J. Patrick Sutton Cases & Issues Blog

CITY OF GRAPEVINE SHORT-TERM RENTAL AND HOME-SWAP BAN HIT WITH INJUNCTION

In a stunning rebuke to municipal overreach and unfairness, my clients — a group of homeowners in the City of Grapevine — prevailed today (November 7, 2018) in obtaining a temporary injunction halting enforcement of a new City of Grapevine ban on short-term rentals. The order is HERE. My clients brought a lawsuit claiming that the new Grapevine STR ban is unconstitutional in various ways — as a regulatory "taking," as violative of due process, and as preempted by other Texas law. The City defended the new ban in various ways, among them an argument that the Grapevine ordinances already barred STR's by their silence! That is, the familiar argument of STR opponents that if a law or ordinance is silent about STR's but require "residential use," then STR's are by implication forbidden. The Texas Supreme Court rejected that in my Tarr case on May 25, 2018, but the City of Grapevine appears to have missed that point.
J. Patrick Sutton Cases & Issues Blog