Are complaints worth additional vacation rental oversight?

Of the 86 citizen-reported complaints about vacation rental activity in Sarasota since the inception of the program to require registration and enforcement of regulations in January 2022, all but four have been directed at rentals not covered by ordinance.

When the program was expanded from the barrier islands to single-family and multifamily residential zone districts citywide in February 2024, not included were Downtown Edge, Downtown Neighborhood and North Trail Overlay districts. And of those four citizen complaints, one was filed in Downtown Neighborhood and three in the North Trail. 

The question before the City Commission at its Dec. 1 meeting, then, was whether to expand the vacation rental ordinance again to include the three additional zone districts and if it’s worth whatever additional expense would be incurred to regulate the total of 82 units identified as vacation rentals by the city’s web-based monitoring system. And not all of those units would be subject to the ordinance as some are owner-occupied, which exempts them from the program.

The projected cost to staff and regulate the 574 registered vacation rentals going forward stands at more than $400,000 per year for a program that will generate an estimated $245,000 in revenue. The cost of expansion, Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch said, is a key point to consider.

Staff presented the commission with three options:

• Keep the vacation rental program as it exists today, applicable to Single Family and Multiple Family Residential zone districts citywide. 
• Direct staff to create an ordinance to expand the program to the Downtown Edge, Downtown Neighborhood and North Trail Overlay zone districts. 
• A hybrid expansion to one or two of the zone districts deemed most appropriate.

Commissioners unanimously approved directing staff to return with financial details of implementing the hybrid option. Not much would change for those vacation rental owners other than the cost to register and undergo initial safety inspections. All vacation rentals in single-family homes across the city are already required to host guests for a minimum of seven days.

“So is this pretty much continuing this,” said Commissioner Kyle Battie.

“Yeah to just to get more information about dollars and cents and what it will cost us, and whether it's worth or not,” said Ahearn-Koch, who made the motion.

As of now, the city has identified 62 vacation rental units in the Downtown Neighborhood, 17 units in the Downtown Edge and three units in the North Trail zone districts.