Local Planning Agency - Regular Meeting

Nothing heard. Take it away. This ordinance number 2178, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Portage, Florida, amending the city's comprehensive plan to amend the future land use map property described as 2003rd Avenue Southwest. more particularly described in the body of the ordinance from LDR low density residential to MU mixed use provide for authority provide for findings of fact provide for consistency provide for severability and provide for an effective date um this is uh a quasi judicial hearing uh I did have a question is the applicant plan to testify at all typically in an ordinance doesn't but it's listen QJ requires it it's it was listen quite judicial hearings and there's an applicant but I don't think there's any testimony. Correct. I don't believe so. Okay. So, I don't need one. Okay. Yeah. I mean, there there are representatives from there are here, but I'll leave that up to you. Okay. So, Tim Gibson, planning supervisor for the city of Fort Walton Beach. Um, so on this one, the next two ordinances are going to be related. Um, so the uh the owners of 203rd Avenue Southwest um have expressed an interest in developing town homes on that property. Uh, per land development code section uh or table 2.3.2 2 town homes are not allowed on properties that are zoned R1, uh, which is what the current property is zoned. Um, but they are allowed on property zoned MX1, mixed use medium. Uh, per LDC table 2.1.5, MX1 zoning is only allowed uh on properties with a future land used of MU mixed use. Um, and this property has a current future land used of LDR lowdensity residential. Uh February 13, 2025, uh we did receive an application to amend the future land use map uh to change the future land use designation from LDR lowdensity residential to MU mixed use for 203rd Avenue Southwest. Um and as a

note, additionally, we did receive an application to change the zoning from R1 single family residential to MX1 mixeduse medium. And that's the second ordinance I mentioned. Um for this project, uh there has been no comments received by staff yet on this one. Um so this property um does consist of one parcel um and it is approximately.34 acres in size. Uh as I said the current future land use designation is LDR low density residential proposed to go to MU mixed use um with the zoning designation of R1 uh with a proposed MX1. Can you switch the slide? U this is in your attachments in there too but just easier to see it up on the screen. Uh this is a little bit of an unusual um setup on this property. Takes a second sometimes. Yeah. Um so as you can see this is the zoning map up there. Um the future land use map is very similar on there. So you can see there's a multitude of zoning districts and future land use um in this area. Um so right now uh to the north of this property for the future land use for this one uh is um has a future land use a mixed use and to the east is mixed use. The south is a commercial future land use um and to the west is low density residential. Um so it is kind of a mix in there for all of these um which does come into play for the the the assessments of this property. Um so the proposed future land use um designation of mixed use um staff does believe would be compatible with the surrounding area uh given that large mix of um of uses allowed there um and the mixed use future land use um for two of those properties adjacent to it. Staff does believe this is also consistent with the the comprehensive plan and the land development code. Um, and with that, um,

staff does respectfully recommend local planning agency's approval to recommend city council's adoption of ordinance 2178 to amend the city's future land use map for designation at 2003rd Avenue Southwest from LDR Lone Density Residential to MU mixed use. Pending any questions? [Applause] Any questions? Things pretty straightforward. I will make a motion to approve the uh designation of the designation to change it to mixed use from R1 second if I can clarify it's not it's right now this is the future land use which is LDR and you Not horrible. And motion carry 70. Okay. The next item is ordinance number 2179. An ordinance of the city council of the city of Portal Beach, Florida provide for authority provide for findings of fact provide for property described as 203rd 3rd Avenue Southwest. More particularly described in the body the ordinance to be reszone MX1 mixed use medium zoning district provide for the amendment of the effective portion of the official zoning map. Provide for severability and provide for an effective date. And this is a quasi usual hearing. The applicants present but they don't need to be put under oath. So, it's the same property. Uh, so I won't go over the the descriptions of it or anything uh unless you do have future question. Um, however, as you know, uh, for the reasonzoning, there's different standards um, listed in our land development code that we have to assess. Um, and the first one of this is whether um, the zoning district consistent with the future land use category according to table 2.1.5. Um and as we just did the

