Council Updated On Rental Registration Ordinance

Since the Marco City Council passed the Short Term Rental Registration Ordinance on the second reading of the citizen approved referendum in December of last year, city staff have been diligently working to pull together the implementation phase of bringing it online.

The old expression of “the proof is in the pudding” could well be used here as council would deal with a number of questions regarding how to most effectively and efficiently put the citizen passed initiative into effect.

James Kornas, the newly appointed Vacation Rental Program Supervisor attempted to bring council up to speed on the progress made since the first of the year and deal with a number of questions that have arisen.

For several councilors the focus would first lie with ensuring that the costs associated with the program would be directly paid for by the program itself. Throughout the discussions and debates surrounding the initiative, that would serve as a central point, and was a focus of those that had opposed it, such as Councilor Grifoni. At last night's meeting he would continue to come back to that point on several occasions as he did during the runup to the vote on the citizen initiative.

Other councilors such as Erik Brechnitz would also question Kornas as to the process being employed to ensure those costs were recovered in the appropriate manner. “Jim, I want to ensure a collection of the costs is in place to ensure that all those costs will be captured and charged back to the program and accepted as receivables from the city,” Brechnitz commented at one point.

Assistant City Manager Casey Lucius assured council that those hours being invested by city staff were indeed being accounted for and have been tracked since council’s approval of the initiative in December of 2022.

Some within the city staff, in response to concerns amongst property owners and rental agencies, would like to see a change to the definition of “transient public lodging establishments,” as it appears within approved Ordinance 22-08 as adopted by the City Council. 

That verbiage was taken directly from the State of Florida’s definition of the term, “transient  public lodging establishment” and was incorporated within the city’s ordinance. That simply reads; “Transient public lodging establishment” means any unit, group of units, dwelling, building, or group of buildings within a single complex of buildings which is rented to guests more than three times in a calendar year for periods of less than 30 days or one calendar month, whichever is less, or which is advertised or held out to the public as a place regularly rented to guests.

Assistant Manager Lucius explained that staff was seeking a clarification as to whether council was intending for staff to include residences for more than 30 days to be registered due to owners that may advertise rentals for more than the “less than 30 day period.”

Councilor Grifoni, in response to this point, would refer back to emails from the proponents of the ordinance which stated. “If you live in your home and you rent it for more than 30 days, this does not apply to you,” said Grifoni referring to the need for a property owner to “register” that property.

“That there will always be those that seek to find a way around the registration requirement,” said Alan Gabriel, the city attorney. “It will be Code Enforcement’s job to work through these to regulate and register those homes that are required to register under the ordinance,” continued Gabriel.

He concluded his remarks by saying, “Nothing we can write will satisfy everyone.”

At the end of the debate council chose to keep the language as it is.