Article Courtesy of The Sun Sentinel

By Tonya Alanez

Published March 28, 2014

TALLAHASSEE -- A man's home may be his castle, but neighbors complain it often turns into a revolving-door party palace when owners rent them out for short-term vacation stays.

Until now, there was little they could do. A 2011 law prohibits local governments from regulating, banning or creating new rules about vacation rentals. However, the state Senate on Wednesday moved to ease the law and the House is considering a similar bill.

The issue is of particular concern in South Florida, the nation's top market for short-term rentals, according to industry officials. In 2013 alone, 17 million tourists to Florida opted for the home-rental option and generated $31.1 billion for the Sunshine State's economy, according to a study conducted for the Florida Vacation Rental Managers Association.

But cities say there is a downside.

"Since cities lost the ability to regulate the time, manner and place of vacation rentals, we have just seen the constant negative impact on neighborhoods," Fort Lauderdale City Manager Lee Feldman said. "It's noise, it's traffic, it's parking, it's sanitation. Basically it's the commercialization of residential property."

Any property leased more than three times a year for fewer than 30 days at a time is considered a short-term rental.

One major vacation rental website, Vacation Rentals by Owner, lists 107 short-term rentals in Boca Raton, 176 in Delray Beach, 155 in West Palm Beach, 300 in Hollywood and 558 in Fort Lauderdale.

Cities which had rules in place before the 2011 state law went into effect were grandfathered in. That is the case in Boca Raton, where officials say problems are in check. Yet some homeowners, including Debora Oster in the Boca Harbour neighborhood, say the rentals are an issue, especially for "the people who live closer to it."

The Senate measure (SB 356) approved Wednesday would allow some local control -- but not the ability to restrict frequency of rentals or require minimum stays of more than seven days.

Opponents say the bill would open the door for cities and counties to create difficult regulations that could drive them out of business.

"The Senate sponsors have claimed that their bill disallows a prohibition of vacation rentals," said Paul Hayes, president of the rental manager's association. "That is simply false. Were this bad legislation to become law, vacation rental property owners could see their rights at the local level completely discounted."

Fort Lauderdale beach resident Robin Baker says neighbors have rights, too.

In January, she wrote a letter to Sen. Eleanor Sobel, one of the bill's co-sponsors, saying the proliferation of vacation rentals on her street "has turned our sweet little residential neighborhood into 'motel alley.'"

"Just imagine coming home to different neighbors every week or worse, every few days?" Baker wrote. "Imagine the garbage. Imagine the speeding cars. Imagine the lack of security. Imagine having 'unfamiliarity' in your own neighborhood."

The bill's sponsor, Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, said the new legislation is all about being fair.

"I'm not trying to put vacation rentals out of business; nobody is. It's too valuable to our economy," Thrasher said. "We just want a balance of regulations between the rights of the people who have them and the rights of the people who live around them.''

For instance, Fort Lauderdale would like to consider requiring registration of vacation-rental homes, limiting the number of vehicles and enforcing noise restrictions, Feldman said.

The Senate bill was co-sponsored by a trio of South Floridians: Sobel, D-Hollywood, Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, and Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach.

Sometimes legislation needs to be undone, Ring said.

"Sometimes we don't know the consequences until it's in our face," he said. "We shouldn't be telling the cities of Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale how to handle their vacation rentals. Let the residents of the cities make that decision, it's their homes, it's their communities."