Is it illegal for this South Bay vineyard owner to let employee's family live on property in RV?

SARATOGA, Calif. (KGO) -- A winery in the South Bay finds itself locked in a dispute with Santa Clara County. The issue? Housing.

Michael Ballard has owned Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards in Saratoga since 1996.

In 2013, Ballard let his vineyard manager, Marcelino Martinez, move his family into an RV on the 60-acre property.

"One of the things that I just always felt from the beginning was we were doing the right thing," Ballard said.

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After an inspection in 2017, Ballard said Santa Clara County sent a letter that it was illegal to let someone live in a recreational vehicle on the winery property.

"Nobody ever addressed the elephant in the room which was 'Well, what's going to happen to the Martinez family when we get rid of the trailer?'" Ballard said. "They have no home so we're going to make a family homeless that you can enforce an ordinance that says you can't live in a recreational vehicle when there are hundreds if not thousands of people living in recreational vehicles all over the county and you aren't enforcing that."

Martinez has worked for Ballard for more than 20 years.

Martinez said he really likes working at the vineyard. He started when he was young, and has raised his family there. His children go to schools nearby.

Ballard said the county eventually started issuing them fines that have accumulated to more than $120,000.

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Martinez told Mike that they'd leave so this could be over but Ballard told him no and that they would fight for them to stay.

In 2019, plans were underway to help the family build an ADU, but COVID hit, and that delayed plans even further.

"We just kept trying to explain look, we're doing the best that we can do but somebody rational look at these set of circumstances and tell us what else should we do?" Ballard said.

The way Ballard put it, the universe heard their calls for help and the Institute for Justice is now legally representing them for free.

"For them to sort of validate our position, right, because in our hearts we always felt like we were doing the right thing," Ballard said.

Ballard said they finally feel like now, they can defend themselves with a lawsuit.

ABC7 News is waiting to hear back from the county.