Commission’s ‘advisory’ committee is little more than an industry lobby

GUEST COMMENTARY

DAVID HUNTER

The growing short-term rental of residential properties ( for periods of less than 30 day duration, often by the day or week), has introduced a new type of commercial enterprise, akin to opening a motel or bed and breakfast, with attending traffic, parking, noise, overcrowding and disturbance.  The State of Florida clearly defines this type of activity, under it’s Fla. Statute 509.242, “Public Lodging Establishments”, section 1 (a) Hotel, 1(b) Motel, 1(c) Vacation Rental and 1(f) Bed and breakfast inn.  Under the statute, all owner/operators of these types of business must first obtain a proper license from the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) before offering them to the public. 

In the case of ‘vacation rentals’ and residential dwellings being rented for purpose of ‘hospitality’ or ‘tourism’, the license is DBPR HR-7028 “Application for Vacation Rental License” (see http://www.myfloridalicense.com for details).  This license confirms that the owner/operator/property manager intends to use the residential property for a vacation rental, also defined in the State of Fla. application as a “dwelling unit that is also a transient public lodging establishment” and that “transient establishment” means any public lodging establishment that is rented or leased to guest by an operator whose intention is that such guests occupancy will be temporary (Fla Sta. 509.013)”. In applying this, the DBPR uses the offered for ‘less than 30 day’ rental standard to define the meaning of such short term activity.   

The laws allowing Florida’s cities and counties to exercise ‘home rule’ in setting zoning restrictions on where such ‘commercial transient public lodging establishments’ may be located was stripped away in a disastrous amendment to the regulations on Public Lodging, with the passage of Fla. Statue 509.034(7)(b) which effectively took away city and county Planning and Zoning departments ability to regulate and control this growing industry.  Tragically, since it is growing rapidly, enabled by internet advertising on sites such as AirB&B.com, VRBO.com, FloridaVacationRentals.com, and others.  AirB&B now is a huge corporation, valued at upwards of $40 billion, and is dedicating funding to lobby state legislatures and train ‘industry lobbyists’ to push for removing further restrictions on this industry.  This puts our local citizens, who bought homes in residential neighborhoods for ‘quiet enjoyment‘ of property, in direct conflict with a new business seeking to convert residential homes into noisy and congested ‘mini-motel’ districts, while marketing to the guests the ’quiet residential feel’ of the units.

While there have been some efforts to try to ‘roll back’ the damage done by Fla Statute 509.032(7)(b), notably by State Representative Travis Hutson and Debby Mayfield, and currently by State Senator Thad Altman, and others, at the State level, they have been roundly defeated by legislators feeding from the Vacation Rental lobby’s kitty. These legislators are mislead by ’teaparty’ arguments that the owner/operators of these businesses have superior ’property rights’ that allow them to do what they want, regardless of the impact this has on neighboring residential communities and property values.  They seem to think that ’zoning laws’ are some sort of socialist experiment to take freedom from the short term rental property owner.  On the contrary, our zoning laws enhance the values of property, by keeping certain types of activity restricted to certain areas: ie commercial activity in commercial areas, heavy industrial activity in designated zones, residential in residential, and so forth.  For the State legislature to force cities and counties to abandon this, so one group of investor/owner/operators has the unique advantage of disregarding and blocking local planning and zoning, is unprecedented ’big government’ stripping away home rule.   

The only ones still protected from this legislative maladministration are cities and counties who had in place firm zoning restrictions on such activity before the ’amendment’ stripping local home rule took effect in 2012.  Fortunately, the City of Vero Beach had, and continues to have, such restrictions, although they are now being challenged by greedy vacation home rental operators who are claiming those regulations were inadequate or vague.  The IRC, on the other hand, had a seemingly weaker set of restrictions, and against County bureaucrats recommendation, the County Commission voted to abandon those weak rules, opening the gateway for completely unregulated short-term transient rentals in all areas of the County, whether commercial or residential.  This Commission vote was taken 5-0, despite a strong public showing by  6 or 7 concerned citizens at the Commission meeting, including myself, arguing that the Commission should keep its zoning.  Three members of the pro-short term rental industry spoke in favor of abandoning IRC’s zoning, promising it would ’stimulate tourism’ and generate ’tax revenue.’  One of these was Glenn Powell, who explained he was just a ’small time’ owner/operator that rented out houses short-term in Roseland, and persuaded the Commissioners that such activity was helpful to tourism, and perhaps in curing blighted areas by restoring old historic homes. While this was a reasonable argument, it should not have led to the County Commission to abandoning it’s zoning rules on short-term transient rental–ie Powell could have applied for an exception to allow for ’historic preservation as B&B’ which has been done in other counties.

