- April 18, 2024
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Flagler County won't keep the power to revoke or suspend nuisance vacation rental owners' rental certificates, but it will be able to implement fines that begin at $1,000 per day and work their way up to $15,000 per day.
The County Commission made that determination at its regular meeting Jan. 11 as it reviewed vacation rental ordinances created last year and approved amendments. Meanwhile, litigation with vacation rental owner Steve Milo, who has opposed the county's attempts to regulate the industry, is ongoing.
The county removed from the ordinances its power to suspend rental certificates on the advice of its attorney, Al Hadeed, who explained that while the county issues rental certificates, the state issues rental licenses; so even if the county kept in its ordinances measures that says it could revoke or suspend a county rental certificate, Hadeed said to commissioners, "you can’t enforce them if there is an existing state license."
The language change removing the county's ability to yank vacation rental owners' certificates unnerved members of the public who showed up at the meeting to speak and feared the change would leave the county's ordinance toothless.
"When you talk about removing the revocation and suspension language, it almost calls into question, why (would vacation rental owners) get a license at all?" resident Jim Ulsamer said during the meeting's public comment period.
The county created the current ordinance after multiple residents complained that de-facto mini-hotels, some designed to be able to accommodate dozens of people, were operating in residential neighborhoods. A 2011 state law barred the county from regulating them, leaving neighbors without recourse to deal with the noise, traffic and trash the rentals generated.
Flagler County Commissioners Frank Meeker and Charlie Ericksen lobbied the the state legislature to change the law to let local counties and municipalities regulate the rentals, and the law was changed in 2014, allowing the county to create its ordinances.
"We are still working with local governments in particular and with some legislators who are interested in pursuing more home rule," Hadeed told the commission.
Within weeks of the creation of the local ordinance, Milo sued, seeking an injunction to keep the county from enforcing its ordinance. Circuit Judge Michael Orfinger denied Milo's request for an injunction, and the litigation is ongoing.
For now, the county's ordinance allows it to limit the number of renters a vacation rental owner can rent to to between 10 and 14, depending on the property; by 2021, all will be limited to a maximum of 10 renters. One amendment the commission approved at the meeting Jan. 11 allows the vesting status of a rental property to carry over to a new owner.
Commissioner Nate McLaughlin said he was concerned that without the ability to pull rental owners' rental certificates, the county's ordinances would be toothless.
"We have no real consequences here for bad behavior," he said. "And that’s my struggle; I feel like we’re at a gunfight with a spoon."
Hadeed replied that the county can still fine rental owners and levy a lien on properties if it needs to.
"When you look at the amended change ... and say, 'There’s no teeth, these people can act as just the wish and just ignore us,’ what you’re not seeing is the range of remedies that are included in there," he said. "I do not believe, sincerely in my legal heart, that we are weakening the remedies of our legal program with this change."
That statement didn't reassure members of the public who spoke during the meeting and noted that some of the rentals can make thousands of dollars per day — enough that fines in the hundreds of dollars may be a nuisance, but perhaps not enough to be seen as much more than the cost of doing business.
Commissioner Frank Meeker proposed a solution. Instead of starting fines at $200 and ranging up to $500, he said, the county could, under state statute, begin at $1,000 per day for a first offense and work up to $15,000 per day for a fourth offense.
"When we see that there's ... an intent to go out and ignore the rule, I want to make sure that the hammer’s hard," he said.
The County Commission voted unanimously to have county staff draft language increasing the fines as Meeker suggested.
The commission will have to vote once more on the ordinance to raise the fines before it is enacted.