ordinance that would change the uh future land use to the MU uh mixed use future land use which would be compatible with the proposed MX1 zoning district uh for this property. Next is whether this is compatible with uses in adjacent zoning districts. Um and again this is um a very unusual one with with having the the mixture of commercial uh mixeduse medium um and single family residential zoning that it's adjacent to currently. Um but staff does believe um with that mix again that this would be compatible with those zoning districts. Um next is whether or not the requested use is substantially more intense or less intense than allowable development on adjacent parcels. Um this is not um uh staff does believe that the proposed use of town homes would would not be more or less intense on there. Uh but it is important to note that for the MX1 zoning district right now the proposed development is for those town homes. However, with the change, um it does allow other uses other than that um those town homes that could potentially not be as um compatible, especially with a single family residential lot um to the west of it there. Um and then the final um assessment is whether or not this is based on the soil types, topography, protection of natural resources, and protection of designated historic areas. Um, and again, any type of development on this property other than one and two family residential would require this to go through a development order process. Um, which is where we would assess all of those types of things just to make sure that it is. Um, and just to note that this property is located in a designated archaeologically sensitive area, which just means that we do check with the state um to see if there's any uh potential artifacts or anything in this area that we would need to be concerned about. Um so with that staff does find that the proposed zoning is consistent with the future land use um category that has been uh proposed. Um that it is the uses within the required zoning district are

compatible with uses in the adjacent zoning districts and that the requested use is not substantially more intense or less intense than any allowable development on adjacent parcels. And with that, staff does um respectfully recommend local planning agency approval city council's adoption of ordinance 2179 to reszone 2003rd Avenue Southwest from R1 single family residential to MX1 mixeduse medium zoning district. Questions? Uh, I just had a a question for clarify. Can we um say that it would be restricted to town homes versus a multi-rise apartment building? We can't with that. Unfortunately, the the zoning does um go for that. Um the relative small size on this one would be um fairly restrictive on how many units could be put in there. Even um it's going to be very small even with the uh the town home. So there are minimum lot sizes and lot widths for the town homes and stuff. So really it's just going to be dependent on how much you can really fit on that property um on there. So yeah, it theoretically could not be restricted from any of the uses and that's why I just felt it was important to bring that up that that is a potential um that if this development decides it's not going to go that direction, it is still going to be zoned MX1 and would allow any of the the uses in the land development code that are allowed in the MX1 zoning district. Okay. speaker. I think anything done would be an improvement. Good. Any more questions? I'll make a motion to recommend city council adoption of ordinance 2179 to reszone 2003rd Avenue Southwest from R1 single family residential to MX1 mixeduse medium zoned district. Second. Please ask for public comments. Call public comments. Mark, want to say something?

And real quick, just uh in case we did miss it, uh do you want to ask for I think we missed public on the previous one. So any public comments? No, nothing [Applause] heard. All right, motion carry 79. Any ordinances? Okay. Ordinance number 2177, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Fort Wish, Florida, a meeting chapter 4 of the land development code to define and establish protection requirements for heritage trees, provide for authority, provide for separability, and provide for an effective date. And Mr. Gibson's here to present her statute. Okay. So, this one probably looks pretty pretty familiar is that uh you didn't hear this one um at the last uh local planning agency meeting. Um at the time uh the item was uh proposed to be presented to city council um in the two March um city council meetings. Uh the decision was made at the first March uh the March 11th meeting to postpone this into April. Um but what that did as well is gave us a little bit more time um did get a a contact with a local arborist um Mr. Rob Callie. Um and he asked if we could sit down and kind of go through some of these things that maybe clean up a little bit of language to, you know, we were we were taking some of the language from other jurisdictions and just kind of going into some of that. Some of that made sense with us, some of it didn't really. Um some of it was kind of contrary to some of the best practices uh that was referenced in here. Uh so I did sit down um with Mr. tally on March 19th. Um, and on March 20th, uh, it did finalize of the changes for this. Uh, given the fact that there were quite a several changes in here. Anyways, I wanted to go ahead and bring it back through the local planning agency just so you guys had your say on it. Uh, with the amended changes in there, um, unless you want to, I figured

what I could do is just kind of highlight what has changed from the last time it was presented here. Um, and in that really a lot of it was just cleaning up some of the language in here. Uh, for example, uh, the last time, uh, in 4.8.4 A2, uh, the heritage tree was just defined as one with a diameter at least 30in DBH. We did add in there specifically that it needs to be on the University of Florida Friendly Landscaping Plant Guide, um, to be considered a heritage tree. So, if it's one of the invasive trees or something like that that's that size, uh we're not looking to protect those, only the ones that University of Florida recommends the protection on. Uh in that next block in there, uh there was a long section about the two-page um assessment form. Um and that was one of the big things that did change in here um on there. So, with Mr. Ki's help, uh we did go through that two-page risk assessment form. uh didn't really find out that that's more used for kind of note takingaking by these arborists when they go out to do uh a side assessment on there. Um and it it's not really they use this just to gather the data. They go back and they create a a report um based off of that best practices guide that we do reference in here. So this is really just a data assessment or data tracking form for them that they use to create that report. So the report's really what's the important thing on there. Um and in there as well um there were some certain things about um it was talking about unsafe um and danger uh which is not mentioned in that best practice guide at all and it's also not on the the form that they use to categorize this. So there are two matrixes that they do look at. Uh the first one is whether or not it's it's likely um a failure and whether it's likely of impacting a target. And then they also do from there they take whatever that matrix broke out to be and compare it to the consequences of failure. And what

