TALLAHASSEE – Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed proposed state legislation that would have significantly hindered city and county governments’ ability to regulate short-term vacation rentals locally.
The Florida Legislature proposed the vetoed legislation earlier as Senate Bill 280 and House Bill 1537. Legislators sought to preempt short-term vacation rental regulation and vacation rental advertising to the state, with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation serving as the statewide administrative and enforcement entity.
Sen. Nick DiCeglie (R-St. Petersburg) sponsored SB 280 and State Rep. Philip Griffitts Jr. (R-Panama City Beach) sponsored House Bill 1537. Sen. Jim Boyd (R-Bradenton) and State Rep. Will Robinson Jr. (R-Bradenton) supported the vacation rental preemptions sought in the matching bills.
The proposed legislation also included a controversial carve-out that would have allowed Flagler County to continue enforcing its existing vacation rental regulations.
Veto letter
At approximately 6:30 p.m. on June 27, DeSantis sent Secretary of State Cord Byrd a letter informing him of the veto.
“Beyond creating new bureaucratic red tape that locals must comply with, CS/SB 280 prevents local governments from enforcing existing ordinances or passing any new local measure that would exclusively apply to vacation rentals. Under the bill, any such measure must apply to all residential properties. The effect of this provision will prevent virtually all local regulation of vacation rentals even though the vacation rental markets are far from uniform across the various regions of the state,” DeSantis stated in his letter.
“Going forward, I encourage the Florida Legislature and all key stakeholders to work together with the understanding that vacation rentals should not be approached as a one-size-fits-all issue. For these reasons, I withhold my approval of CS/SB 280 and do hereby veto the same,” DeSantis wrote.
Anna Maria discussion
Around the same time DeSantis vetoed the legislation, Mayor Dan Murphy told Anna Maria City Commissioners the city’s lobbyist, Matthew Blair, remained optimistic the governor would veto the bill.
Murphy said seven opposition campaigns recently initiated through the city-owned HomeRuleFl.com website resulted in approximately 3,000 letters, emails and phone calls being directed to DeSantis and his staff.
“The raw nerve was the Flagler County carve-out. There’s no logical explanation for the carve-out of Flagler County other than it’s the home of the speaker of the house (Paul Renner) and home to a relatively powerful senator (Travis Hutson),” Murphy said.
He also addressed the “pork chop” legislation references contained in the emails sent to DeSantis. He noted the Tampa Tribune newspaper coined the phrase “pork chop politics” many years ago while covering the patronizing and self-serving actions of Florida politicians who made laws that excluded certain people while impacting most others.
“It’s a lousy way to do politics,” Murphy said.
Island reaction
Later that evening, after learning of DeSantis’ veto, Murphy sent an email to city commissioners and others that said, “Congratulations commissioners and staff. Our governor vetoed the vacation rental bill tonight. I so much appreciate all of your support with our campaigns and efforts to stop this poorly thought-out piece of ‘pork chop’ legislation.”
Friday morning, Home Rule Florida distributed an email thanking subscribers for their efforts.
“Thanks to you and your thousands of letters and phone calls made to the governor, he saw that this was ‘pork chop’ legislation and simply bad policy. It’s amazing what we can do when we all pull together. The ‘pork chop’ has been chopped,” the email said.
When contacted Friday morning, Holmes Beach Mayor Judy Titsworth said, “I was out of town when I received the news. I am eternally grateful to the governor for allowing us to continue to self-govern and retain our ability to regulate our vacation rental industry accordingly.
“The ability to regulate with daily fines allows us to bring all into compliance. The bill that was passed would have circumvented all regulations we have been able to use to restore the balance in our residential districts,” she said.
“Regulating this commercial industry in our neighborhoods is crucial in maintaining quality of life for our residents and to maintain our full-time population. This is crucial for our churches, our commercial and professional economy and our schools. The ability to enforce occupancy and length of stay would have been the biggest concern of this bill. It pretty much took all the tools out of our toolbox,” she said.
“I thank all those who wrote letters and participated in the Save Home Rule campaign. We are gaining residents in our city and it has everything to do with our ability to self-govern on quality-of-life issues. There is a lot to be said about being on the right side of history. I wish more leaders would figure that out,” Titsworth said.
Holmes Beach Police Chief Bill Tokajer said, “The mayor and I are ecstatic that the governor vetoed this bill and left it to the local governments. We, as a city, are doing a tremendous job at monitoring our vacation rentals for safety for our visitors and residents alike. We also want to thank all the citizens from Holmes Beach and Anna Maria Island that reached out to the governor asking for the veto of this bill. A village came together on this and it is much appreciated.”
When contacted late Friday morning, Murphy said, “I was elated that we were able to once again stop this legislation from going forward. It shows that when we all work together, we can accomplish great things. This is an illustration of the power of the people and getting the message up to the governor. I’m extremely grateful to the governor for having vetoed it and for listening to the people who would have been impacted by this legislation. This was a statewide effort and HomeRuleFl.com played a large part in getting that message out.”
Regarding the proposed legislation, Murphy said, “The heaviest impact would have been pulling away the occupancy limits. For us, that would be an overnight increase of approximately 30% in terms of occupancy in our city. We don’t have the infrastructure for it. We don’t have the parking, the police, the sewer, or the water to cover a 30% increase. You could absorb it over time, but to pull the plug on us overnight is wrong. That was poorly thought out by Sen. DiCeglie,” Murphy said.
The proposed legislation would have allowed local governments to still conduct an initial inspection of a vacation rental property but would not have allowed annual follow-up inspections.
“That shows you how little the author of this bill knows about the vacation rental business. It doesn’t make sense,” Murphy said. “These homes experience constant turnover week after week. Things wear out. Things get broken. People will cram as many people as they can into a home. We find rooms with no egress, with smoke detectors underneath fans, with pool alarms and pool fences missing and those types of things. That’s not safe. This is not one-size-fits-all. Anna Maria, Orlando, St. Augustine and the panhandle attract different types of visitors.”
Despite this year’s success, Murphy expects the legislative battle to continue.
“It’s going to be back next year and the year after that,” he said. “They’re not going to go away, but fortunately the governor and his staff have enough wisdom to see this is not in the best interest of the State of Florida. It’s not in the best interest of the visitors and it’s not in the best interest of the voters. It’s in the best interest of out-of-state corporations like Airbnb and VRBO.”
Murphy will not seek reelection this fall and this was his final vacation rental battle with state legislators. During his 10 years as mayor, he repeatedly led Anna Maria’s annual efforts to defeat the Florida Legislature’s failed preemption attempts. He will soon turn those duties over to Anna Maria’s next mayor, Mark Short or Brian Seymour.
“I feel good that we have two candidates for mayor that are qualified to carry this fight on. We’ve got a good staff that’s trained and knows how to use these tools and we’ve got a good lobbyist. That’s what it’s going to take,” he said.
