Four months after it directed its attorney to draft it, the Palm Coast City Council again delayed approving the city’s first-ever vacation-rental ordinance as numerous issues and new proposals arose after the latest draft, which was due for a first read on on Tuesday. Instead, the council agreed to table it and schedule another workshop in December or January, when three new members will be on the council.
“This is turning into a monster,” Mayor David Alfin said. He is one of the three who will be off the council by then, along with Ed Danko and Nick Klufas. “Is it possible that we have a phased approach and we get way better on day one and then fine tune it as we move forward? Or are we looking to perfection on the first round here?” It was not. Not yet.
But the council won’t have much more time after December or January to squeeze in the required two readings of the ordinance for it to take effect. The Legislature will be back in session on March 4, with one certainty: there will be another attempt, as there has been every year since 2014, to deregulate the short-term rental industry, primarily by preventing local governments from regulating it in most regards. Such a bill passed this year but the governor vetoed it.
Palm Coast is racing the legislative clock, because even if a deregulation law was approved, it is hoping that Palm Coast’s ordinance may be grandfathered in. Alternately, if a state law clears the governor’s desk without grandfather clauses, Palm Coast’s ordinance will itself have lasted no longer than a vacation.
The ordinance’s latest version limits occupancy to 10 guests. Council members want a caveat: younger children should not be part of the tally. Recreational vehicles, boats and trailers may not be parked in the front of the house, except for temporary loading, unloading and cleaning. But that’s an issue for some rental operators.
Whoever books the rental must have a background check and certify that all guests are not registered sex offenders. Council members debated that clause with an unclear outcome. “I’m up in the air on whether or not, if there’s a platform that already does a background check, should we allow that to fly without requiring our own background check?” Council member Theresa Pontieri said. “I don’t know, because they allow for that appeal process. So can we really rely on that? I’m not sure, but I want to give them a fair shake.”
Pontieri was also interested in the city providing the kind of resource to residents that would enable them to make complaints about short term rentals, along with a list of short-term rentals’ contacts. “Our residents need something. Even if we do have a 24 hour, seven-days-a-week person, how do they get that contact information?”
Pontieri’s district includes the C Section, which has a concentration of short-term rentals because of the canals’ attraction. It’s C-Section residents who, along with a still-barely-open window in state law, pushed the council to draft the city’s first-ever short-term rental ordinance. Permanent residents have been exasperated by the sharp increase in such rentas in their midst, just as Hammock residents had been at the beginning of the last decade, which led Flagler County to draft a pioneering regulatory ordinance. C-Section residents “still have a lot of concerns,” Pontieri said, “but I’m trying to balance their concerns with what’s reasonable and with our STR owner.” STR is the acronym for short-term rentals. A segment of the city’s website devoted to information and a complaint process “would really go a long way,” she said.
As drafted, the required application every time guests book a rental asks for details on the guests, including the name and ages of all occupants, the designation of a “responsible party” to respond to routine inspections and complaints (which must be answered within two hours), provision of a 24-hour phone number of the owner, the property manager, and a secondary contact person, in the event the owner and property manager are not available, allowances for city inspections, compliance with the noise ordinance, and several other registration requirements.
Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms are required, as are portable fire extinguishers and exit and battery-powered emergency lighting lasting at least 90 minutes after power goes out, and lighting the primary exit. Sleeping rooms or habitable spaces are limited to two people (there is no enforcement provision, and no provision for children who sleep in their parents’ room).
Apartment buildings are exempt, as are dwellings governed by a homeowner’s association or on-site property management. The exemption also applies to homeowners who run their short-term rental while living in that house, as long as the property is homesteaded.
“I do not want to exempt from this ordinance as a whole, STRs where the owner lives in the residence,” Pontieri said. “I think that maybe they can be exempt from certain aspects of this, but to just exempt them from all from this ordinance as a whole is completely unfair.” She said it could be abused as anyone could claim to live in a house, banking on a lack of inspections.
Some council members were uncomfortable with requests by residents to impose more stringent noise controls on short-term rentals than on houses at large. Those residents want a 50-decibel limit. Fifty decibel is the noise of normal conversation in an office or a house, or the hum of a refrigerator. Pontieri called it “overkill.” Residents also wanted the response time reduced from two hours to one, when a complaint is filed, and the imposition of a two-pet limit, though the city allows four in a household. Council members were not favorable to that limit.
Council members also wanted the clearer posting of certain advisory messages, whether it’s the leashing of animals, the keeping off of sea walls or the prevention of wandering onto others’ properties.
Kathy Davidson, an Airbnb host for 10 years in Palm Coast, cautioned the city “on the decisions that you make, because it could hurt the little guys. We are the little guys,” she said. “We’re not your big corporations. We’re doing everything right. We’re paying our taxes and stuff, and we’re doing what we’re supposed to do.” She lives in the house where she rents out five rooms. “That income right there pays for our house. So your decisions affect whether we have our house or not.”
Davidson had objections to the ordinance’s restriction on trailers. During Bike Week, bikers park their trailers in the driveway, so the trailer restriction would be a problem. She and other short-term rental operators also complained about the battery-operated emergency lighting requirement. Her husband also objected to more stringent rules. “The real problem is the parties, the loud music and trash. And there can’t be that many instances of that,” Davidson’s husband said. “I think the folks that are complaining, they have a legitimate complaint, but we’re making rules for something that doesn’t probably happen that much.”
The city is hiring an additional code enforcement officer to ensure compliance with the new ordinance. That cost, and whether the city will recoup it through registration fees, will be clarified at the next workshop.
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