that does is ends up with a low, moderate, high or extreme um risk in there. And that's where we kind of change some of these things to now change it to um I'm sorry, whether it's an unacceptable um risk as outlined in that section there. So really kind of taking out some of the old language that was in there and replacing it with the actual language that's in that best practices guide that these um the landscape architects and the arborists will be using for these types of things. Um and then really on the next section, um section D in there, um again, we went through and redid this and that's where again that we talked about took out that two-page form um and just put in there, you know, the the assessment that the the arborist will really do for there to um basically make it so those don't have to be mitigated if it is an unacceptable risk as identified by an arborist. Um, and then as well in there, we did do a lot more talking on this one. Um, I know that this was a topic of discussion with the LPA last time on the um, the cutting and pruning of the trees of the heritage trees. Um, they did recommend as well that we take that out. Um, just, you know, the staff's concern at that time was that, you know, these trees maybe if they're not pruned correctly, it could end up making them unsafe. Um, or or killing the trees themselves. Um, he was less concerned about that. Did not really feel like that was going to be an issue. Um and it and it does um it did provide some hurdles and stuff that staff would have to deal with um if we were going to trying to do these permits for the uh the pruning and stuff. So we did actually remove that from there uh as well. Um and that is the changes that we have made to that proposed order. Any questions? I think we beat this one. We did that last time.

Hopefully some of these changes ease some of the stuff y'all were concerned about last time. I appreciate you going back and absolutely revisiting that. All right. Well done. Does anybody want to make a motion? I was going to make the motion first then both comments. I see you jumping. I I was ready for this time, too. I move to accept ordinance 2177 as a presented to city council. Ready? Seconds. And then before we all vote, now any public comments? All right, let's vote. Motion carries. Senator Ordinance number 2181, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Fort Walm Beach, Florida, provide for authority creating section 8.13 of the code of ordinances entitled short-term vacation rental requirements provide for severability and provide for an effective date. And I'll be presenting uh at the request Mr. Gibson uh I think yesterday this ordinance uh but uh before I go into the details of it kind of give you a background uh council in late February directed the city attorney's offices to come up with a short-term rental ordinance and bring it back at the last council meeting just for them to kind of consider not to actually vote on. Uh they did we did that. Uh this is very similar to the form of that ordinance. We did make a few changes based on public comments and comments of the council members at that meeting. Uh we cleaned up a few things, clarified what the uh actual uh maximum

occupancy would be for each of the units or for a short-term rental unit. But, uh, to clarify something that's, uh, a slight misstatement here, in the agenda memo that I did draft, uh, several weeks ago, Airbnb did reach out to us a couple days ago, and they said they while they do agree that this follows their general form ordinance that they've approved of in a lot of other areas, they did have some nitpicking things on a few few spots. And uh as I go through the ordinance, I'll point out those particulars uh because they said in general they it's what what they've uh endorsed before. Uh what I can tell you though is uh the ordinance how we kind of came to drafting is we took South or Walton County's ordinance that they use for short-term rentals and Dustin's and mix them together. destin is a little bit more workable for a city like Fort Walton is uh because Walton County has a very very aggressive uh robust uh regulatory regime out there. They have probably three or four dozen folks that work just on it and and they to actually uh enforce short-term rentals. They make a lot of money basically off of it and uh so uh that would not be workable for a city the size of Portal Beach and with the resources they have. So Destin's uh is a little bit more appropriate uh from standpoint. They have a much smaller department that handles it. Uh I think it's part of their code enforcement staff and working with their building division kind of handles it and they work with the clerk of court. Uh and if you don't know, the clerk of court is the uh who's in charge of keeping track of all the individuals who signed for the tourist development tax uh that each one of these individuals who runs a short-term rental is supposed to do. And so they kind of work hand in hand uh thrown a lot to the clerk of court and the public court kind of looks at them to kind of uh help them out. But uh so uh this ordinance is workable from a

