“If you are ever in town, you should  come stay with us for a few days.”  How many people in Florida have either heard that statement or used it themselves.  At the end of the “few days”, your friends reciprocate by sending you a gift certificate to your favorite restaurant or in my most recent case, a gift from Omaha Steaks that will feed twenty.  I am sure the gift was at least $200.00.  Did I just rent my son’s bedroom to a friend for $200.00?  That wasn’t my intent.  Do I owe the 12 percent tourist tax on the value?  Did I just violate zoning and use my residential property for a commercial use?  What if I put an add on the internet that said you could stay in my son’s bedroom for $200.00?

A short term rental is a property that is rented more than three times per year for a term of less than thirty days.  Because of the proliferation of internet sites which connected the property owners with renters, this industry has exploded.  In 2011, the Florida  Legislature passed laws which prohibited local communities from regulating “short term rentals”.    In 2014, legislation was passed that allowed cities to partially regulate short term rentals but they could not prohibit the length of the stay or the number of times the owner could rent the property.  Those cities with an ordinance in place prior to 2011 were grandfathered and their regulations could be enforced. The City of Stuart does not have such ordinance.  Because this is a growing industry and there are very strong feelings by the operators as well as the neighbors impacted, there seems to be a never ending debate pertaining to the impacts and how to regulate them.  There are currently several bills in the legislature regarding short term rentals.  Some in favor of Air B&B and some in favor of the communities impacted by the industry.

Many communities have had terrible problems with these types of uses.   Imagine if you saved your whole life to purchase a retirement home on the beach and then, an entrepreneur built a five bedroom house next door that is rented to college students and other groups for one week at a time from December until May as well as randomly throughout the summer.  Every Saturday, those leaving put a giant pile of garbage bags on the curb filled with beer cans and trash left over from their vacation.  Later that day, a new group of 8-10 people arrive for the vacation they have been planning for a year. Within minutes of their arrival the stereo starts blasting, the party starts and it lasts for the entire week.  Of course the group arrived in 5 separate cars and they were towing a boat.  The cars are parked on the street and in the grass.  The music doesn’t stop and  most importantly, every day is the weekend because they are on vacation. Your need to sleep for work is an inconvenience and will likely be ignored.

That is a horror story.  There are also many rentals where a couple will travel to a community in one car, stay at a short term rental and be good neighbors.  They might shop at the local stores, dine in the restaurants and ultimately even purchase property in the same neighborhood.   Maybe, this example has less impact than a single family home because the vacationers dine out for their meals, have one car and don’t make demands on public services such as fire or police.   One of the draws of these types of rentals is that the landlord is not a corporate hotel and provides local insight into the community.  Sometimes the landlord and tenants become friends and stay in touch.  However, even if the renters are good and don’t bother anyone, is it fair?

Is it fair for your neighbor to use his or her house as a commercial business but also maintain their homestead exemptions including tax protections?  Is it fair for them to offer lower rates than the local hotels because they don’t collect or pay the 12 percent hotel tax, they don’t pay workers compensation and they don’t have to maintain commercial insurance? Some argue that this forces the hotels to “up their game” and offer more competitive pricing.  Others argue that the operators of the short term rentals are gaming the system and placing burdens on the community such as garbage, parking, noise and other impacts that don’t belong in a residential neighborhood for their sole benefit.

Maybe it is a little bit of everything.  However, it is impossible to know how a short term rental on Osceola Avenue is impacting the neighbors if it is being regulated in the State Capitol seven hours away.  So far, Stuart has been lucky and there has not been a significant problem with disturbances caused by these uses.  But what if that begins?  Normally the solution would be easy.  The City Commissioners would hear from the neighbors and provide safeguards to protect the property rights of the owner of the parcel as well as the neighbors.  Unfortunately, as the legislature continues to dilute home town rule powers of the local governments, the ability to solve these problems diminishes as well.  Currently, Miami, Orlando and the City of Stuart are treated the exact same by those in Tallahassee even though we all know there are vast differences in how each location perceives tourists, traffic and other impacts.

There is no clear solution to the short term rental industry but the easy answer is that we should stop catering to the lobbyist on behalf of the internet companies that are profiting from the industry and put the regulation back in the hands of the locals the understand the idiosyncrasies of each neighborhood.