Some Florida mayors are getting testy about a contentious vacation rental bill

Pinellas County Republican Sen. Nick DiCeglie gave a brief presentation about a controversial vacation rental bill when he went before a group of mayors, vice mayors and other elected officials in the Tampa Bay area on Wednesday.

He was immediately challenged by Redington Beach Mayor David Will, who said the legislation removes the ability of residents in his city to have any discussion about how to regulate short-term vacation rentals.

“The actual voice of the residents to go to their townhall, and have a discussion — pros, cons, whatever — to shape their community, to force that direction, has been removed,” he said. “So to me, whatever their position is, having that discussion is incredibly important.”

But DiCeglie pushed back immediately.

“I’m not really sure I understand where this bill, Senate bill 280, removes anybody’s voice,” DiCeglie said. “So I’m not sure that I fully understand how this bill or any other preemption takes away the voice of the people to elect their local representatives, their ability to go to City Hall, express their views, or participate in our democratic process.”

The discussion comes at a time when Gov. Ron DeSantis has to make a decision on a short-term vacation rental bill that will give state government more control over the regulation of rentals such as Airbnb and Vrbo. The bill has yet to be sent to DeSantis for his consideration. Once it gets there, he’ll have 15 days to sign it or veto it or allow it to become law without his signature.

Among the provisions in the legislation, local governments can now impose occupancy limits, but they “must be uniformly applied without regard to whether the residential property is used as a vacation rental.”

Will said that means that local governments won’t have the ability to distinguish between a single-family house and a vacation rental.

DiCeglie disagreed, noting how the bill requires the Division of Business and Professional Regulations (DBPR) to assign a unique identifier for each individual vacation rental dwelling or unit which can be coordinated with local governments if they create their own local registration system.

Indian Rocks Beach Mayor Cookie Kennedy told DiCeglie that she was disappointed that he hadn’t attended any local community meetings on the issue. “As your mayor, I invited you multiple times,” she said. “My feeling were very hurt.”

Kennedy recently sent a letter to DeSantis urging him to veto the legislation. Among her criticisms is that the occupancy limits are “unenforceable” and that it imposes a requirement of five or more violations by a vacation rental owner during a 60-day period before any suspensions can be imposed by a local goverment.

But not all of the mayors were critical of the bill.

Treasure Island Mayor Tyler Payne said that he appreciates that the legislation does not cap the amount that local governments can charge to register new short-term vacation rentals in their communities. The bills says that those governments must charge what they consider to be a “reasonable fee.”

“I can do the math with my city staff to calculate how much revenue I need to have for a registration program,” Payne said, “so we can pay for additional code enforcement officers, and I can pay for the additional software that we need to have to track these vacation rentals and enforce our rules that are in place.”

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