Protect Our Neighborhoods filed a motion in court, hoping a Judge will rule in its favor on a lawsuit brought against the city of Palm Springs.

The group has been in the fight over vacation rentals in Palm Springs for years. They say neighborhoods in the city are being decimated by vacation rentals. In March of 2017 they filed a lawsuit.

The fight over vacation rentals in Palm Springs has been well documented. In June of 2018, voters failed to pass Measure C which gave the city and vacation rental owners the right to continue what has been a lucrative arrangement. But the fight is far from over.

“We have recently, in the last week or so, filed a motion. So now the onus is on the city to respond to that motion,” said Protect Our Neighborhoods spokesman Mike Ziskind.

The motion contends that short term rentals are businesses and that the city issuing short term rental permits without any of the requirements that other commercial businesses must meet.

“If the Marriott corporation came to Palm Springs and said ‘I would like to open up 1900 mini-motels in your R-1 residential neighborhoods’, I think there would be an uproar,” Ziskind said. “While the city would like to believe that these are secondary uses for a house, we believe they are nothing more than profit making mini-motels.”

But lawsuits cost money. Something Protect Our Neighborhoods does not have a lot of. In order to continue their fight, the group is asking the community for donations via social media.

“We got a very, very good response. It was primarily smaller donations from many, many individuals who didn’t realize that this issue was still out there, that it had not been resolved,” Ziskind said.

NBC Palm Springs reached out to the city of Palm Springs to get the city’s take on the ongoing litigation and received this statement, “The city council has taken strong action in the regulation of vacation rentals in Palm Springs. We have no further comment at this time.”

Neighborhood Group Files Motion In Palm Springs Vacation Rental Lawsuit