As you may know, in December of 2021, Monterey County was served with a lawsuit by a group named the Committee for Fair and Affordable Housing Committee on the Central Coast claiming that the County’s prohibition of Short Term Rentals constituted a “development” under the Coastal Act and as the County had not had its prohibition certified by the Coastal Commission, it could not enforce such a prohibition.

Unfortunately, the County responded to this lawsuit by issuing the attached estoppel letter and agreed to effectively stop enforcing Short Term Rental violations.  The Board of Supervisors made this decision in Closed Session and without any meaningful public process or even notification to long standing stakeholders in this issue, such as the Big Sur LCP Defense Committee.

The Big Sur LCP Defense Committee is now actively evaluating with its legal counsel options available to seek to have the County either rescind the estoppel letter in its entirety or at very least, modify the letter to exclude the Big Sur Land Use Area.

We will provide updates on this matter as they become available.