ANNA MARIA – The city is increasing its occupancy-based annual vacation rental registration fee from $84.17 to $93.92 per occupant allowed by the local vacation rental ordinance.
The annual registration fee is established each year by the adoption of a city commission-approved resolution. The increased fees were established on March 14 with the adoption of city resolution 24-793.
The state of Florida defines a short-term vacation rental as any unit, group of units, dwelling, building, or group of buildings within a single complex of buildings that is rented to guests more than three times in a calendar year for periods of less than 30 days or one calendar month, whichever is less, or which is advertised or held out to the public as a place regularly rented to guests.
According to Anna Maria’s latest fee schedule, the owner or operator of a short-term vacation rental with a maximum allowed occupancy of four guests will now pay a $375.68 registration fee (4 x $93.92).
An owner/operator allowed eight guests will pay $751.36. An owner/ operator allowed 12 occupants will pay $1,127.04 and an owner/operator allowed 16 occupants will pay $1,502.72.
During Thursday’s meeting, Mayor Dan Murphy said he believed the highest occupancy allowed in Anna Maria is 22 occupants. This would result in a $2,066.24 registration fee (22 x $93.92).
City Clerk and Treasurer LeAnne Addy noted the annual registry fees are due on April 1 of each year.
“This is not a moneymaker for the city,” Addy told the commission. “It only covers the expenses we spend on vacation rentals, such as software, equipment, vehicles, enforcement, the Home Rule Florida website, the lobbyist, legal fees, inspection of the vacation rentals and administration fees.”
The city uses its Home Rule Florida website, www.homerulefl.com, to generate opposition email campaigns targeting state legislators and now the governor regarding the Florida Legislature’s ongoing efforts to preempt vacation rental regulation to the state and lessen the regulatory authority of local and county governments.
“It’s about a 9% increase over last year and the primary driver of that increase is the code rewrite we used for HomeFlorida.com,” Addy said regarding the increase.
Commissioner Charlie Salem said, “If we don’t collect this money from these vacation rentals we would have to get it from the taxpayers. This is an appropriate way for us to make sure that we’re not shifting the costs to residents. I’m glad we still have the ability to do this.”
The commission voted 5-0 in support of the fee increase.
STATE LEGISLATION
Anna Maria’s adoption of its annual vacation rental registration fees comes at a time when city officials are still waiting to see if Gov. Ron DeSantis will sign into law or veto legislation that would preempt the regulation of vacation rentals and vacation rental advertising to the state via the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
On Feb. 1, the Florida Senate adopted Senate Bill 280, as it was then written, by a 27-13 vote. On March 6, the Florida House of Representatives voted 60-51 in favor of a House-amended version of SB 280 that served as the House replacement for House Bill 1537.
On March 7, the Senate members voted 23-16 in favor of adopting the House-amended version of SB 280. The identically-matching legislation adopted by the House and Senate was then sent to DeSantis for his consideration.
House Bill 1537 originally proposed a $150 fee limit on first-time vacation rental registrations and a $50 per year cap after that. That fee cap language never appeared in SB 280 and it does not appear in the enrolled version of SB 280 sent to the governor. The enrolled final bill simply says local governments would be allowed to charge “reasonable” fees, without defining “reasonable.”
On March 14, Murphy told the city commission he planned to travel to Tallahassee this week to meet personally with DeSantis in hopes of encouraging him to veto the proposed state preemption.
“There are several things in that bill that could prove to be very impactful on our city. This bill allows for virtually an unenforceable amount of occupancy in vacation rentals. It’s two per bedroom, plus two (additional occupants), plus x-amount (of additional guests) if you have a certain amount of common area,” Murphy said when expressing some of his many concerns with the proposed state preemption.
When contacted Sunday afternoon, Murphy said he still expected to meet with DeSantis this week, but he didn’t yet have an exact day and time for that anticipated meeting.
