Kathy Eil built her dream home on Marco Island four years ago. Little did she know when she and her husband picked up the property, she would be surrounded by short-term rentals on all sides of her home. Noise quickly became a problem.
“We ended up having to buy a noise machine and earplugs because all of our porches are within 20 feet of each other,” Eil said. “No matter [the renters] do, we mean it.
Eil is one of many Marco Island residents who have come out in favor of voting for a short-term rental registration program, a referendum that appears on the primary general election ballot at the end of the August.
This referendum was drafted by the political action committee Take Back Marco, a group created specifically to create the short-term rental registration ordinance.
If the order is passed, it will apply to those who rent their accommodation for less than 30 days more than three times a year. This will affect much of the island as 25% of single family homes are used for rental purposes.
Marco Island has no laws enforced specifically for short-term rentals, besides the requirement to be registered with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. The proposed 16-page ordinance for Marco Island, which is almost an exact copy of the Fort Lauderdale Rental Registration Ordinance, creates many new standards necessary for operating a vacation rental.
“Residents of Marco Island have gotten to the point where they’re like, ‘Hey, we need to get these short-term rentals under control,'” said Take Back Marco member and 24-year-old resident Ed Issler. “We formed this committee to do some research and we found a good tenancy registration program that was put in place seven years ago in Fort Lauderdale.”
Under the proposed order, the rental owner must complete a transitional rental registration form and pay a registration fee. Fees have not yet been specified; however, the State of Florida is considering a maximum registration fee of $50 per year for all rental registrations. There will also be a program cost administration fee that will fund administrative staff hired to ensure compliance with the many new rules of the new order.
Rentals will have stricter noise laws to adhere to than full-time residences. No sound may be audible for more than one minute within 25 feet of the property line between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. and within 50 feet of the property during the day.
“We just had an incident where people were all drunk on the neighbor’s veranda and making a lot of noise, my husband came out and asked them to be quiet because our room was right next to their veranda,” said said Eil. “They calmed down after about an hour, but you know, it wasn’t pleasant.”
The new ordinance has rules for maximum occupancy of no more than two people per bedroom in a home, with up to four children under the age of 13 in total. No guests are allowed after 10:00 p.m.
“The only way to control the number of people using the beach, to control traffic, to control neighborhood parking is to limit the number of people who can stay in a house,” Issler said.
The referendum requires that a register of all current guests within the household be submitted to the City of Marco Island at all times. The owner of the house must designate a person capable of responding to a problem on the spot within the hour.
“You have to keep a diary so we know you don’t have any sex offenders, so we have the names of everyone who rents on your property, and we know the names of the people who are staying on Marco Island,” Issler said. said.
The first violation of any provision is between $200 and $275, the second violation between $500 and $650, and the third violation between $1,000 and $1,300. The rental will begin to be suspended on the fourth violation.
Denis Hanks is the executive director of the Florida Alliance for Vacation Rentals, a nonprofit that helps cities pass local rental registration ordinances. Hanks was involved in Fort Lauderdale when his ordinance was created in 2015, where compliance is now an ongoing issue.
“There are a lot of vacation rentals in Fort Lauderdale that continue to not work in their registration system,” Hanks said. “They come and go, they put them on the market and off the market.”
Marco Island City Attorney Alan Gabriel addressed the Take Back Marco referendum last month with a list of 19 areas of legal concern. Some of these potential issues mentioned include the requirement for vacation rental owners to obtain liability insurance coverage of at least $1 million, the requirement to obtain an annual fire inspection for a single-family home and suspension deadlines being against state law. According to Gabriel’s statement, noise regulations that are more restrictive than regulations for the rest of the city could be a potential violation of the First Amendment.
“Why go ahead with something that you know you’re going to get sued for or you’re going to have a lot of litigation that’s going to cost taxpayers money,” Hanks said. “That sounds a bit crazy.”
Marco Island homeowners like Rob Ferrarie rent out their homes when they’re on vacation to pay off the mortgage and for renovations. Ferrarie has been renting out her home for 13 years but will stop if this ordinance passes.
“When I moved here in 2009 the estate agent told me all about rentals and I thought it was a great idea, it’s been around for a long time,” Ferrarie said. “What they’re trying to do is eliminate something that’s been there forever and is wrong.”
Ferrarie rents through Vrbo which has its own security standards in place.
“When I rent to these people, I have all their information, I can look them up and see who’s coming into my house,” Ferrarie said. “We care a lot more about whether our house is destroyed than anything else. It’s the natural law that I care about my home that keeps Marco safe.
Jim Chamberlin and his two sons own Marco Island Bike Rentals. He knows that if this ordinance is passed, he will go bankrupt since the vast majority of his clientele are tenants.
“It wouldn’t be worth it, we’d literally be moving to where there’s a business-friendly place to do other things,” Chamberlin said.
Chamberlin sees the potential impact to all local businesses on the island if this order discourages tenants from continuing their services.
“There’s the trickle-down effect, when we pick people up, we deliver them to local restaurants and stores,” Chamberlin said. “Last night we picked up 98 people and none of them were at a resort or hotel.”
For residents like Eil, there is hope that this referendum will at least keep nightly rentals away.
“People who really want to come here with their families, they’ll come for a week,” Eil said. “They’re not coming for one night. It’s spring break, it’s people from the other side of Florida coming over for a night and scattering trash all over the beach and then leaving.
Chamberlin thinks this problem is something the people of Marco can come together to solve without a ballot.
“Unfortunately, there are probably some poorly managed vacation rentals that ruin a few, but that’s not a big deal, it’s a very isolated issue, but it’s a problem,” Chamberlin said. “I think if everyone worked together and solved this problem, we wouldn’t have a problem. Everyone who came to this island came here on vacation and some people never left, that’s why people live here.
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