Responding to a surge of vacation rentals in certain parts of the city, especially the C-Section, and complaints from permanent residents around the rentals, the Palm Coast City Council will soon adopt regulations limiting occupancy, setting registration fees and restricting the parking of recreational trailers or boats. But the city continues to face competing tensions from permanent residents aggravated by the disruptions of vacation rentals and operators of the same rentals, who say the city is jeopardizing their livelihood.
The city has about 275 short-term rentals, give or take 10 to 25 every month, according to Palm Coast Chief of Staff Jason DeLorenzo. It is not clear how many are owned locally, and how many are corporate-owned.
Residents of the C Section have been pleading for months for strict regulations of vacation rentals. The Palm Coast City Council on Tuesday spent two hours working on what was to be the first reading of a vacation-rental ordinance. It also heard from short-term rental owners in a sustained counter-point to the complaints as owners pleaded with the council not to be too heavy-handed, unrealistic or intrusive with its rules, especially for people who rely on their Airbnbs for their income.
“We worked directly with counsel to make sure that we have a legally defensible ordinance, so as far as I know, is consistent with state law,” DeLorenzo said.
Based on the current proposal, occupancy would be limited to 10 people per rental, down from the 12 the administration proposed (two people per sleeping space, or room). Rental managers or owners will have to post their regulations prominently inside the rental, including information on trash pick-up, the name, address and phone number of the owner or property manager, an evacuation map, the location of the nearest hospital, and other such details. Renters will pay an initial $400 registration fee, renewable annually for $200. The regulations are substantially similar to those Flagler County enacted in 2015.
If the city’s estimate of short-term rentals is correct, the initial fee would generate over $100,000, but subsequent years would be less, while the annual renewal would generate about $55,000–not quite enough to pay for the additional code enforcement officer position.
The council focused especially on limiting occupancy to 10 people. “I think the maximum of 10 is going to eliminate a lot of other issues we’re seeing, including the [exorbitant] amount of trash that these that these STRS create, and the parking issues that they create,” Council member Theresa Pontieri said, using the acronym for short-term rentals.
Though permanent residents’ recreational trailers and boats may be parked in the driveway for up to three days, the council decided to prohibit that allowance for short-term renters. The city attorney counseled against that prohibition, as it would make the city vulnerable to litigation.
Renting a bed or one or more rooms, but not the whole house, would not be classified as public lodging under state regulations, and therefore would not require a license. That doesn’t preclude the city from requiring it. Council members are not yet sure on whether to require it or not. They’re awaiting legal advice.
Proposed regulations would also include safety requirements such as battery-powered emergency lighting of primary exit, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, and fire extinguishers. Sex offenders would be prohibited from renting or being part of a rental, though the mechanism to ensure that is not strong: the person booking the rental would be required to certify that no sex offenders are part of the rental party. The person making the booking for have to be background-checked. Pontieri suggested the owner of the rental would be responsible. “If you do violate that, I think that’s a one and done, you lose your license with us,” Pontieri said.
“I think, a bit of an illusion of safety here,” Council member Nick Klufas said. “But I do think eliminating their license and not allowing them to participate in our short term rentals in Palm Coast is absolutely the option.”
An Airbnb operator told them differently: “Well, somebody books at 11:30 at night. They show up at midnight, they leave at 8 a.m., they’re only here for a night,” the operator said. “We can’t do the background check for one second. Airbnb does not allow us to have their driver’s license, so we can’t do a background check. We can’t get a Social Security number. We’re not allowed to get that information, so we cannot do background checks via Airbnb. It’s not possible. We would not be allowed, we would not be able to rent via Airbnb, which is our sole income.”
The rentals will be policed by the city’s Code Enforcement Department through civil procedures. First-time violations will generate a warning. Subsequent violations will lead to fines, and ultimately, a case before the Code Enforcement Board for a hearing.
All this is predicated on the law staying as it is today. That’s nowhere near certain. If anything, the likelihood is that state lawmakers will do next year what they did this year: eliminate local regulations, and hope that this time, the governor won’t veto the bill. That would scrap Palm Coast’s regulatory efforts.
The state in 2011 deregulated vacation rentals in hopes of spurring the real estate industry, which at the time was reeling from the housing crash and the Great Recession. The deregulation led to a boom of vacation rentals in the Hammock, and a public backlash, which in turn led to a 2014 law that restored local control over short-term rentals. That law was written by Flagler County’s legislative delegation in response to pressure from the Hammock and Flagler County government. The subsequent ordinance Flagler County wrote became a model for other local governments across the state.
Since then, without fail, the vacation-rental industry has attempted every year to roll back local control. Lawmakers have introduced bills that would “pre-empt” vacation-rental regulation to the state, in essence invalidating most local regulations. Flagler County and other local governments fought the attempts every year, and succeeded–until this year, when lawmakers passed a bill that achieved what the short-term rental industry had been seeking for a decade.
Thanks to Rep. Paul Renner, the Palm Coast Republican who wielded his power as House Speaker on behalf of his home county, there was a carve-out in the bill: Flagler County was grandfathered, so its 2015 ordinance survived intact. Then, Gov. DeSantis vetoed the whole bill, making it a moot point–at least for now. Vacation-rental lobbyists are expected to file deregulatory bills again in the coming session. “There’s a possibility in that scenario that our law could go away,” City Attorney Marcus Duffy said.
To Mayor David Alfin, “if we put it into play based on history, the better chance we have of being grandfathered in with this.”
If numerous residents pleaded with the council for months to get an ordinance written, on Tuesday one resident complained: “Why are you trying to shove this down our throats so quickly?” But the council isn’t doing it quickly: Tuesday’s two-hour session was unusual for the way the council went through the proposal almost line by line. The council will discuss the ordinance again at a Sept. 24 workshop, where the public will again have a chance to weigh in. And the council won’t approve the ordinance on a second reading until October.
“We have an Airbnb out of our home. We’ve been doing this for nine years,” Kathy Davidson told the council. “We absolutely love what we do. We have a 4.9 rating. We’ve been super hosts for nine years. We have over 1,600 reviews. But your decisions affect us, and our Airbnb pays for our living, so your decisions affect us. Please consider what you’re saying and what you’re doing to the residents.” She said she lives at the house and oversees everything that happens. She also illustrated the problem of imposing rules such as a limit of two people per room. “We have families that come to our homes. I cannot tell children, parents, your mother, your father and your child is not allowed to be in that bedroom. What do we do with the child?”
A representative of the Canal Community Coalition, the local residents’ organization mobilized to advocate for a city ordinance, said the organization would favor a carve-out from the ordinance for people who live in their home and rent a part of it to vacationers. That would likely resolve several sticking points.
“We’ve actually seriously been considering selling our house, it’s that drastic,” another member of the coalition told the council. “There seem to be some people here who do manage their Airbnb as well. But in our area, there are three. One is well managed, the other two are a nightmare. So it’s unfortunate that some have to suffer for the others, but I’m afraid that that’s really the position that we are in, is that we want these in place to protect us.” He feared the proposed ordinance might not go far enough to protect permanent residents.
“These are not homes. These are businesses. They should be treated as such,” another resident said.
Meanwhile, “we will need time to build a process, we will need time to build the the applications, and we’ll need time for our existing short term rental operators to come into compliance,” DeLorenzo said. There will also be a budget impact. The council has agreed to add a code enforcement officer to existing staff to help police short-term rentals.
