BRADENTON BEACH – No rental moratorium is in place in Anna Maria Island’s southernmost city.
Prior to the adoption of a resolution Thursday requiring residents and business owners to have structural and electrical inspections before occupancy is permitted, Bradenton Beach commissioners discussed and rejected a moratorium on rental properties in the city.
“The city of Holmes Beach is in a position where they’ve decided to look at it from the perspective of a moratorium for certain classifications of individuals who are coming to stay in the city,” City Attorney Ricinda Perry said.
The city of Holmes Beach issued a 45-day moratorium on rentals on Oct. 2. Holmes Beach is the only one of the three Island cities to enact such restrictions.
“A moratorium shuts everything down. There is nothing you can do even if you’re up and running and you’ve invested say, you’ve personally spent $5,000 with an inspector, you’ve spent $20,000 on Servpro getting it cleaned out and now you’re ready to go, it doesn’t matter. You couldn’t rent it until that moratorium is lifted,” Perry said.
Perry explained that a moratorium is an ordinance, while a resolution is a policy that can be put into effect immediately.
“This one is a lot more flexible. It lets you work within the timeframe that works for you as a property owner, and to me, it accomplishes the same goal – public health, safety and welfare – to make sure the structures are safe,” she said. “This does that but it puts it on your timeline as a property owner as opposed to the government’s timeline.”
Commissioner Debbie Scaccianoce expressed concerns about an influx of renters straining the city’s infrastructure and resources during the recovery process.
“Our roads aren’t really even up to par, but because people can afford to have all these inspections and we’re greenlighting them, now we’re having all this extra vehicle traffic and people to areas of our city that maybe aren’t really ready otherwise. I get it, we want to return to normal, but what about health and safety in a more general sense?” she asked.
Perry responded that if Police Chief John Cosby feels it is unsafe to have renters come in he will make that known.
“I am of the legal opinion that the state statute has pre-empted our ability to classify renters from a one-month resident to a one-year resident to a full-time resident. I don’t feel legally comfortable drawing a distinction on who is going to use the structure,” Perry said. “If that is something you really want to explore then I’m going to need to find some justification on the public safety and welfare threat as a whole when I don’t even have data on how many rentals will be up and running.”
Perry said that code enforcement can determine whether or not a property that is being occupied has gone through the inspection process.
“If not, then we can initiate the process to shut them down,” she said.
“So, if they go through the process right away and they’re good to go, they can rent?” Commissioner Ralph Cole asked.
“Correct. I do not feel comfortable having the distinction legally about who is in the structure,” Perry said. “What the statute says about treating residents differently from rentals, the statute does not tolerate that. I am uncomfortable segregating that classification. If it’s a building and a person in the building, I don’t care if they’re here for a week, I don’t care if they’re here for a month, I don’t care if they’re here for a year, the statute says that I have to look at it that way and that is my recommendation to not segregate and classify.”
Perry said a resolution can be easily modified.
“The nice thing about a resolution with this is we could come back at an emergency meeting and have a new resolution that tamps it down,” she said. “You can turn on a dime; I prefer to be as flexible as we can and see where we are on a week-by-week basis.”
Perry said retired city building official Steve Gilbert will assist current Building Official Darin Cushing.
“Steve Gilbert has been reaching out and gotten some people who will come down with him and work with Darin,” she said. “He loves our community; he was with us for 16 years. The suggestion he had was a little different from Holmes Beach’s approach, and it’s an approach that I really like and that Darin really likes.”
A resolution was passed unanimously by the city commission requiring structural and electrical inspections before occupancy to be done on homeowners’ timelines. It consists of the following three components:
No occupancy will be permitted in any structure until the following conditions are met:
- Structural inspection: Any structure built after Dec. 31, 2002, shall be inspected by a Florida-licensed general contractor to determine if it is safe to occupy; and any structure built prior to Dec. 31, 2002, shall be inspected by a Florida-licensed engineer to determine if it is safe to occupy.
- Electrical inspection: All structures shall be inspected by a licensed electrician to determine if they are safe to occupy.
- In the event alternative inspections are needed, or alternative procedures for safety are needed, then the building official may in his determination provide an alternative process to determine if a structure is safe.
City permitting fees will be waived, and Cushing has the ability to issue emergency hand-written permits.
