Vacation rentals get new rules, fatter fees

Hollywood cites complaints about drunken partiers

HOLLYWOOD – Owners of party homes in Hollywood have a little less to celebrate.

While the state won’t let cities ban vacation rentals, they can hike fees. And that’s just what Hollywood did Wednesday, despite pleas from the real estate industry.

“We’ve seen homes with six cars out front,” Commissioner Dick Blattner said of the party homes that critics complain are ruining neighborhoods. “That’s not a home. That’s a boarding house.”

Residents have complained about noisy parties, trash-strewn streets and drunken partygoers who park their cars on swales —

all bad for property values, they say.

It’s an ongoing problem several cities have tried to crack down on, including Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Hallandale Beach, Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach and Wilton Manors.

Hollywood’s new regulations for vacation rentals do the following:

Require properties to undergo inspections to make sure they’re up to code; this includes a mandatory $225 inspection fee.

Increase registration fees from $200 to $500, with annual renewal fees rising from $150 to $350.

Require vacation rentals to screen for sex offenders. Properties within 1,000 feet of a school, day care center, park or playground can’t be rented by sex offenders whose victims were under 16.

Terry Cantrell, president of the Hollywood Lakes Civic Association, applauded the crackdown.

“This is no longer a home; this is a business,” he said of the vacation rental industry. “These are out-oftown and out-of-state businesses that are degrading our homes.”

But Adam Sanders, a spokesman for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Realtors, told commissioners that Hollywood’s fees are too high and will discourage compliance.

“These fees punish everyone for the actions of a select few,” he said.

Hollywood cracked down on vacation rentals in fall 2015 by requiring them to apply for licenses. Those that don’t comply face fines of $250 for the first offense and $500 for subsequent offenses. Vacation rentals with three offenses in the same year risk having their license suspended for one year.

But nearly two years later, only 90 of the 785 vacation rentals in Hollywood listed on industry websites have bothered to register, city officials say. They said properties have been cited but could not provide figures on Wednesday night.

In 2011, Florida passed a law prohibiting cities from banning vacation rentals. A bill that would have restricted what cities can do to regulate vacation rentals died during a recent legislative session, but is expected to reappear soon.

Hollywood Commissioner Peter Hernandez defended the new rules, saying they were a response to a loud outcry from residents.

“The city is not saying you can’t do business,” Hernandez said. “You have to do business with certain safeguards. Inspections seems to be the bad word for everybody in the room. Is it perfect? No. Is it a start? Yes.”

Commissioners gave unanimous approval to the latest changes over the summer and took a final vote on Wednesday.

Kimberly Donovan, a Hollywood mother of three, told commissioners a home in her neighborhood is being rented out to eight people at a time.

She’s worried about her children’s safety and liked the idea of a ban on sex offenders.

“Most of these people are not bad apples, but some of them will be,” she said.