Manatee County is drafting an ordinance to rein in short-term vacation rentals, and a new residents group formed over the issue wants a seat at the table when the proposal reaches commissioners in September.
The group, Manatee Concerned Residents, started in June and already counts about 500 members. Its founders and supporters filled the commission chambers July 28 to describe what living next door to an investor-owned rental has become.
Neighbors say large houses in their subdivisions are following an investment model that turns garages into bunkhouses and yards into miniature amusement parks — batting cages, putting greens, basketball, pickleball and bocce courts, pools, hot tubs, saunas, splash pads and outdoor theaters, lit and in use at all hours.
“I plead for your help today,” Pine Meadow resident Melody Rapier told commissioners, her voice wavering.
She and her husband, both retired musicians, used to listen to the birds and the wind chimes in their backyard, she said. Now they hear dribbling basketballs, pickleball volleys and party-volume music and chatter at all hours.
Live rats hide in her barbecue grill, she said, and dead ones float in the swimming pool. Trash bags are stacked against the fence on the neighbor’s side for a month at a time, and rats drag chicken bones into her yard, drawing her dog.
She’s had it, and she’s not the only one.
A neighborhood that knows its neighbors
Pine Meadow, in northwest Bradenton, is the kind of community where neighbors know each other and watch out for the children walking to and from nearby Stewart Elementary School, homeowners association spokeswoman Martha Flynn said.
Residents try to be considerate of one another. One was bringing in trash cans that an investor neighbor left at the curb for days at a time, Flynn said, until maggots turned up in them.
Renters are not as considerate, she said, setting up outdoor theaters in the backyard, playing court games late at night under bright lights and using unwelcome profanity.
Fear of retaliation keeps some neighbors inside. Others move. Some older residents who did not bargain for the disruption have sold and moved in with their children, their homes “snapped up” by investors, Flynn said.
Not every investor-owned house is a problem.
“I have two good investor neighbors,” Flynn said, adding that many nearby rentals run by local property managers work well.
But owners who manage their own rentals are taking out trees without permits, adding fill to backyards and creating drainage problems, she said, along with “mini-hotels” that hold far more renters than parking spaces.
“If they get it done fast, they succeed,” Flynn said. “They think if it’s behind a fence and code enforcement can’t see it, they can’t do anything about it.”
What the ordinance would do
Flynn is one of the residents with what the group calls “STR neighbor fatigue.” Another is Erin Davila, a founder of Manatee Concerned Residents, who also addressed commissioners July 28. The mother of two lives in a deed-restricted community that backs up to rentals outside its boundaries.
“People have abandoned retirement homes they’ve worked their whole lives for in search of peace,” she said. “This isn’t a few bad actors, and an HOA is no fortress.”
With as many as 30 guests allowed in some rental houses, she said, it is impossible to get her children through their homework, into bed at a reasonable hour and asleep through 2 a.m. basketball games.
The draft her group supports would cap occupancy at two guests per bedroom larger than 70 square feet, plus two more in common areas, with a ceiling of 12 guests no matter how large the house is. It would also require one off-street parking space, in a driveway or garage, for every four guests.
Violations of those and other provisions could cost an owner the county vacation rental certificate — suspension on a third offense, permanent revocation on a fourth.
Commissioners voted unanimously June 16 to have staff draft the ordinance, tailored to the unincorporated portion of the county. It is expected to come back for consideration in September, said Commission Chair Tal Siddique, who brought forward a similar ordinance that died.
The new version will cost less to carry out and still carries stiff penalties, he said.
“It’s all about starting with everything you want and compromising your way down to something reasonable,” Siddique told the standing-room-only chambers.
Commissioner Bob McCann, who opposed the original ordinance but spearheaded the new one, said the county has a chance to get it right.
“We can really address this problem and involve all the stakeholders and get it right,” McCann said.
“We ask for a seat at the table to collaborate with you,” Davila told commissioners.
Grassroots efforts
The Pine Meadow association has identified the owner of every property in the neighborhood and built a database of residents and non-residents, Flynn said. She showed commissioners a map of the rentals and described neighbors’ largely fruitless calls to county code enforcement and permitting offices and to the sheriff’s office.
“We are not experts. It wasn’t clear to us who to go to,” she said. “There is not one easy process.”
After the meeting, Flynn said the county should set up a short-term rental complaint service modeled on its 311 referral line — a single point of contact that would route complaints to the right department and track violations in one database.
She supports a new ordinance but said the county should enforce the rules already on the books in the meantime.
“We’ve heard multiple times that their hands are tied at the county” because state law reserves much short-term rental regulation to Tallahassee, Flynn said.
Local governments cannot ban rentals or regulate length of stay unless those rules were in their codes before 2011. They can regulate occupancy, noise and trash, and fire districts can enforce life safety requirements.
“We need existing policies and processes tightened up immediately,” she said.
While waiting on the county, the group is developing best practices for neighbors, Davila said. Members learned, for example, that outdoor basketball courts in the county cannot be lighted. They are also advising neighbors to ask deputies responding to noise complaints to stop at the complainant’s house first and listen from the backyard rather than from the street.
“There’s a lot they can do even with the state regulations,” she said.
Cindy Lane is a staff writer for the Tampa Bay Beacons. She can be reached at clane@tbnweekly.com.