Short-Term Solution

How Long Can You Rent Your Miami Beach Home? The City May Finally Decide

By Ben Torter

A set of rules governing rentals of single-family homes in the city of Miami Beach is one step closer to becoming law, and it could benefit homeowners looking to turn their houses over a few times during the year.

Miami Beach Planning Board members recommended at their Aug. 26 meeting that residents be allowed to rent out their homes three times per year, for a minimum of three months each time. The City Commission, which has ultimate authority over the issue, will likely vote on the item in October.

City officials are currently enforcing an administrative ruling by Planning Director Jorge Gomez that single-family homes can’t be rented for less than six months at a time. 

Arguments that homeowners are staving off foreclosure through short-term rentals, and pressure from the real estate industry, likely played a role in the Planning Board’s apparent relaxation of its views since its July 29 meeting, when most members appeared ready to keep the six-month rule.

“People who are trying to avoid foreclosure — that’s a whole new spin to this discussion,” Planning Board Chair Frank Kruszewski said last week.

Whatever the commission finally decides, the short-term rental rule will affect only single-family homes, not condominiums or apartment buildings.

“I believe the time has come to loosen the six-month policy a little,” said board member Henry Stolar. “If it works, maybe we can loosen it further.”

However, Stolar stopped short of supporting a proposal to allow rentals of only seven days, saying it would create too much competition.

“It’s profoundly unfair competition to our hotels to allow single-family home residences to be occupied for one week,” Stolar said.

Gary Appel, a board member and attorney who helped the Loews Hotel reduce its taxable value by $35.8 million, for a tax savings of $715,000, wanted to recommend keeping the six-month minimum, but voted with the rest of the board for a maximum of three rental periods. Only Jonathan Fryd, who wanted less stringent laws, voted against the proposal.

How residents feel about the short-term rental issue is not easy to pin down. A seasonal tourist destination, Miami Beach has seen short-term home rentals for as long as most residents can remember.

Only one homeowners association representative spoke at the Aug. 26 meeting.

Hans Mueller of the Palm-Hibiscus-Star Islands group said the vast majority of his association’s homeowners opposed short-term rentals, but were willing to compromise to a minimum of three months, twice per year.

“We are willing to liberalize,” Mueller said. “We are willing to agree that these homeowners have the right to do with their homes as they see fit.”

Tammy Young, a Miami Beach resident who rents out part of her home on Jefferson Avenue near Flamingo Park, felt the low participation by homeowners associations indicated something was amiss.

“I find it very interesting that the city has gone to great lengths to contact the neighborhood organizations, and you don’t see any organizations except Palm-Hibiscus Island in opposition to short-term rentals,” Young said.

Assistant City Manager Hilda Fernandez answered that many other presidents of homeowners associations were interested in another issue scheduled for the end of the Planning Board meeting and couldn’t make it for both.

“This year alone [we] have dealt with 62 complaints against short-term rentals,” Fernandez said, about half of them for single-family homes.

Board member Jonathan Fryd suggested allowing one-month rentals for a minimum of four to six times per year as a way to mitigate some of the fallout from the real estate and lending crisis.

“I have talked to a lot of police officers who have told me we have a growing problem with abandoned and empty homes,” Fryd said.

Comments? E-mail ben@miamisunpost.com