite this past friday.

This morning, the issue of the proposed transient private home rental initiative (to add additional restrictions and ADA requirements for PHRs within Big Bear Lake) for the November election, as filed by private lodge owner James McLean and subsequently challenged by Citizens Protecting the Rights of Property Owners (or CPRPro), had its day in court, at the County's Needles courthouse. CPRPro had taken the proposed ballot initiative to court, challenging that, as accepted by the City Clerk, it did not comply with California Election Code 9203 (b), as the petitions circulated and signed did not include the title and initiative summary on each page as required. The CPRPro challenge was heard by the Honorable Judge Brisco, and those in court this morning included Nick Lanza (owner of Big Bear Vacation Rentals and Board member of local coalition CPRPro), CPRPro's consultant Michael Perry and attorney David Blackwell, and, via teleconference, McLean's attorney T. Matthew Phillips, and (on behalf of the City of Big Bear Lake, which was also named in the suit) attorney J. Michael Summerour. Per Michael Perry, who spoke to KBHR from Needles following the judge's ruling, "The judge ruled in our favor, and the City must remove the initiative from the November ballot." Though official documents on today's ruling had not yet been forwarded to the City of Big Bear Lake, the City's Public Information Officer Cheri Haggerty did tell KBHR, "The City of Big Bear Lake is unable to comment on the ruling because it is an issue between two private parties." According to the Registrar of Voters office, the initiative generated by McLean and approved by the City's Clerk had not yet been submitted for the November 4 election. Per Terry Kouba, Chief Deputy Registrar of Voters for San Bernardino County, "We were aware of the ordinance, but it hadn't yet been filed with the Registrar of Voters for the November election. We were expecting it, pending this court case." (Background on this case is on our Archive 2008 page, in stories posted on April 11, February 13, and February 6.)

If people thought that by passing this ordinance, the  private home rentals in Big Bear Lake would come to an end, they were sadly mistaken.  Home owners who wish to rent their homes out will still do so.  With websites like Craig'slist and Backpage, a property owner can easily advertise his rental on that site. The difference is that the city would not see any TOT tax, there would be no way of policing the rental.  If people think that passing this new ordinance is going to help, they are dead wrong. 

If things change on the Private Home Rental situation in Big Bear Lake, I will post a new blog with the update.