resources point of view for for staff uh we would believe. But uh uh the highlights of it are that uh anyone that has a short-term rental which would be an Airbnb or you know if you don't use one of those platforms uh basically you know a rental that tourists typically are going to be using for any any reason whatsoever uh would have to register with the city uh an application on an annual basis and then the city would be able to keep track of all the short-term rentals uh through that uh and they would uh also So when you're applying, you would have to list your maximum occupancy and the staff will be able to walk you through that uh by through a calculation which is included on uh in the ordinance or maximum occupancy. And there's three choices. You pick the less lesser of the three. Uh so one option would be uh your maximum number of folks that you'd ask to end your short-term rental would be one person for 150 ft of the air conditioned portion of the primary dwelling structure on the lot in which a short-term rental vacation is located. And square footage would be based upon the property appraisers residential profile property. So that'd be very easy for staffers to go on the property appraisers website, pull it up and uh look at it and see the square footage of the primary structure and then they divide that by 150. The second choice would be two persons for each bedroom plus four additional persons. Uh the number of bedrooms would be based upon the property appraisers residential profile for the property and other documents record as needed. Uh the reason we included that in there was because uh there's a a game that folks would play out in Dustin previously where they would uh try to kind of gain the system by uh getting getting rid of rooms and uh and and just have more more more and more square footage. And so uh to get around that uh Dustin added that provision in there.

So, if someone uh was trying to play games and and turn like a maybe like a closet, take that room out and and make it into a bigger room like ne next to it to have guests in there. Uh that actually would decrease the amount of folks that you could have staying at your your house. And so this kind of this is usually less utilized in the first option, but it is a way to kind of uh uh get some of the problem situations where builders will try to get around and uh to cram, you know, 40 or 50 people into the house by playing games with the structure of the house. The the third choice is just a master cap. It's a total of 24 people for short-term rental vacation unit. And so, uh, like I said, when they come, an an individual would come in to apply with staff, they would, uh, go through and staff would look at, uh, pull up the property appraisers website and they would figure, okay, under options A and B, what would the total amount of folks you can have for each of those options be? And then if it exceeded 24, they would circle 24 is your max that you can have at your property. And that's the whole property, not if you have multiple houses on the the same lot. And so that's that's the biggest uh item in here because that that that'll be a limit on the number of folks that you can have staying at short-term rental. Uh it's tied though into parking which is uh discussed later on in the ordinance at page 60 under 8.13.07. Uh because uh this will make it easier to actually enforce because uh the uh code enforcement staff or police who come out to the property uh will will know how many parking spots that particular uh short-term rail can have because your maximum parking is uh tied or that your required number of parking spots that you have to have on your lot is tied to your maximum occupancy. And so there's a formula in there. uh it's

it's one parking space for 2.5 basically residents of the short-term rental. And so uh you'll have to have that many spots uh on your property. And so uh that that way if they come out and there's 50 cars on there and there's 100, they'll know there's more people at that property than the short-term rental is permitted to have and they can inquire further at that point in time. U another important uh there's some life safety items in here too uh that are uh kind of standard. Now the going back to what Airbnb kind of withdrew some of their soft endorsement for. They uh they didn't like the 24 cap. Uh they let us know that and then they also didn't like the uh they weren't fans but they didn't say they were totally opposed the parking restrictions. They they said they've seen that uh in his past muster, but they they don't like to be restrictive on their folks. And so they kind of withdrew their endorsement of parking restrictions, but then most of the rest of the items they didn't have a problem with, but they did have a problem. Uh they said they've never seen a requirement on dock boat slips. Uh we did make it clear that you cannot uh offer a a boat slip as a separate rental at a short-term rental. Uh cuz there's apparently some people in town that were doing that as well. uh almost subleasasing their dock slips as a short-term rental separate the park. And so this makes it clear you can't do that. Uh and u I think a lot of the delivery businesses were actually utilizing that as well. But uh so we put that in there. Airbnb just said they had never seen that before. I think they they just probably because they haven't had to deal with a situation like poor Walton has in regard to that. But uh one of the other items they didn't like was the uh charter charter bus services prohibited. And uh I'm sure this will get more discussion either today or even by the council, but basically this says that a short-term rental cannot allow a

charter bus to drop off uh bus loads of people at the short-term rental uh to and it and it was put in here uh at the a lot of public comment prior to us drafting it at a previous meeting. And so this we figured this item was appropriate to have in there. And so if y'all don't like it, just let council know. But uh that was the other item that Airbnb had a problem with. Uh really all the other items in here uh they had no problems with. They they did nitpick a little bit the responsible person because it is standard now around the state for anyone who adopts an ordinance similar to this. They require a local responsible party. and they just didn't like the fact that we put a it's a 30 I forgot where it's at. There's a the responsible party has to live within 35 miles of of the short-term rental. They they they didn't like they said, "Well, it's it's either within an hour or 35 miles and they said or it's 30 miles." and uh they said, "Well, what if someone can get there uh in in an hour, but they live, you know, 50 mi away or something like that." So, I'm sure it's something we can adjust on that particular number, but I don't know if you're getting a call. Typically, this is put in place because this individual is going to get a call at like midnight or on a or on like a busy weekend and they need to be at the house within an hour because the police are sitting outside waiting for them to show up. And I don't think someone who lives 50 mi away is going to be able to make it within an hour. So, but uh so we put 30 mi there. They just didn't like the fact that we put a 30 mile uh limitation because they said most of the other ordinances they've endorsed around the state uh don't have a mile mileage requirement on that. And so that's kind of the overview of the ordinance. uh if you haven't had a chance to look at it, uh then uh I'll I'll try to do uh do my best to answer

