SARASOTA, Fla. (WFLA) — Sarasota City Commissioners look to make changes to appease neighbors on Tuesday.
City leaders will discuss expanding a barrier-island ordinance that would limit rentals throughout the entire city.
Parties, trash, and noise are all problems Sarasota neighbors are forced to welcome in when vacationers rent out what they call “hotel houses.”
“They just need to stop building them,” Neighbor Joyce Hart said.
Neighbors said many people have bought lots and built homes big enough for nearly a dozen people to comfortably stay in, often causing a disturbance in the neighborhood.
“You are losing your feel of your neighborhood,” another neighbor said.
With the approval of an expanded city ordinance, the city would regulate how many people could stay in short-term rentals.
It would be a number agreed on by the city and the homeowner.
“You lose the continuity of a friendly neighborhood,” Hart said.
The city is looking to hire more code enforcement officers to monitor the estimated 700 rentals throughout the city’s mainland. The expense would be paid through rental homeowners’ annual fees.
“The big companies, the mega vacation rental properties that they have them all over the barrier islands, they don’t care,” City Commissioner Erik Arroyo said.
Rental homeowners would have to pay double to become a rental and be charged a $350 annual fee, an increase from the current $150 fee.
“I don’t think raising fees to $500 is going to make any difference,” Hart said. “They need to just stop doing it.”
The commissioners were recommended to take a vote on these changes at their 9 a.m. meeting.
