Local News

Local News

County commission may regulate vacation rentals

BY JEFF SCHWEERS
FLORIDA TODAY

Brevard County homeowners trying to preserve their neighborhood integrity from real estate investors trying to make a profit off short-term vacation rental homes gained the support of the County Commission on Tuesday.

After listening to two-and-a-half hours of comments from 44 homeowners and rental property owners alike, commissioners unanimously agreed they didn't want resort rentals in residential neighborhoods.

"I do not believe that short-term rentals belong in residential neighborhoods at all," Commissioner Helen Voltz said. "I do not want to see neighborhoods destroyed. But there are property rights on both sides." there are property rights on both sides."

But after an hour of discussion amongst themselves, they couldn't resolve anything, let alone a clear direction for staffers on how they want to proceed with crafting rules for something the county has never regulated before.

They raised more questions than answers, especially about whether their action could trigger lawsuits from property owners, so they put things off until Jan. 25, when they asked staffers to "come back with a Chinese menu of scenarios and options we discussed," Commissioner Sue Carlson said.

That threw at least one property manager into a panic, when she yelled out from the audience if she was supposed to cancel bookings and return deposits for March and April. "They won't come," Barbara Van Dam of Melbourne Beach Properties said.

County managers said the commissioners might be able to let existing leases stand until they finally approved any new regulations.

The commission has been struggling with the regulatory loophole since July, when residents from Merritt Island and unincorporated areas near Satellite Beach asked the county to ban vacation rentals. Several beachside communities already have such restrictions.

Board members discussed what constitutes a short-term rental, whether they should ban them only from single-family neighborhoods or all neighborhoods, and if they should allow resort owners who already have state licenses to continue to operate.

Mainly, though, they didn't know how they could ban or regulate vacation homes without triggering a slew of potential lawsuits from the rental owners.

Instead, they voted unanimously to suspend code enforcement action against vacation rentals that didn't have occupational licenses and asked staff to come back Tuesday with a moratorium on any new vacation rental homes until they could pass a law regulating the industry.

That didn't sit well with at least one commissioner, Jackie Colon, who said the board has already spent four months on the issue and wanted to at least set an April 1 deadline for pulling the vacation rentals out of residential homes.

"Our job is to protect neighborhoods, so let's be perfectly clear about it and not wishy-washy," Colon said.

That drew applause and cheers from the majority of the 100 or so people who were there on the issue. Most of the spectators were from barrier island neighborhoods where investors had begun operating vacation rental homes in the last couple of years.

They complained about a revolving door of vacationers who were up all night partying, parking in other people's yards and letting trash blow around.

"This is a neighborhood of homeowners with very few rentals, people raising families," said Denise Williams, former chairman of the Brevard County Housing Authority. She lives on a street in unincorporated Satellite Beach near two vacation rentals.

"We don't want our quality of life changed for the sake of monetary profit for a few investors," Williams said, her voice cracking as she leaned on her walking cane.

The spectators applauded and cheering when one of their own got up to speak against vacation rentals, and heckling the realtors, lawyers and property owners who defended their right to make money off their investment.

"We're not bringing in people that are undesirable," said John Seger, who came from his home in the Chicago area to speak. He got a laugh when he said, "We're not attracting spring break people like Daytona Beach or 'Girls Gone Wild.' "

Some vacation property owners supported some regulation.

"If all these properties are properly managed, then all these problems can be avoided," said Darryl Curtis, a county resident who has two vacation properties even though he doesn't have a state license.

Contact Schweers at 242-3642 or jschweers@flatoday.net