any questions that you have in general about it uh to kind of fill you in, but you have specific questions, I can definitely answer those. So So you are going to restrict the right for a um a separate rental of a boat slip. Correct. Correct. So now all of Pirates Bay that does that, you will restrict everything that they have in place for the past. Are they a short-term rental? They are short-term rental and they do rent out the boat slip separately. And do they rent uh but something we've just learned about. So I'm not sure what they're Are they renting out the boat slip to the people who are doing the short-term rentals? No, they're renting them out completely separately. And and I know because I know some of those condos they have a separate like yacht club that's not the actual condo is is I don't I don't know what their setup is. I know there's some of the ones that have different they they have the slips are owned separately from the condos. Is that actually I got a quick is that is that condominium complex? Yes it is. It has not single family residential. Correct. Correct. This has no application for them. This only applies to single family residential R1 and Okay. So Mr. Burns. Um I was um at both city council meetings where this was originally presented by what I'd call the Garnier Beach Homeowners Association and they painted a very dark picture of a particular residence which is driving this discussion. Four weeks later the owner came and presented in a 15minute presentation which is an exception to city council rules their side of the story. Their side of the story, and you were president at both meetings, I believe, correct, was 180 degrees different than all the allegations that had been made by the Garnier Beach Association. I I thought I was on Mars

because the two situations were explained completely differently. So, when you look at this document, um the the gentleman does not know if the 24 people are having a wedding. He's not advertising it as a wedding venue. He's advertising it as a residence that can accommodate 24 people. So, this regulation, as I understand, and I've read it a number of times, really does not address all the specific issues that were raised by the Garnier Beach Association against this particular residence. It certainly solves the nightmare that Walton County has. that if we have multi-million dollar homes, this will take care of that issue inside the city limits. But I sat here and I went through and it's like charter bus service. It wasn't a trailways bus that pulled up to the house. It was one of those little vans that Avis uses to run you from the airport to the Avis place if it's not on the airport property. Capacity is 10. So, we saying that if I rent this house and I'm having family come in that if 10 of them decide they want to rent a small bus or a limo, I have to tell them no, they can't do that because I don't know, you know, that that specific clause is in here that the owner has to say no commercial stuff, but it mentions buses. Does that allow limos? And then it says commercial special events. So, I'm not advertising this residence as a place to have 100 people for a family reunion, but if 24 people come down and it's a family reunion and 10 of our relatives from Alabama, Mississippi, or whatever come over and they stay past 10:00, am I now

in violation of this regulation because I have 24 heads in beds, but I have 10 people sitting around the pool and a call comes in at 10:30 and we haul the property manager there and there are 34 people on the premises. I don't have 34 people in beds. I have 34 people in the premises, 24 whom are sleeping in there. Do they violate this regulation? Because as I read it, but it doesn't say premises. It just says occupants. I have 24 beds and heads. I got 10 people around the pool. It's past 10 o'clock. They're not staying here and they're not making noise. Somebody just decided to call. I I just we we just drafted this at the direction. But but you were at both meetings. But yes or no? Yes. That would be a violation under what what I don't see premises as as you can't have more than 20. It's the lot. It's the lot. It's the short it's the it's a lot. It's it's what the it's the whole property. uh you can only have and the number is only based upon that property and so if they're on the property after after 10 p.m. and it's more than 24 people then yes they are in violation. Okay. Um and then the other thing I had was um so if he's not advertising on the website I I don't know I understand this is in general right but I've gone to the website and what I'm saying is that the way this is written if I am not party to their plans for using that property then how can you hold me accountable if in fact it develops into a wedding I didn't ask they didn't say so is if there if of spontaneous wedding occurs on this property is the person and and I don't know what property you're talking about because this is again an ordinance we have to double property but we were both at the

