With the legality of short-term rentals still unclear, county planners progress on an ordinance.

If you type “Carmel” into VRBO.com, an online hub for vacation rentals, 222 homes pop up. If you input Aug. 8 to Aug. 10 – the weekend before Car Week – as the dates of stay, that number drops to 14 homes (as the Weekly goes to press). Do the same search for Monterey, and 133 available homes are reduced to four.

Short-term rentals aren’t legal within the boundaries of either city, but the law in their unincorporated areas remains open to interpretation. The county’s current law on the matter is so vague that County Planning Director Mike Novo asked for an “interpretation request” July 9 from county counsel, seeking clarity on code. The response: Short-term rentals are illegal in the coastal zone.

The request, which was made public, spurred Santa Cruz-based land use attorney Gary Patton, who represents a local coalition of vacation rental owners, to challenge the county’s interpretation.

“The code contains absolutely no prohibition or restriction related to short-term rentals in the coastal zone,” Patton wrote in an email July 16. “You cite no code reference that would indicate there is such a prohibition.”

Novo wrote back and said he would discuss Patton’s points with county counsel, but as the Weekly went to press, that hadn’t happened.

The county Board of Supervisors passed a short-term rental ordinance in 1997, but it was never certified by the Coastal Commission and ended up on the shelf. After a group of vacation rental owners pushed the county to make a new law last January, county planners got to work.

The first draft was released March 2014 and drew ire from both sides – some said it was too restrictive, others that it was too lax. After going back to the drawing board, county planner Melanie Beretti says, much progress has been made.

“There will be significant changes to [the March 2014] draft,” she says.

She expects a new draft to be released this fall.