TALLAHASSEE — A stream of anxious homeowners and government officials from Miami Beach to Tallahassee marched before a Senate committee on Tuesday, urging lawmakers to reject a plan to stop their cities from regulating short-term vacation rentals.
They complained about vacation homes and apartments being priced for long-term rental properties out of the market. They blasted “opportunistic investors” who leverage residential property “to make major business profit” at the expense of unwitting neighbors. And they warned of human traffickers exploiting short-term rentals to hide from the law.
But landlords who rely on short-term rentals for extra income have also spoken out.
They said smaller towns were ill-equipped to handle the regulations needed to license and monitor their growing industry. They argued that the task is best handled by the state. They told how they work with their neighbors and screen their guests. And they denounced the existing law, which has led to “unreasonable fines” and litigation.
In the end, the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee voted 3-2 along party lines to send SB 1128 to the Senate. A similar measure, HB 1011, has another committee to clean up in the House.
But the successful vote came with a warning from committee chairman Sen. Joe Gruters, a Republican from Sarasota. He had “serious reservations about the impact this would have on my community,” he said, noting that he had seen “mini-hotels going up in residential neighborhoods.”
“If you want my vote on the floor, we could keep working on that,” Gruters said.
Regulatory confusion
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Manny Diaz of Hialeah Gardens, R-Hialeah Gardens, is a reaction to the rapid growth of Florida’s vacation rental market and the see-saw approach regulators have taken over the past decade.
When Airbnb first emerged, the industry persuaded lawmakers in 2011 to pass a state law preempting any local regulations. After landlords complained that state regulation was insufficient and their property values were declining due to bad industry actors, the state reversed course in 2014 and opened the door to local regulation.
Now, the legislation by Diaz and Rep. Jason Fischer, R-Jacksonville, would bring regulation back into state control, banning cities like Miami Beach from imposing fines on violators and handing over the licensing work. , tax collection and inspection to 19 law enforcement officers in the Department. commercial and professional regulations.
That prospect scares local officials like Michelle Berger, chief of staff for Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber.
Her city has hired 39 inspectors who work “around the clock” to monitor “conglomerates that are invading and investing in residential properties to create permanent vacation rental hostels,” she said. She warned that the bill’s ‘cookie cutter approach is not working’.
“No level of Tallahassee oversight would be effective against the predatory business tactics used by these investors,” Berger said. During this fiscal year, Miami Beach investigated 368 vacation rentals.
“Our fines are high because these investors often charge tens of thousands of dollars a week to rent,” she said. “In January, someone rented a house for 31 days for $1 million. Every night there was a party, loud music, hordes of people coming and going. The next-door neighbors were helpless. A hefty fine is the only way to deter anything else would be a cost of doing business.
Casey Cook of the League of Cities said that “DBPR has failed to demonstrate that it cannot handle ‘the rapidly growing vacation rental industry and has ‘failed to meet its performance criteria” already in place.
According to statistics cited by Diaz, Florida’s short-term rental market welcomed 6.6 million people last year and earned owners $1.2 billion in additional revenue.
“As we continue to look for ways to reduce the regulations and red tape that impede the growth of Florida’s economy, we must resolve this endless dispute between local governments, the vacation rental industry, and residents. competing business interests,” he wrote with Fischer in a recent op-ed.
Cook, however, urged the committee to pass an amendment proposed by Sen. Linda Stewart, D-Orlando, that would have given the state the power to license short-term rentals, but would allow local governments to license them. regulate the same way they regulate bed and breakfasts. breakfasts.
The proposal was modeled after a medical marijuana law that allows local communities to regulate dispensaries, Stewart said. The committee rejected the amendment by voice vote.
Dennis Hanks, representing the Florida Vacation Rental Management Association, said after the state reversed its decision to preempt local governments and allow local regulation of short-term rentals, a regulatory hodgepodge emerged. .
“For every approved prescription that is right, we see one that goes too far,” he said.
As dozens of disgruntled city officials and landlords across the state appeared to speak, lobbyists from supporters such as Airbnb, Americans for Prosperity and the James Madison Institute backed out of addressing the committee. Gruters joked that the ratio was: “100 to 1”.
Protests by Miami Beach residents
Miami Beach’s Sheila Duffy-Lehrman took to the state capital to describe how her community has been “lulled with vacation rentals.”
“For more than four years, our neighborhood has been rocked by vacation rentals,” she said. “Our sons offered medicine to shut up. Our daughter made a proposal while ogling strangers. My family wakes up to drugged strangers in our yard.
She told the Republican-controlled Senate that as vice president of the National Small Business Association, she’s “a card-carrying capitalist and a Republican” but “as a landlord and taxpayer, I’m frankly furious.” .
The committee approved an amendment to the bill that represents an agreement between owners in condominium corporations and homeowner associations. Under the compromise, each of those communities can continue to restrict short-term rentals without being preempted by state law.
The bill also prohibits local governments from regulating advertising platforms, such as Airbnb, VRBO, HomeAway and others, that market short-term rentals. However, platforms must check if the rental property is licensed and remove unlicensed listings within 15 days.
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