By the County Commission having abandoned the residential zoning restrictions, it now has no way to reestablish them.  And the troubles began immediately.  Some unscrupulous owners started using their ’oceanfront’ properties as rental venues for weekend parties, such as weddings and graduation parties and large family reunions.  This brought in 30-50 guests or  more on repeated weekends, with bands, catering trucks, garbage, parking, and so forth.  Keep in mind these were not the owners of the property having parties for their own children or friends, but commercial businesses leasing the venue out to others for payment, often $10,000 or more per weekend.  In 2015, after community activist (and oceanfront resident) Dr. Miles Conway and others, including myself and members of the Indian River Neighborhood Association, fought to correct this plague, the County Commission passed an ordinance restricting such commercial use of private homes for profit making ’special events’.  Another ordinance was soon passed limiting parking at ’vacation rental houses’ to avoid occupants cars spilling into the pubic right of way.

But this is just the beginning of trying by regulation to control the disruptive effects of allowing ‘transient public lodging establishments’ to operate in the county’s residential neighborhoods.  At the end of 2015, rather than have citizens ask for individual legislation to solve problems piecemeal, the County Commission appointed a “Short Term Rental Advisory Committee” (STRAC), to look at the situation and see what additional regulations should be applied. While in theory it was a reasonable idea, the appointment almost exclusively of those who were engaged in rental business, and stood to make a financial gain from its unrestricted activity, presented a surreal ’conflict of interest’ problem.  It’s as if the tobacco industry was appointed to recommend restrictions on tobacco use. The elected (and just re-elected ) Chairman of the STRAC is none other than Glenn Powell, who lobbied the Commissioners to abandon the county zoning law in the first place.   Another

is a pool contractor, Joe Molinari, who admitted at a STRAC meeting that he owns rental properties, and stated “I have yet to witness more government [regulation] making anyone’s life better”.  A third is a Real Estate Rental Specialist, who makes her living by renting out residential property.  Another is an accountant, who focus seemed to be on how much tax revenue these ’businesses’ will generate for the county if they are allowed to thrive without further regulation.  All of these seem to have ’vested financial interests’ which would present a clear conflict in their coming up with strict regulation of their own industry’s activity.  And the STRAC does not represent the other interested party, namely thousands of individual county residential property owners, whose peace, safety and home values will be effected by allowing unregulated ’transient public lodging establishments’ to operate next door to them.

I serve on the Board of Directors of the Indian River Neighborhood Association, a civic group working to enhance the quality of life of all IRC citizens.  The key word in that name is “Neighborhood”.  In my opinion, an owner/operator/manager of a ’vacation rental house’ is not a neighbor.  Often, the owner is not local, or does not even live in the State of Florida, and rents out to complete strangers through AirB&B or other websites.  Last year, one Vero Beach operator rented one of his properties on line to teenagers from Miami for the weekend, without even knowing their name, age or Miami address–they committed a number of robberies while visiting Vero. When Police or Code Enforcement tries to contact the owner/operator of this kind of business, they often don’t even have a contact phone number, should the ’guests’ be causing any disturbance (loud noise, beer parties, etc).  This is not the case with our traditional hotels, motels and B&Bs, who have on-site managers to regulate guest behavior, and are mostly in commercial-zoned areas.   Nor are the ’guests’, who unpack their suitcases to stay in a residential-zoned house for a long weekend or even a week, our ’neighbors’.  They are transients, who by the State of Fla’s very definition of transient, are passing through, not staying on a permanent basis.

I define a ‘neighbor’ as someone who is owning or renting long-term, who opens a local bank account, gets a local voter ID card, shows his local address on his Florida Drivers license, perhaps sends his or her children to our local schools, and so forth. Season renters, who stay 3-4 months, are also neighbors. But  someone who just unpacks for a weekend or a week is  a ’guest’, ’tourist’, or other transient visitor.  While I encourage these visitors coming to our beautiful county, the proper place for them to enjoy themselves is in our hotels, motels and accommodation of our commercially designated tourist zones, with its public beaches and cafes and shops, not wandering our residential areas.      

Until and unless our County Commissioners, and their hand picked ‘industry lobby’ otherwise know as the STRAC, decide it is time to respect the views and concerns of all the citizens of Indian River County, and not to just the narrow financial interests of a few dozen Public Guest House owner/operator profiteers, this issue will continue to plague and disrupt our citizen’s ability to exercise their vested rights to ‘quiet enjoyment’ of their biggest investment, their private residential homes.