But the house and two upstairs apartments became vacant at the same time and I felt we needed the rent, so we took three un-vetted tenants on government programs (learning mistake). 

That means your estate plan will be based on California laws and likely if you were to form an entity, you would want it governed by California laws so that member disputes are settled according to California laws. 

If the city or department has a credit union, I would also check with them about local programs for government workers.   

I’m also impressed you trust me as much as the full faith and credit of the United States government or even triple A bonds, which pay higher.

I would highly recommend reaching out to your local governing body's housing/planning department (city or county if you live in an unincorporated area) as they will have the oversight on such a matter and or can direct you to who you need to speak with. 

If true and the loan is government secured, my understanding is that is mortgage fraud and mail fraud. 

The goal of the bills is to provide more oversight and give local government a greater ability to manage short-term rentals.

We solve the data problem by working with the industry's best data vendors that have applied a lot of post-processing and enrichment to the original government sources, or have collected their own proprietary data.Not all of those vendors are equal in terms of accuracy, and we learned this the hard way through experience -- I come from the commercial real estate research world, and my co-founder from the retail site selection & revenue forecasting world.

The convoluted process reflects local government at its worst. 

First step is to sit down with the local government and see if the subdivision is possible and what Exactly would be required.