Lauderdale By The Sea FL code compliance mess

Felicitas11
Level 1
New York, NY

Lauderdale By The Sea FL code compliance mess

Who else has issues with the town  and their airbnb rentals?

I own a building that was rented out to long time tenants and I would like to operate it as several airbnb units. I am aware that we need a license and am all on board with that.

The town is in need of additional hotel rooms and one would think that they would welcome more rather than less airbnb spaces and the licenses which have to be renewed each year.

Now it appears that they have an issue with letting people rent a larger unit, lets say a 2BR 2bath apartent as 2 separate airbnb rooms. Even after installing fire walls and doors.

I am working with a local host who has the same problem.

I believe that if someone lives in an apartment and wants to rent out a spare bedroom it is the same issue.

Does anyone have any inmsights on this matter?

It seems the town is not quite sure what they want to accomplish. Hosting more guests and paying more in fees would be in their interest so why are they blocking this?

Any other local hosts interested in forming a common interest group?

4 Replies 4

@Felicitas11 - Here are some reasons why cities are doing this: What they don't want are defacto hotels with people coming and going all the time in areas not zoned for this kind of business nor traffic. By not allowing individual room rentals in a multi-room home, they are keeping subletting from being allowed everywhere. By pulling the apartment out of the long-term rental market, you are shorting the housing stock which will raise prices on housing.  If people cannot find housing or cannot afford it, they cannot contribute to the local economy on an ongoing basis. That means, if money isn't being spent locally, businesses will not thrive, or the wrong kind of business will pop up (think tourist t-shirt shops, gentlemen clubs) that might not be a part of the city's overall vision for it's future.  And not all hosts are good ones. Some may allow for visitors to disrupt neighborhoods and neighbors putting a strain on local law enforcement to enforce and site people for violations. Neighborhoods with an abundance of rental space lack community and cohesion.  The idea of staying in a "neighborhood" with Airbnb goes right out the window if every property is an Airbnb.  It doesn't surprise me at all that the city does not want to cater to including a larger population of short-term rentals.  

 

 If there is nothing stopping you from renting out the 2bed/2bath on Airbnb as is, why bother trying to separate out those rooms.  It is so much more difficult to have strangers staying with each other in a property sharing the space than it is to have one family, or friends, who know each other. Just list the entire property.  

Hello Alice and Jeff. You have a few good points but the location I am addressing is Lauderdale by the Sea FL. A beach community and one of their main problems as a community is a lack of hotel rooms. This is a vacation hot spot. People short term renting in the 2-3 blocks parallel to the beach are mostly tourists looking for small spaces and single rooms they can sleep in while they spend the day at the beach. It is not the kind of infrastructure where families rent big homes, then stay put. I can see your point in other locations but we currently have an issue as regulations are new and seem to be in flux. The reason I am reaching out on this forum is to see if people from the LOCAL and SAME neighborhood have similar issues so we can work together. Other areas of the country may not be able to relate.

@Felicitas11 - if you really want to find a volume of people in Lauderdale by the Sea to work with, the forums are probably not your best avenue.  You might try creating a Facebook Page or MeetUp group to engage local hosts locally.  These forums are worldwide. 

 

Sorry to have jumped in to try to give you some idea as to why you are getting push back from your local government. Good luck to you.  

Thanks for the suggestion, I appreciate it. In general they are not really anti airbnb there. They even hired a person to get started with the licenses and start regulating things. The issue is it seems its a new and grey area and they may not really know what they are doing or what the best way is to serve the community. Its frustrating. I know I am not the only one dealing with similar issues. We support the licenses and doing things orderly, but its still frustrating.