same so I'm not going to get into individual property because again this is for everyone however um I will say there are properties um I I have not looked at any of the advertising in the last couple of weeks uh there are properties that when we started doing this were advertising ing great place for a wedding, awesome place for a company retreat. They were they were advertising specifically for special events, right? Um and and this is really a lot of the prohibitions in here are from you you have to advertise that no weddings. You have to advertise, you know, it's now understand people may not know what's going on in there, but the a lot of these places were being advertised specifically for these events, right? And that's where it became it's really not a residential use at that point. It it starts getting into that special event commercial special event place. But I mean I think we've all seen the Nick Sabin commercial. I mean are we going to you know where he's in the hot pool with the couple after mowing the lawn and has gone through the playbook of all the things they can't do. And this particular person said that, you know, he is now losing business because of the restrictive nature of his homeowners book that these people say, "We came in and felt like we were in a glass house and we couldn't do anything and we're not coming back." I mean, I rented B&Bs. We had 30 people, 20 adults, 10 kids, three houses, and I had the biggest house. So, we had all the meals at this house. I would have been in violation of this regulation. And we didn't make any noise. I didn't have 85 cars parked on the street. I'm just saying that that when you rent one of these big houses, unless you go down and do the Nick Saven against the side of the head, you're going to be restricting the businesses that these people the g the volume of guests these people can have. I'm just saying that,

you know, this to me, if they're not advertising it and it happens, then this regulation is either going to be applicable or not applicable. And I don't think it addresses that gray area. I I it certainly wouldn't answer the mail for the Garnier Beach Association that came to the city council meeting and complained about that specific reference because people the police had been out there 60 times. Not one violation has ever been handed to the owner of that house. They've not violated everything and yet the neighborhood is upset about what's going on at that residence. I don't think this regulation addresses those concerns because they're not advertising it's a venue for all of these things. What would you recommend? I I don't have an answer. This can county problem. I don't think it takes care of the full Walt Beach problem. Now, Mr. Ry, a couple of things on here. So, on packet page 62, uh, paragraph 9 at the very bottom, it does say on there before the hours of 7:00 a.m. or after 10 p.m., the occupancy load of the short-term vacation rental may not exceed the maximum occupancy allowed. Okay. Number of overnight guests. So, it it does have it in there that basically at that point in time, you're if you're 24, that's your cap on there. um for some of the other things, you know, and that's a lot of the reason why we have now some of these responsible parties and stuff in there and the contact numbers for the responsible parties because you're right, people are not going to necessarily tell you, hey, I'm going to come over and we're having a wedding, but when it happens and they can call that responsible party and it was advertised as no special events on the property. Well, now that that that's where that property manager can come in and say, "Hey, look, you said, you know, you signed on this saying that there was going to be no special events and now you're doing a wedding here. That's inappropriate. You can't do that." It's for them. It It's a mechanism for them to be able to enforce those things. Okay. So, but in this, and maybe I just

didn't read it, there is no language that says in the agreement between the owner and the people coming in that there are no special events and defines what no special events are because then we're actually going to hand them a contract that says, "Here's the Fort Walton Beach contract for running your B&B, and we need a copy of this because here's all the prohibited actions. Yes. Could I ask a question? Yes. So, when you researched this, I assume you did you're you're you're the person that did the research, correct? Right. Did you research the Burke uh Harris law, right? And that's why there's that grandfathering stuff at the very end. and and I've dealt with a lot of bursts cases before, but it uh the grandfathering clause at the very end takes care of that because anyone who has a property that wants to be able to uh bury from this has a grandfathering period to actually come and apply. And if they don't do that, they uh if if we didn't have that in there, they can make a B Harris case. But this this will give them their window of opportunity to make the B Harris claim. And if they don't uh if if we deny them on say we the city denies them then they can still sue for a bur's claim but if they also don't uh timely file their claim under this provision they'll wave their bur's claim. So it's it's at the very end it's under grandfathering. Okay. I feel that 10:00 seems to be a little early if you're That depends on your age. We'll make the recommendation there. I'm in bed 4 hours by the night. But so just like you said, if you have a multi- group that comes in and they're all staying in different places, maybe some of them are in a hotel and they all want to come over and hey, we have a house. It's big enough. Come over. We'll cook here. I mean, it's barely It's just

got dark an hour ago. Ended on a hike to summer. So yeah, but I can I can tell you cuz there's a there's one isn't that the noise. I'm not talking about the noise. I'm talking about. I mean, I've been several times to 38 when friends come in town and we're there till 2:00 in the morning sometimes, right? But we're not staying there and we're just talking. So, it seems it just seems like a little so early for this and like I said, it lines up the noise ordinance. That's why it's in there. I understand the noise. I teach this in in my classes because so I've researched it completely. The beginning of this started out that a rental company was losing money because they were going people were using Airbnb and VBO and that's why they in Destin had so much power to get all this done. This is where this started originally to put that city council on notice that said um they can't come in time. They're not looking at the garbage. The garbage was a big issue and it still is in some respect because they would have multiple bags down the highway and everything. But it was rental companies that started this to create this monster. Actually, I was part of that uh whole process. They were very much against it. The rental all the rental companies out in Dustin and they fought tooth and nail against it the entire time. Well, the RBO actually was okay with it. Uh much thing when it started, it was a rental a couple rental companies that were spearheading it and they were they fought tooth and nail to the very end uh and were very angry with the final version that was passed by the Destin City Council. Well, and I I got to tell

