Photo credit: Photography by Jeresa
You know that us here at APG are no glowing fans of Paradise Valley Councilman Paul Dembow; ohh no, we have made our views known. That said, it is not always enough to simply want someone you find disagreeable gone from power…you need to have faith in the competence, intelligence and values of the person who is replacing them.
Piggybacking off of that, you probably know that we have spoken at length about short-term rental (STR) issues within Paradise Valley; we all know that that is a problem. But what about another related but unaddressed issue: timeshares?
Dembow’s challenger Christine Labelle is taking this issue on directly in her recent op-ed to the Independent; more specifically, it brings up the actions of Pacaso, a company with operations in many of the more desirable parts of the country. While many municipalities have restrictions on timeshares, the company gets around this by legal and verbal slight-of-hand; they call it “fractional ownership” instead of a timeshare, and it sells “ownership deeds” instead of time.
We applaud their creativity in getting around the rules, but we agree with Ms. Labelle that we’d prefer that they do it somewhere else.
While the PV General Plan in place explicitly outlaws timeshare operation, Pacaso seems to depend on legal creativity to get around statutes like that and operate against the will of the citizenry. And if municipal government didn’t have people like Ms. Labelle (a realtor by trade) who understands zoning as well as housing companies and how they operate very well, they’d probably get away with more of it.
With STRs and now subversive timeshare companies attempting to disrupt the quality of life in our towns, it is imperative that we elect people who understand the tricks that these sorts of companies will play in order to profit off of our way of life. While this blog is not an endorsement, we applaud Ms. Labelle and how she brings her expertise to a subject that has largely flown under the radar. After all, it was only because enough people weren’t watching that we’ve had such STR-friendly laws pass the Arizona legislature, and can’t afford to have that happen again.