This year’s version of a short-term vacation rental bill now goes to the full House
Vacation rentals. Credit: Julie Hauserman
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Could this be the year that the Florida Legislature passes a law taking away more local control of short-term vacation rentals like Airbnb and Vrbo?
We’ll find out in the next 15 days, after the House Commerce Committee passed its measure on Thursday. It now moves to the floor for a final vote in the full House, where it needs to be reconciled with the Senate version. The legislative session ends on March 8.
“A similar form of this bill in the past has made its rounds over the last 12 years,” said Bay County Republican Philip Griffitts, the bill sponsor in the House, in addressing the committee. “While this bill is not totally perfect, it defines the roles of local, state and private industry while respecting the property rights of the free people in the state of Florida.”
Griffitts measure (HB 1537) varies from the Senate bill (SB 280) that cleared that chamber earlier this month in several ways.
The House bill requires a local government to charge a registration fee for an individual application of no more than $150. The Senate version says that a local government can charge a “reasonable fee.”
Also, if there’s a problem with that registration, the owner could be fined up to $300 in the House version. In the Senate, the owner could be fined up to $500.
Regarding occupancy levels:
The Senate bill requires the vacation rental owner or operator to state and comply with a maximum overnight occupancy that doesn’t exceed either two persons per bedroom, plus an additional two persons in one common area; or more than two persons per bedroom if there is at least 50 square feet per person, plus an additional two persons in one common area.
The House bill does not get that specific. It simply says that vacation rental owners and operators must state the maximum occupancy based on the number of overnight sleeping accommodations.
As is seemingly always the case when this issue goes before a committee, the overwhelming majority of public speakers at Thursdays’ meeting were opposed to the measure.
Geoff Rames is the vice president of the Lauderdale Isles Civic Improvement Association based in Fort Lauderdale (photo credit: Mitch Perry)
Geoff Rames is the vice president of the Lauderdale Isles Civic Improvement Association based in Fort Lauderdale. He praised Fort Lauderdale’s local ordinance regulating vacation rentals, and said he feared the looser regulations that will be imposed on his city if the current legislative proposal becomes law.
“HB 1537 will destroy our neighborhoods,” he bemoaned. “And with the city’s hands tied by this bill, vacation rentals will run rampant without the fear of consequence.”
The bill will for the first time require a state registry of vacation rentals, which currently is not the case.
“This will allow locals to create a registry that can submit that data to a state registry in the Department of Business and Professional Regulation with the data that’s being shared by the platforms,” Griffitts said.
Samantha Padgett, the V.P. of government relations for the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, said a major problem with the short-term rental market in Florida is the gap between what is licensed in the state of Florida and what is actually advertised by the platforms, with the unit’s operating in that gap violating state law.
“That violation is not the responsibility of the vacation platform,” she said. “However, they are the best positioned to facilitate a meaning actionable solution to this issue. HB 1537 currently requires quarterly reporting. However, it does not require the reporting of a physical address of a unit. And while there’s no requirement for a physical address of a unit, it will be nearly impossible for [the Department of Business and Professional Regulation] to match with what is listed with what is licensed.”
GOP Rep. Chip LaMarca represents Fort Lauderdale in the Florida House. He said that there is no more issue more important to his constituents than the issue of vacation rentals.
“I could quantify the emails on social bills, on firearms issues, on abortion, on people individual rights and freedom, they wouldn’t cumulatively add up to as many constituent emails and concerns and calls and people reaching out on this issue,” he said as he voted no on the bill.
Okaloosa Republican Pat Maney also said he had serious concerns about the bill but voted for it on Thursday. He said he was unsympathetic to some local governments concerns about the issue, however.
“Frankly it’s a little frustrating for local government to beat us up over preemption when they don’t do their job and exercise their police powers,” he said. “They have the police powers to control noise, to control trash, to control parking, and if they won’t do it, they shouldn’t complain when the state decides to get an eight- or nine-hundred-mile-long screwdriver and tighten the screws.”
After the Legislature passed the 2011 law prohibiting local governments from enacting any restrictions on vacation rentals, pushback from city and county officials forced the Legislature in 2014 to allow local governments to handle problems like noise, trash, and parking, but still prevented them from regulating the duration or frequency of rentals.
Nearly every year since then, legislators have attempted to pass new regulations, but have come up short every single time. While this might be the year, some caution should remain. Last year, the bill died on the floor of the Senate on the last day of session.
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