Once again, the members of the City of Avalon's Planning Commission have failed to exercise their civic responsibility to apply accepted standards and fairly judge the merits of applications submitted to them for the issuance of Conditional Use Permits allowing transient rental of qualifying properties. This latest incidents, denial of the applications for the captioned properties occurred despite the fact that the properties in question met every existing criteria for approval, not to mention the fact that 8 or 10 neighboring property owners had taken the time to write letters and/or speak at the meeting in support for the applications. So, despite the absence of any zoning conflict, without a single objection from any neighbor, without the need for a variance of any kind, two members of the commission chose to blatantly disregard the evidence at hand (not to mention their duty to uphold our City codes and standards) and deny the applications without explanation.

This is but the latest in a string of patently unfair denials that have shaken the public's confidence in the fairness of the City's basic processes. Why are these appointed Commissioners allowed to consistently ignore the criteria that have been hammered out in good faith through years of City time and effort and, in the process, to humiliate applicants who have paid substantial application fees in a good faith effort to play by the rules? Commissioners are appointed by the Mayor and Council to uphold our master plan and our municipal codes, not to rewrite them.

If you elected officials do not take action to rectify this egregious situation, I predict that you will be faced with innumerable appeals of routine applications, a significant decline in TOT revenues, an unhappy electorate and the very real possibility of litigation. Hopefully, you and/or the City Attorney can sit down with the planning commissioners and explain to them the importance of consistent and nondiscriminatory administration of Avalon's Municipal Code.