Indian Rocks Beach leaders urge DeSantis to veto vacation rental bill
INDIAN ROCKS BEACH, Fla. - Spring break is in full swing, and many visitors may be staying in vacation rentals.
State lawmakers are one step closer to regulating vacation rentals after approving a bill Thursday with the goal of cracking down on so-called party houses and disturbances. The bill, Senate Bill 280, is now on the way to Governor Ron DeSantis’ desk.
Judy Sexton-Bails, an Indian Rocks Beach resident, doesn’t want the governor to sign the bill, though, and wrote him a letter detailing why.
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"We’re such a small community, and we can take care of our own and our legislators, locally, our leaders have diligently worked on keeping our neighborhoods safe," she said.
Sexton-Bails has lived in the area for decades, but over the past few years, she said it feels like she has new neighbors every few weeks, finding herself surrounded by vacation rentals.
"We don’t know who they are. We don’t know if they’re here to do harm. We don’t know if they’re just here to party. We don’t know them," she said.
"I don’t begrudge anyone for coming to our great little town. I just don’t want them to come in such a deluge that we lose our peace and our tranquility," Sexton-Bails said.
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She said she has noticed positive changes when it comes to regulating so-called party houses, though, thanks to a city ordinance cracking down on vacation rentals that went into effect last year. She thinks SB 280, though, will derail the progress by putting the state in charge of regulating vacation rentals.
"We just need to keep big government out of our, particularly this situation, but in many situations, you have no say. It takes the say away, and it benefits the large investors that are coming in," Sexton-Bails said.
Indian Rocks Beach Mayor Joanne Cookie Kennedy and local city officials also wrote a letter to Governor DeSantis asking him to veto the bill.
"We stated the reasons that we believe that this is a local governance bill, the fact that this is not a one size fits all," Kennedy said. "And that each of our communities throughout the state are unique unto themselves."
"I'm concerned that they're not going to be able to regulate it. This is a huge issue … It's not just our community. It is communities across the state of Florida. There's 400 plus communities, many of which are having these issues," Kennedy said.
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Kennedy said local leaders in Indian Rocks Beach are also frustrated, because they worked on the city’s ordinance for more than six months to fight issues with vacation rentals.
"We wonder what would happen if there was a bad actor that several times had been a problem or had inspection issues. And if all of these kinds of, you know, the kinds of issues that come up before a city, how are they going to be able to regulate," Kennedy said. "It’s not like they're going to be able to fly down here at a minute's notice from Tallahassee and try to take care of these issues."
Senator Nick DiCeglie of Indian Rocks Beach disagrees with the mayor. He sponsored the bill.
"I think any time we have a uniform set of regulations, regardless of the activity, it creates predictability," he said. "So, predictability for local governments, for the local community, for the property owners, for the platforms. There's a level and consistent set of regulations from jurisdiction to jurisdiction," DiCeglie said.
He said the bill balances the needs of the property owners and regulating who he calls bad actors causing disturbances.
"This goes back to 2011, and I've reiterated that over and over again. I do that, because this bill did not create a new preemption, local governments have been finding it very difficult to figure out how to strike that balance," DiCeglie said.
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The law right now bans local ordinances passed after 2011 that prohibit vacation rentals or regulate how long or how often someone rents. This bill would let local municipalities create short-term rental registration programs, and would set a statewide overnight occupancy limit.
The bill would grandfather in regulations adopted by counties before 2016. Senator Jason Pizzo pointed out that that only includes the House Speaker’s district of Flagler County.
"Want to know why the public doesn’t have confidence in state government," Pizzo pointed out last week. "It’s because of that."
DiCeglie said the bill is modeled after ordinances like Indian Rocks Beach’s, and said state leaders will work with local leaders to regulate vacation rentals.
The decision is now up to Governor DeSantis to either sign it into law or veto.
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