you why is that, you know, there's property rights for your properties and there's rules. I guess you have to give a little bit of leniency to say what that somebody can do what they want to with their property as long as they're not infringing on the lifestyle of everybody around. And and I actually agree with you personally on that. I was just trying to clarify for you. There was no uh this was not driven by the short-term rental. I was in the middle of it. They were against it was driven by the holiday owners association which is a separate group. They were the ones who drove the Dustin one but that it started out in Avalon. That's uh not Dustin. That's not in Walton. Maybe the Wal maybe think of the Walton County ordinance. Okay. Right. I was on a board. But I just think that sometimes we want to tell people how to live and I think that's a slippery slope of telling you how to how to enjoy your property and and how to live at it. If you want to do that, go live in a condominium. I mean, I I I kind of want to talk about something else, too. The bus thing kind of gets me. I don't know what's the purpose of of that clause. It's a service. I would think you'd I mean I guess what you said to identify how many people in there by just seeing the cars but maybe I don't want cars and I'm flying in so I just take a bus and I get my all my family's here and there's 20 of us 10 of us and we just take a charter bus from the airport there. Well now charter bus is defined under the uh city code already one there's little limos is not a charter bus under the city code. A charter bus is a service that's what you know like like the size of a Greyhound bus. So I was gonna point that out to you. This won't apply to that like those I have more problems with people doing Airbnb and not taking the qualified

classes such as sex trafficking and doing their laundry at a certain degree and checking for bed bugs and thing those kind of things. And then they six months they don't rent out the property and they live in it and they're creating a homesteaded property and they're getting income and using it as a commercial vehicle on them. Those are the issues that I have more problem with than telling them how to do it. I would take a, you know, the state is looking into taking away their homestead exemption. right? Anything that is attached and and they're homesteading it for six months, condos, homes, town homes. So, I I would wonder why we wouldn't focus a little more on that violation and that they haven't taken the class, they don't do the laundry at a certain temperature. And now we can't regulate the business itself of short-term like the like the the state has a law that says everyone that does a short term has to do those things, right? The city can't regulate that aspect on top of on like in that particular area that you're talking about. But the state because the state does it. The state does that. Well, if the state does that, does the city not also have to do that before issuing a permit? they it's not been tested in court whether or not you got to require them to show proof that they've met that those requirements and and most of the companies the short-term rental companies like Miss Concaid did point out they are you are supposed to like Airbnb and BBO do require you typically to do those I I don't have enough experience directly with those companies to know if they do a good job of checking to make sure they don't check at all check all but the violation of homestead exemption is is very regular

cuz everybody's counting that 181 days and then they stick it on our rental program and they're homesteading and do you have any recommendations though to anything? I'm going to have to read that again. Can we just email you? Sure. and and and then I'll forward the emails to Tim or email both of us and we'll include those in so the council can see them all, you know, as comments from the LGA. What were the biggest issues cuz I wasn't at the city council meeting. What were the biggest issues of the homeowners association? Well, I think it was neighbors the neighbors homeowners, but it naturally it was people that had been on the code enforcement board with us that were there too. So that's why I was really like these people know what they're talking about and then a month later I hear from the owner and it was literally night and day. The issue what was the biggest complaint that the neighbors had? Um the number of people on the streets um noise would be my complaint for my neighbor. you know, we've got some just uh the traffic through the neighborhood noise and then um there were some allegations made of the owner retaliating against the neighbors, the neighbors retaliating against the owner about trying to settle the disputes. Um I I have to stress this is not about a problem. Understood. I mean, in in front of this board, I know I have had many conversations, including with some of y'all in this board time about short-term rentals and some concerns about them moving into the single family neighborhoods. It's been brought up multiple times in city council. This is not one residential property that that is the issue. I mean, we've got to be very clear on that because this this

