INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — With only 10 days to go until the 2014 session of the Florida Legislature ends with the bang of a gavel on May 2, House Bill 307 designed to return the power to regulate short-term vacation rentals to cities and counties is still quite far from becoming law.
Business ground to a halt last week for Passover and Easter celebrations, but before Week Seven of session concluded on April 18 the bill had passed the Florida Senate in amended form, prohibiting local governments from setting any minimum stay requirements for renters of more than seven days. A different version of the bill had been approved by three House committees and was on the schedule for a full vote by the Florida House, but it was withdrawn prior to voting.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the bill had not yet re-emerged on the House calendar for consideration and the Senate bill as amended had also not been placed on the House calendar for a vote. If a vote is not taken next week, the bill dies for this session, but could be taken up in 2015.
Should the House adopt a different form of the bill than the Senate, a special conference committee tasked with reconciling similar but not identical bills could craft something acceptable to both bodies, sending that piece of legislation to Gov. Rick Scott. Scott, whose track record paints him as no friend of regulation, could veto the measure, also killing it for this year.
Meanwhile, the City of Vero Beach waits to defend its ordinance on the books in circuit court. Vero Planning and Development Director Tim McGarry said on Monday, “Haven’t heard anything more regarding the code enforcement case. Not unusual.”
The city council hired the South Florida law firm of Weiss Serota Helfman Pastoriza Cole and Boniske and filed suit to challenge an August 2013 ruling of the Code Enforcement Board in which the code board said the city’s provision prohibiting short-term rentals in residential areas was too vague to be enforced against then-Vice Mayor Tracy Carroll and her husband John.
The Carrolls had been cited and fined $50 for renting out their Camelia Lane home by the night to vacationers. The Central Beach neighborhood where the Carrolls’ rental property is located is in residential zoning, where the city says rentals of less than 30 days are not allowed.
Should the court rule that Vero’s code is indeed unenforceable, the city council would be prohibited from passing a new ordinance restricting vacation rentals because in 2011 the Florida legislature passed a law, which was signed by Gov. Scott, pre-empting the power to regulate vacation rentals. Cities, counties and towns were permitted to enforce whatever they had on the books as of June 1, 2011, but were precluded from stiffening their regulations after that.
Angst about vacation rentals, centered around the Carroll case, erupted last summer with the Indian River Neighborhood Association taking a staunch position against the practice. Despite the city council’s powerlessness to do anything to stop short-term rentals within the city limits, the promise to do just that became a battle cry in November’s city election.
House Bill 307 was introduced as a “repealer” bill because it was supposed to reverse the 2011 pre-emption of powers to the state. Should the session end with no compatible bill coming out of the House and Senate, the 2011 law giving those powers to the state would stand. Vero would have the option of trying to regulate the symptoms of or potential problems with short-term rentals – namely noise, parking or trash that is not in accordance with code – but it could not tell property owners that they cannot use their homes as vacation rentals per se.
The Florida League of Cities made the bill one of its legislative priorities to support this session. The League’s most recent update to its members, written by staffer Casey Cook concluded by saying that the bill “passed the House Regulatory Affairs Committee (14-4) and is now awaiting action by the full House. Senate Bill 356 passed the Senate (37-2) and is now ready for action by the House.”
