City Council committee on regulating vacation rentals hears from hosts, opponents and industry lobbyists
At the start of the Nov. 15 special committee meeting on short-term vacation rentals, Committee Chair and District 11 Councilman Danny Becton stated his goal was to leave the meeting with a template to begin crafting legislation that will provide guidelines for the city departments which will oversee the popular trend of renting private homes for short periods.
Reminded of his promise at the Oct. 22 meeting that public comments would be heard first, Becton rearranged the agenda to allow 16 people to share their thoughts. Of those who spoke, four were outspokenly against allowing short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods, nine were current or former AirBnB hosts, and the other speakers indicated support for local control over the practice.
By the end of the meeting, following an hour of public comment, and another hour discussing considerations for local regulations and ordinances in other cities, Becton didn’t have his template, but he did have offers from vacation rental industry platform providers to assist in creating the legislation by sharing what they feel are best practices in the industry.
“I’m happy to work with you to figure this out, to create a definition for what’s considered an owner-occupied short-term rental,” said Kenny Montilla, a policy associate with AirBnB. “I’m happy to send the council some language I’ve been working on, what I’ve seen in other jurisdictions.”
For Avondale resident Colin Thakkar, those words are akin to letting the fox into the henhouse. “AirBnB’s strategy is they are taking advantage of the fact the cities and counties don’t really know how to enforce their laws, so they are basically offering to enter into agreements to do what they are already legally required to do in exchange for local governments to change the zoning laws,” he said in a separate conversation with The Resident.
Thakkar is currently at odds with a neighbor who moved out of Avondale but is renting the home for short stays. “We want our kids to be able to play in the front yard and the driveway. The houses are really close together. Not knowing who it is, is the problem, not just the times when there’s a loud party. That’s frustrating,” he said.
American dream, neighborhood nightmare
The ideal that everyone should have an opportunity to achieve success through hard work, determination and, apparently, short-term rentals, appears to be butting heads with property owners who fear for the safety, well-being and integrity of their neighborhood.
One of those who spoke at the meeting against short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods was Ortega Forest resident Karen Rebello, who said a real estate company had purchased the house across the street from her in 2014 and turned it into an AirBnB site. Since then, she said she has dealt with cars parked everywhere, doors slamming at all hours of the night, garbage strewn across the lawns because the bags were not placed in bins, and renters picking fruit from her trees. Rebello said during Hurricane Irma a renter came to the door asking for help because she could not reach the host, who does not live onsite.
“My concerns are for security. Is the man I see leaving with a small boy his father, a kidnapper, or a sexual predator?” she asked.
Rebello said she complained to code compliance, met with her councilman, and wrote her homeowners association, but said the issues have continued.
Terry Moore, a real estate attorney who served for seven years on the City’s Housing Commission and the Duval County Housing Authority under two mayors, stated the committee members were being induced by the promise of tax revenues from AirBnB, VBRO and others to deal with them and allow them into the city. “They don’t vote here, they don’t live here,” he said. “They are involved in this business for profit and have been here for a number of years in our city. Our General Counsel’s Office has said this is an illegal activity. You cannot run a hotel, a transient rental on residential property. I’ve heard people talk about property rights, but there are six, seven, eight houses affected by it. Property rights are mutual and there is an expectation when you buy a home that the zoning code will be enforced.”
Moore urged the committee not to do anything at this point, but to go through legislation, through publicly-elected officials at the state level and get state relief.
Proponents for short-stay vacation rentals spoke about their experiences as hosts, some saying renting rooms or the whole house was necessary to make ends meet, others indicating it provides an affordable solution for people, such as students and seniors, who are on limited budgets when traveling.
One host, who lives in Arlington, said he has had guests from 12 countries and business travelers from all over the U.S. “AirBnB is not the devil, but helped me avoid foreclosure,” he said. Jacob Southard, another host, is a Navy vet and now a student, said hosting helps him make ends meet. He began as an owner-occupied host, but now rents the whole house and hasn’t experienced anything negative.
Avondale resident and former host Donna Lewis said it’s important to maintain absolute local control and important to distinguish between local hosts and corporate hosts. “It’s an important issue for the tourist trade. It really enhances the travel experience, to get to know a neighborhood and the best of what a neighborhood has to offer,” she said. “But it’s important to make a distinction because there is a qualitative difference between commercial entities that operate many, many, many units and compete directly with the hotel industry, and the little people who live on site. It’s important to distinguish between the institutional operators and the local, live-in operators who have a vested interest in their neighborhoods. I’ve had no complaints whatsoever from the neighbors. It enriches our neighborhood to have people come here to experience it and then want to live here.”
