Two sides of Pacific Grove’s short-term rental debate are ready to rumble with the city.

You can’t please all of the people all of the time, as the saying goes, and Pacific Grove seems to embody that when it comes to short-term rentals.

While other cities have banned or severely restricted the rentals, Pacific Grove embraced them in 2011 with an ordinance that capped the number of non-owner-occupied rentals at 250, and put limits on the number of nights they can be rented out. The ordinance was revamped by the City Council last year, with a promise to review it again in 2017.

That review is scheduled for May 17, and residents and owners are set to converge at City Hall that night for a clash that could expand into courtrooms.

On one side is a group of residents behind a change.org petition asking City Council to ban all non-owner-occupied rentals. They say they are fine with rentals where residents live in the home and either rent out the entire unit for less than 90 days a year, or are renting out rooms while they are present in the home. The petition had 169 signatures as of press time.

Comments from signers include reports of parties and nighttime disturbances, parking shortages, evictions of long-term renters and a lack of affordable housing, and violating residential zoning ordinances. Residents also complain about feeling uneasy at the flow of strangers in their neighborhoods.

“It’s like living in an airport terminal.”

“There are times it’s like living in an airport terminal,” Thom Akeman says of the sounds of rolling luggage and loud voices of vacationers on his street located near downtown. Akeman served on a subcommittee that advised the city before last year’s revision, but he says residents’ concerns were not adequately considered.

The petition’s organizer, Jenny McAdams – who ran unsuccessfully for council last year – says she has not ruled out suing the city over the issue of whether short-term rentals violate zoning ordinances.

On the other side is a group of short-term rental owners, Short-Term Rental Owners Neighborhood Group of Pacific Group, called STRONGpg. They want the city to continue allowing short-term rentals, and not be swayed by what they claim is a minority of angry residents.

The owners’ group also has a beef with the city over proposed license fee increases, from $1,000 to $1,500. On April 19 the group launched a GoFundMe page aiming to raise $5,000 for an attorney “to represent our interests against unsubstantiated fees and ill advised STR regulation and protocols.” As of press time, they’d raised $1,535.

STRONGpg members also want the city to do more to promote positive aspects of short-term rentals. At the top of their list: nearly $1 million annually in transient occupancy taxes the city collects, in addition to other fees.

“We’d like decisions about short-term rentals to be made on a basis of fact, not emotion,” group member Alka Joshi says. She believes it’s a minority of owners who don’t follow the rules that are creating a negative impression, and hopes residents will use the city’s complaint hotline, which launched last year, to air problems.

The hotline – which is handled by an outside contractor for $31 a month – appears to be under-utilized, with only about 10 complaints registered.

McAdams says most people don’t want to tax the police with more calls. She also doesn’t think it should fall to residents to report problems: “I shouldn’t have to babysit the STRs in my neighborhood,” she says. “If I wanted to be motel manager, I would have gotten a job as one.”

Editor's Note: The post was edited to reflect a change in the city's date for reviewing the ordinance. The new date is May 17, 2017.