“This is the final straw,” Bradenton Beach resident and planning and zoning board member Frank Harrison said Jan. 25. “If you’re tired of the war, lay down your sword and it’s over for you.”
Harrison, who has lived in Bradenton Beach for 42 years, was referring to the fight to regulate short-term vacation rentals he and others claim are taking over island neighborhoods and driving out residents.
Harrison said he and his wife have a date to close the sale on a new home on Longboat Key in March. “We built our house here with our own hands, but we just can’t take it anymore,” he said.
State Sen. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, filed a bill Dec. 16, 2016, that would prevent local governments from enacting new regulations for vacation rentals and would remove vacation rental ordinances adopted after 2011.
Steube’s bill — SB188 — states, “A local law, ordinance, or regulation may not restrict the use of vacation rentals, prohibit vacation rentals, or regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals based solely on their classification, use, or occupancy.”
Currently, cities can adopt ordinances to regulate vacation rentals, stopping short, however, of regulating frequency and duration of stay.
When asked Jan. 19 what he thought of Harrison’s claim that large vacation rentals are destroying residential neighborhoods on Anna Maria Island, Steube said, “Let them make ordinances, but they have to be the same for everyone, not just vacation rentals.”
Steube said local regulations on short-term rentals violate an owner’s property rights.
Island residents say the constant flow of visitors is ruining the character of the island.
Sissy Quinn is a 25-year resident of Anna Maria and president of the Anna Maria Island Preservation Trust, a nonprofit that has been documenting historic sites on the island since 2009.
“I have friends that live alone and they are worried because they don’t have neighbors next door anymore — just people that come and go from week to week,” Quinn said. “Your neighbors are your community and now that’s being taken away.”
In a Jan. 23 email to Steube, Ron Travis, Holmes Beach resident and co-owner of ReMax Alliance Group of Bradenton, said the issue with short-term rentals on the island is a “private property rights battle between homeowners and investors.”
In an interview Jan. 26, Travis said, “I have nothing against rentals, I’m just opposed to putting 16 people into a duplex.”
“I have six of these rental houses around me and the Holmes Beach Police Department is wonderful, but they can only do so much about the noise complaints with new groups of renters coming in every week,” Travis said.
“I really don’t understand why the state would want to interfere — the cities know what is best for their residents and local rule should win out.”
Harrison said, “If your mind-set is the people in a community don’t have the right to determine their own rules and regulations, that’s really sad — you’re basically threatening a dictatorship.”