Nancy Powell, board chair for Riverside Avondale Preservation, and Jacksonville Beach Mayor Charlie Latham, both advocated for local control over the short-term rental industry.
“This committee, and our city, has to implore upon our Duval Delegation and the industry to take back local control of this issue,” she said. “The Florida League of Cities has advocated for this.
“As I understand the current laws, it is legal in certain zoning districts, any that allow hotels,” Powell said. “Encouraging them downtown seems to make a lot of sense and is already legal. At the same time, there are certain zoning districts that allow bed and breakfasts; you could also clarify that any zoning district that allows bed and breakfasts can apply for an exception and it can be legal and this is without any changes [in the law].”
She also said state laws are preempting reasonable restrictions that could be done and the City should take heed of the lessons learned from other cities as to the real impact to established neighborhoods as regards investor-owned properties. “In Savannah, for 40 percent of investor-owned properties, the owners live not only outside of Savannah, but outside the state,” Powell said.
Latham said the lobby for the short-term rental groups has been very strong. “We have to be the loud voice by working together to go Tallahassee to get local control,” he said. “We have to respect all property rights, but it’s no small problem.”
The task at hand
The committee, which includes District 14 Councilman Jim Love and District 8 Councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman, who was not present, have a lot of variables to work through before introducing legislation to City Council in 2019.
Among the issues are the legalities of short-term rentals, also known as short-stay vacations, in residential neighborhoods; limits on frequency and duration of stay; ADA compliance and other safety requirements; whether homeowners would be permitted by right or by zoning exception; whether a license and/or certificate of use would be required; whether the City of Jacksonville should establish a maximum number of short-term rentals, and whether the venue must be an owner-occupied property.
Regarding licenses, Thakkar pointed out state licenses are currently required but is not really enforced. “For the homeowners it should be concerning because most don’t have any idea a license is required; it’s a misdemeanor in the second degree with up to a $1,000 fine the first occurrence,” he said.
Following public comment, the committee heard from Folks Huxford, the City’s Chief of Current Planning Division; Jason Teal, Deputy General Counsel for the City, and Bryan Mosier with Municipal Code Compliance. Huxford offered a list of talking points for the committee to consider, including owner-occupancy requirements, public notices when a location applies to become a short-term rental host, among other considerations.
Teal walked the committee through a matrix of regulatory ordinances enforced in other tourist destinations, such as Asheville, Charleston, Denver, Orlando, New Orleans and Savannah, while Mosier noted there are challenges to code enforcement, but which are diminished for owner-occupied sites.
“If you’re going to require registration of those properties it’s obviously going to take a good bit of manpower to keep track, monitor, accept and process applications, etc.,” said Mosier. “As far as enforcement, we’ll enforce it indiscriminately and without prejudice. There may be less issues with the owner-occupied rentals; it’s much easier to enforce when they are right there on the property.”
The meeting concluded with comments from AirBnB’s Montilla and from Paul Seago with Expedia Group, who urged the committee to keep the registration process simple for hosts.
As long as it’s something simple, something someone can do online, in 10 minutes to hour, not three weeks to register or put a property on AirBnB or any other platform, it shouldn’t take that much time to register,” Montilla said. “Our main role is to create an environment that allows you to preserve the quality of life for your residents, but also create an environment where it’s easy for people who want to conduct the activities and do so responsibly. Having us entering these types of agreements is one less thing our hosts have to worry about, one less thing the county has to worry about. It’s in our best interests as well to make sure that this is being done correctly,” he said.
Paul Seago, with Expedia Group, which does whole-home rentals, reiterated Montilla’s suggestion the regulations should be simple and easy to understand, a simple check list. “No one wants this to be the Wild West, where there’s no regulations,” he said. “Define what a bedroom is and define the maximum occupancy in the house, so you don’t end up with ‘warehousing’. Name a responsible party and a time limit in which they must respond to complaints.” Those are some of the things, he said, that make this rental a more seamless experience for the traveler and also for the local neighbors. “We’re looking for fair and easy to comply with.”
Becton has not set a date yet for the next meeting of the special committee. In the meantime, if you have an opinion to share about short-term rental opportunities in residential neighborhoods, send your thoughts to [email protected].
By Kate A. Hallock
Resident Community News
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