- December 18, 2024
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After over four months of amending and tweaking, the Palm Coast City Council has approved the first of two votes needed to install its new short-term vacation rental policies.
"We're coming in the middle. We're coming to a compromise," Mayor Mike Norris said of the ordinance.
The council voted 4-0 approved the ordinance on Dec. 17, with council member Ray Stevens absent from the meeting. The ordinance, once approved in a second vote, will go into affect March 3.
The policy requires STRs to file for rental licenses through Palm Coast and outlines policy requirements owners, operators and renters must abide by, including parking requirement, trash disposal, occupancy standards and background checks.
Background check requirements was one item that had seen several revisions over the last several months. While initially the previous council wanted to require background checks for every individual staying in a STR, STR owners pointed out they had no realistic way to complete that requirement.
Operators also said often times they get as little notice as just one day to prepare for renters, which is not enough time to perform a background.
After researching and connecting with rental platform representatives and STR owners, city staff and the council instead narrowed the background checks to just the individual renting out the property and accepting the background check performed by the rental platform as sufficient.
The person renting the property, though, does need to certify that no one else in their party is a registered sex offender, according to the ordinance.
Parking, occupancy and noise ordinances have been another sticking point for residential neighbors who have had issues with STR properties. The new ordinance limits occupancy to two people per sleeping space with a maximum of 10 people total, regardless of the number of bedrooms in the home. Babies under the age of 1 are exempt.
The ordinance limits the number vehicles at an STR as equivalent to what is available on the property and prohibits parking in the streets. Similar to Palm Coast's existing ordinances on parking boats and trailers in front of a home, the ordinance also states that boats and trailers may only be parked in front of a home for "temporary loading, unloading and cleaning."
Some STR owners said this will cut down on their income during popular events like bike week, as will limiting occupancy to 10 people.
"We are not limited in space," STR owner Kathy Davidson said. "I think it's unfair to tell us we can't rent out our final two rooms, because you wanna be fair across the board, and that takes down our income."
Council member Ty Miller said the council needs to consider what is fair for the STR's neighbors, too.
“Once we exceed 10 [people] — you may have signed up for it, but your neighbors didn't necessarily sign up for it," Miller said. "I think it becomes difficult when there's that amount of people in a residential neighborhood."
As much as there have been complaints against STR's in Palm Coast, Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri said she wanted to point out that businesses have their benefits to the community, too.
Palm Coast does not have many good hotels, she said, so STR's are an additional way for the city to collect a bed tax.
"That money goes directly to our Tourism Development Council, which is really important in our community," she said. "So I don't want there to be some stigma on short term rentals."
