SANTA MONICA – Santa Monica has a rich community of residents and locals. However, it is also a wildly popular tourist destination that attracts people from all around the world. All too often, vacationers renting properties through places like Globe Homes LLC and ever Air BnB have long disturbed the overall peace and tranquility by throwing loud parties and having generally less respect for the community as a whole.
The Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office and Code Enforcement Division of the Planning and Community Development Department have long tried to make sure every home sharing rental company is operating legally with the utmost respect for the residents. Globe Homes LLC, however, has done no such thing. Santa Monica’s first reaction was to assist them and since the beginning of 2016 Santa Monica set out to help by creating a Task Force whose goal was to educate Globe Homes and bring their standards up.
Globe Homes, a company based in Los Angeles, however, continued their illegal operations and even tried to con and trick the Task Force. In response to the companies lack of desire to work with the city and operate within the parameters of the law, the Task Force investigated and discovered a multitude of violations being committed by the company. At the very end of last year they took them to court. Just three months later the company has been charged with 35 violations.
“It is important to maintain our housing for permanent residents while also preserving the rich character of our neighborhoods,” Mayor Ted Winterer said in a press release. He continued stating that, “This action against Globe demonstrates that we are very serious about enforcing our home sharing ordinance.”
This sends a strong message to other vacation rental companies that Santa Monica will not put up with corporations operating outside of the law. “Our law provides for true home-sharing of a person’s home, however, the proliferation of vacation rentals, operated within residential dwellings like a hotel, do substantial harm to this housing diversity. Long term rent-controlled tenants can be displaced and we lose the integrity of our neighborhoods,” Salvador Valles, Assistant Director of Planning and Community Development said in a press release.
Photo courtesy of Reuters.
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