CRA Board Formally Encourages City Legal Staff to Stop Pacaso
TimeShares (and so called "CoOwnerships")
from sneaking in the back door of Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Update July 8, 2024 - Special City Council - Seeking approval of the "Grandfathering" Settlement for single residence

HERE is the Staff report - seeing approval of this settlement, grandfathering the Dolores Street home in our Village. 

"Under the terms of the Agreement, the Dolores Home will be deemed a lawsuit, nonconforming use, sometimes referred to as “grandfathering”, in which a use that was permitted under the law in effect at the time of a transaction may become inconsistent with subsequent changes to the City codes.
The Agreement also provides that Pacaso will not, except for the Dolores Home, market, use, sell or purchase any real property or portion thereof in all zoning districts in the City that is fractionally-owned or intended to be fractionally-owned and would not assist others in the market, use, sale or purchase of fractionally-owned Property. Additional terms are set forth in the Agreement."

Update - Oct 13, 2023 - Californial Coastal Commission - Provided FINAL Approval to our Municipal Code updates.

  • Relevant Municipal Code (new and revisions) require approval by the California Coastal Commission.  They provided a resounding "thumbs up" to our revisions.  Their Agenda can be found HERE.  This issue dated Oct 20th of the Carmel Pine Cone provided a great cover story on these findings.  

Update - February 6th City Council - Ordinance Update Approved.

  • Youtube video HERE (go to 1:30 minutes into this recording for this topic)
  • Staff Report HERE.  Exec Summary of this Staff Report is "The Carmel-by-the-Sea Municipal Code prohibits timeshares.  The proposed ordinance confirms the existing prohibition of time shares, and adds new prohibitions with respect to advertisement and sale of timeshares and fractional interest ownerships.  The City’s Planning Commission has recommended adoption of these amendments, with an additional recommendation for Council to have a policy level discussion in the future about whether or not timeshares should continue to be prohibited in the Village."

Update as of Oct 12 2022 Planning Commission Meeting

  • HERE is the staff report as prepared for this meeting, with proposed updates to clarify today's ordinances to align with State Laws. These corrections were OK'd by the Commission.  The next step is these ordinance updates will go before City Council for first and second reading, prior to implementation.  The Commission also made an additional request to go to City Council to re-open exploration of fit and conditions for future Timeshares in our Village, based on input by Commission and Public comments received in this meeting. 

Two recent updates as of mid Summer 2022.

  • Monterey County, as now followed the lead of Carmel-by-the-Sea issuing their own Cease and Desist Letter dated late June, that can be found HERE.
  • And Carmel-by-the-Sea is actively seeking compliance to our NO TIMESHARES with added staff and new software tools that identifies suspect, then confirming non-compliance with our regulations, ultimately issuing fines.  As of late July in this year to date, the Planning and Building Department staff has identified 20 Cases, where in the prior full year only 11 Cases were pursued.  Reach out to this city compliance team HERE.
    Read on for the original and still relevant page content for more background.

As you may know, Carmel has a No Timeshare Zoning/Ordinance, that many cities, towns and villages have copied, and has been defended and case won in Federal Supreme Courts, as was unsuccessfully contested by the realtor lobbies. Our Ordinance can be found HERE.

Your CRA Board at a recent City Council meeting expressed our strong support for keeping the pressure on preventing the Pacaso model in Carmel-by-the-Sea.   They/Pacaso claim that they are not a timeshare, but your CRA Board and our City Leadership disagree firmly.

More information on this legal effort follows: the Cease and Desist Letter from our Carmel to Pacaso HERE

  • the standard (or boilerplate) reply received from Pacaso. HERE
  • our relevant Zoning Code/Ordinance #17.28.010 on Time Shares can be found HERE
To learn more - visit these sites: