For almost decade, Florida lawmakers have attempted to pass new regulations for short-term vacation rentals but have come up short every year — until now.
The possibilities brightened somewhat Thursday night when the Florida Senate passed a measure (SB 714) that attempts to provide “more tools for folks at the local level,” in the words of Pinellas County Republican Nick DiCeglie, the bill sponsor.
Some local public officials — including those from DiCeglie’s own district — complain the bill as written won’t help them address problems that short-term rentals can cause for their neighbors, such as noise and trash. The measure still needs to be approved in the House before it can go to the governor’s desk.
“When DiCeglie says he’s giving new tools in the toolbox, the tool he’s giving the counties are a pair of handcuffs,” said Miles Conway, president of the South Beach Property Owners Association in Vero Beach.
DiCeglie acknowledged the difficulty in finding a balance between local governments’ authority to protect neighborhoods and the rights of property owners to profit from their home investments.
“It’s always hard to create uniform regulations, especially when it comes to vacation rentals,” DiCeglie said as the bill came up for a vote after he and other lawmakers worked on amending it throughout the day.
“I think this bill really identified and responded to the issues that many of us in this chamber have received back at home. That’s why we worked on this amendment all day today, and so I think we’re really at a good balance with this, and I think it’s going to make a big difference back in our districts at home.”
‘Ground Zero’
DiCeglie lives in Indian Rocks Beach, a community that has been labeled “Ground Zero” in the property-rights battles between vacation-rental property owners and neighbors who complain that these rentals damage their quality of life. He said the issue was personal for him because it is so intense in his community.
Cookie Kennedy, mayor of Indian Rocks Beach, came to Tallahassee to discuss the bill as it moved through committees.
“Although disappointed, we will continue to fight for residents at the local level every step of the way to ensure their voice is heard,” she told the Phoenix in a text message early Friday morning.
Kennedy and her city commission have been working on a local ordinance for months to deal with the problem in Indian Rocks Beach. “Our attorney will have to evaluate the bill with all the latest amendments to assess the impact it will have on our community and our new ordinance,” she said.
Right-sizing registration fees
The measure would allow local governments to charge no more than $150 to process an individual registration application or $200 for a collective registration (for as many as 25 rentals) required for property owners. That’s an improvement from DiCeglie’s originally filed bill, which called for only $50 to process such an application, but local officials still insist $150 is too low. For example, in Redington Beach the fee is now $500 per registration application.
The bill gives local governments just 15 days to review registration applications and either accept or deny them. They must provide reasons for any denial, but the bill does allow local governments to terminate or refuse to issue or renew a vacation rental registration under certain circumstances.
Another contentious point is that the bill allows local governments to impose occupancy limits on short-term rentals only if they impose the same limits on all residential properties.
That’s a major problem, Conway contends.
“What you have is potentially a situation where you have an Airbnb or Vrbo on a third of an acre in a residential neighborhood that has two bedrooms and a 1,500 square foot home. And they are allowed to have a maximum of 5 cars in their garage or a stabilized driveway,” he says.
“Then you are going to the same community on the beach you have a 3-acre property, a 15,000-20,000 square foot home valued at between $10-$20 million, and you say, ‘Okay guys, because of this accommodating the rentals, you’re also only allowed to have five cars.’ Impossible.”
Contentious history
The history of the state attempting to regulate short-term vacation rentals goes back more than a decade.
In 2011, then-Gov. Rick Scott signed legislation that prohibited local governments from enacting any new law that restricted the use of vacation rentals, prohibited those rentals, or otherwise regulated them, giving that power to the state government.
That law “grandfathered” some 75 local ordinances already on the books, meaning they could remain in force. After pushback from cities, the Legislature reversed itself in 2014, allowing local governments to handle problems including noise, parking, and trash, but still preventing them from prohibiting or regulating the duration or frequency of short-vacation rentals.
Since then, there have been bills filed in every legislative session but they came up short every year. DiCeglie said a new law is necessary because the vacation rental issue and industry has “changed significantly.”
David Will is mayor of Redington Beach in Pinellas County. He told the Phoenix Thursday night that local officials like himself would have been better off if the Legislature hadn’t addressed the issue at all.
“I didn’t ask for any more tools because we had them,” he said. “And now I lost tools.”
The new amendments that DiCeglie crafted with the help of fellow GOP Sens. Travis Hutson and Debbie Mayfield on Thursday include allowing a local government to suspend a vacation rental registration for up to 30 days following three or more violations of a local ordinance regarding noise, parking, or trash within a a 90-period. And it allows local governments to suspend a registration for up to six months for a subsequent violation within six months.
Code enforcement delays
But it will be up to a code enforcement board or special magistrate to decide whether the vacation rental operator has violated an ordinance. “I don’t know if you’ve ever gone through that process, but it moves pretty slow,” Will said. “I don’t see how we’re going to get to three of those in a 90-day period.”
Will is angry that local government officials will no longer have the ability to craft an ordinance that distinguishes between vacation rentals and residential homes, saying that they are not at all alike.
Additionally, the bill:
- Authorizes the state to fine a platform like Airbnb an amount not to exceed $1,000 for a violation of the provisions in the bill or rules of the division.
- Requires platforms to adopt anti-discrimination policies and to inform users of the state’s public lodging discrimination prohibition.
- Provides that the bill does not create a private right of action against the platforms.
The bill passed 28-10, with Democrats Linda Stewart and Geraldine Thompson joining Republicans in supporting the measure. Jacksonville Republican Clay Yarborough was the only Republican to vote no.
South Florida Democrat Jason Pizzo said the measure had come a long way, but he still voted against it, saying “I don’t want the statement to be gleaned from this session on this bill that we landed here and this was the best we could do. We have a lot more to do on this.”
The bill’s House equivalent (HB 833) is poised to be voted on by that entire chamber within the next few days.
This article originally appeared in florida phoenix