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2021 vacation rental registration fees set

2021 vacation rental registration fees set

Written by Joe Hendricks on . Posted in Anna Maria, Community News.

ANNA MARIA – Vacation rental owners in Anna Maria will be charged $58.52 per occupant allowed when paying their 2021 vacation rental registration fees.

The 2021 registration fees were established on Jan. 28 with the city commission’s adoption of Resolution 21-767. When presenting the resolution, City Attorney Becky Vose said the annual registration fees are based on how much it cost the city to regulate vacation rentals. She noted each fee is based on the occupancy allowed at that specific vacation rental.

“A vacation rental that has a small occupancy pays a whole lot less than some vacation rental that has a very large occupancy,” Vose said.

Mayor Dan Murphy has stated in past years that the registration fees are intended to be a break-even revenue source to cover the city’s costs and are not intended to be a profit generator for the city.

After noting the 2021 fee will be $58.52 per occupant allowed, Murphy said the lowest registration fee will be the $234.08 paid by the owner of a one-bedroom vacation rental that allows two guests in the bedroom and two additional guests. The registration fee for a six-occupant vacation rental home or unit in Anna Maria was $309 in 2020 and will be $351 in 2021, he added.

According to the fee chart included in the meeting packet, the owner of a 10-occupant vacation rental will pay a $585.20 registration fee. The owner of an 18-occupant vacation rental will pay $1,053.36. The highest fee listed is $1,697.08 for a 29-occupant vacation rental.

Murphy said the annual registration fees are developed based on the city’s vacation rental-related administrative costs, enforcement costs, legal costs, lobbyist costs and other costs associated with vacation rental regulation.

Those total costs are then divided by the total number of vacation rental occupancies allowed in Anna Maria. According to Murphy, there are about 630 vacation rental units in Anna Maria.

This year’s fee increase reflects the city’s increased legal costs, labor costs, administrative costs, and lobbying costs, he said.

He also said, “We’re doing some new things in the enforcement of the ordinance – the way that we’re tracking vacation rentals that fly under the radar. We’ve become a little bit more sophisticated in how we’re analyzing that data so that we can find people that are ignoring the ordinance.”

City proposes state vacation rental law

Written by Joe Hendricks on . Posted in Anna Maria, Community News.

ANNA MARIA – The city is going on the offensive in fighting for the protection of Florida cities’ home rule rights when it comes to regulating short-term vacation rentals.

City Attorney Becky Vose has drafted a bill that city officials hope will be introduced by supportive state legislators during the 2018 legislative session next spring.

“Becky has prepared a piece of proposed legislation that says municipalities and counties have the right to regulate vacation rentals as though they are a commercial enterprise,” Murphy told the commission on Thursday, July 13.

“Basically, what it says is cities and counties can pass ordinances designating vacation rentals as a commercial use and regulate them accordingly,” Vose added.

vacation rental
Large vacation rentals could be regulated as businesses, not residences. – Cindy Lane | Sun

Despite their commercial natures, the state currently considers vacation rental homes to be residential uses and state law limits how they can be regulated locally.

“We’ve had these discussions about vacations rentals being commercial enterprises for several years, so I don’t think there’s any mystique here,” Murphy said.

The mayor sought commission consensus to move forward with the efforts to get the proposed legislation introduced next year. This action is in response to two vacation rental bills that earlier this year unsuccessfully attempted to curtail local governments’ ability to regulate short-term vacation rentals.

“I will contact our lobbyist (Chip Case) and he will work with Flagler County, Dade County, Pinellas County and even in Orlando to get this out as our getting on the offense. If we sit here and wait, we’ll be playing defense again next year,” Murphy told the commission.

The city and its allies will need at least one member of the Florida House and one member of the Florida Senate to file the proposed legislation on their behalf.

Murphy said the Florida League of Cities (FLC) will host its annual conference soon, and he expects there to be a big push by members to protect home rule rights that pertain to local legislation and regulation in general.

Commissioner Carol Carter said FLC representative Amber Hughes attended the ManaSota League of Cities meeting earlier that day in Longboat Key and home rule rights were discussed.

“The plan is to make home rule the super priority in this 2018 legislative session. It sounds like it fits well with what we hope to do in taking the lead,” Carter said of the strategies to be discussed at the FLC conference in Orlando on Aug. 17, 18 and 19.

Commissioner Dale Woodland said he supports the city’s proposed legislation “100 percent,” and commissioners Nancy Yetter, Brian Seymour and Doug Copeland made that support unanimous.

“I’ll get with Chip tomorrow and we’ll get cranking on it,” Murphy told the commission.