Senate panel hears values of vacation rentals, mulls regulations

After hearing a cavalcade of criticisms of short-term vacation rental homes in Florida two weeks ago, the Florida Senate Community Affairs Committee heard many positives Tuesday morning, while deliberating whether there need to be any state regulations.

The committee’s workshop on vacation rental homes was extended from its initial hearing of the 2018 Florida Legislative Session due to an overwhelming number of speakers requests, and many of those who came forward Tuesday were owners of vacation rentals who testified that their properties were great for their communities and great for themselves.

The issue is whether people who rent out a bedroom, or a house or condominium unit, for a few nights at a time to visitors need to be held to the same standards as businesses that operate commercial bed and breakfast inns, hotels, and motels. In the 2017 Florida Legislative Session the Legislature restricted local regulations under the argument that municipalities were getting unfairly out of hand cracking down on vacation rental homes. But now the issue of statewide rules emerges.

State Sen. David Simmons, a Republican from Altamonte Springs, particularly seemed interested in developing some statewide codes to keep vacation rentals from becoming so commercial that unlicensed facilities compete directly with licensed and heavily-regulated facilities such as bed and breakfast inns. He inquired about whether there could be an objective standard of amount of nights, 30, 45, or some other number, in which a vacation rental would be considered a commercial property.

But Simmons, too, appeared swayed by numerous stories of vacation rental hosts such as Lisa and Mark Robertson, who rent out bedrooms in their Destin home through the Airbnb vacation rental marketing company.

Lisa Robertson disputed claims made by critics that unregulated vacation rental homes offer the prospects of such problems as bedbugs, party houses, trash problems, parking violations, and safety concerns, saying those are politically-motivated, disingenuous allegations aiming to “stomp out this innovative, forward-thinking industry.”

She and others testified that Airbnb and like vacation rental marketing companies such as HomeAway have created commitments to excellence, and any hosts who don’t live up to those standards can expect to be punished with bad reviews, when the hosts’ operations thrive or whither based on reviews.

“We are in fact the good neighbors who want to share our world, and actually want to make the world a better place to live,” Robertson said. “We know our community and we want our visitors to love our community also.”

She, like several others, argued that state rules might be acceptable, provided they are fair and reasonable.

Simmons and others focused some attention on Flagler County, which has administered regulations of single-family homes and duplexes, which Flagler County Commissioner Greg Hansen called “a very workable set of regulations which everybody in Flagler County agrees with. They like what we are doing.”

Those regulations require vacation rentals to obtain county certificates and pay bed taxes, to obtain a Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation license as a transient public lodging establishment, and to meet various standards for swimming pools, sleeping rooms, parking, and various services.

“I think we’re doing it right,” Hansen said. “And if you talk to the people who are regulated in our county, I think they agree.”