ordinance is not to target a property. This ordinance is to target a system, a process for short-term rentals. This is not a target of a property. I have a question. And only R1 to the only in residential single family residential properties. It can be R1E, R1 or R2. R2. Um, so R2 zoning does allow. Now, if it's a multifamily development on an R2, that would not be. It's for single family homes on those in those zoning districts. Well, Sam brought up a good point as far as doing it on homesteaded properties, but there's nothing that says you can't do it on homestead property as long as you're there for what 181 days. Is that Well, that could change because the state is looking into it. where people have have converted their garages and their Airbnb being their Airbnb being um their garages and therefore they're going to lose a portion of their homestead exemptions. Gotcha. Okay. Working on right now. We have no idea what's out there. Um is is honestly part of the problem as well. I mean we we get code complaints on certain properties. Um, I will tell you just kind of as a side note on this one, there are software companies out there that track this um they there's a there's a system I mean they do this with a lot of um municipalities that do regulate short-term rentals use them um because they will go out there and they scan the BRBO website, the Airbnb website, they scan just the internet looking for these things and they find all of the ones that they are um and things. Other than that, we have no way of of doing that. I mean, if you look on Airbnb, if you've ever booked on there, it will say, "Hey, there we have this house in this general neighborhood." Um, but we don't know where it is. So, we don't know is that house homesteaded or

not. I don't know because I don't know where that house is. Um, we just we don't have any kind of way of doing this. And that's where the part of the registration process in here would allow us to do that. Okay. And this is a widespread thing on that though too as a clerk court. um they're already pretty aggressive cuz they collect that bet tax money off all these and so they they have already a system in place to where they they they have a good idea of how many of these short-term rentals are in the city limits and they would share that information with staff but I can tell you right now uh in Destin from what I understand they work handinhand with them and share information back and forth because they'll at least once a year make sure that that their information lines up because sometimes Destin might actually know some people that aren't paying their bed tax and uh and so they give that information over to the clerk and then vice versa. The clerk gives information back to them. And so it it's it is a there's a good way to keep track of it and get a good number if you pass an ordinance like this. Okay. And it is I mean one of those software companies just by luck uh cold called me about two weeks ago and offered to do a demo. Um and I was like sure why not? Um I'm always willing to look at things. Um, and they actually ran the information for us. And in the month of March, there was over 900 individual short-term rentals within the city limits. Wow. Um, and that's the month of March. Um, okay. And they they expect that that's probably the one of the coldest rental times of the year. Um, it would be much higher during the summertime. So, this is a again, this is not for one property. This is for a large and not condos. Remember, it does not apply to any condominiums right now. So, people. So they and they can give you the addresses on that too. What's that? They had the addresses on that. They do. I mean they didn't give them to me. Um that's part of their feel. Now they show me a map where kind of they're all at know your Airbnb in this place. I'm just

going out there and I'm going to go break in and start living there. So um and I think that's why Airbnb don't give you the addresses until you book it. Until you book it. Correct. So my major concern is that we define that there shall be no family reunions, company retreats, and yet we make no provisions requiring the owner or the manager to make that known to the person that's renting the property. So under um it's under it says further it is hereby made I'm on page 59 and 60. So I would think that that somewhere under here where it says further, it is hereby made the affirmative duty of the local responsible party to it says inform all seasonal residents prior to occupancy of the single family dwelling unit of the applicable city of Fort Wala Beach ordinances concerning noise, vehicle parking, garbage, and common usage that we should make some reference to and No activities defined under the other section where it says no family reunions, no company retreats, no weddings, no bar mitzvah or whatever else is listed there. That way we I say bar mitzvah is being but um special events. Yeah, there is um in 8.13.14 it does say in there specifically that they are not allowed to advertise for any of those things. Um but I mean again it could be if your recommendation is to that they have to advertise that they're not allowed as well um as a possibility. Well, it it says advertise and receive uh financial

gain from the conduction or the activities and it defines them. All I'm saying is that what we're saying is that you can't have any of these activities whether you get money from it, you don't know about it or you get no money from it. So we need to make the responsible owner or agent actually when they sign their application that they are going to inform the residents that these activities are prohibited. That's yeah that's otherwise I don't if if I'm not getting any money for it and I don't know about it then you can't cite me for violating the ordinance because I didn't know about it and I didn't get paid for it. So it place more responsibility on the local responsible party. Yes. Okay. Yes, sir. Because we're saying these activities are not allowed. We're saying it as far as advertising, but then we're not putting it into the responsibility. If it's not advertising, it still happens. Then then we would have these massive crowds at a B&B and have no way of saying you violated the ordinance. I didn't know about it. News to me. I agree with that. and having violated them at other people. But once again, you do that inadvertently. Um, you know, those things happen. Playing devil's advocate here for many, but what about just your situation? What you said you get three or four of you and you have three or four of these and you all meet in one. What difference does that make? Whether you all came to one house and there's 50 of you just in the afternoon, don't even have to go past 10:00. You're not even making noise. Or you had a wedding there at 12:00. What difference does it make? Well, what I'm saying is that personally, you know, I think we're being over over prescriptive, but the way this is written, we're saying you can't do this only if you're going to make money from it. But if you don't

make money from it, have at it. And based on my perception of what the public is concerned about is the number of people that show up at one of these residences, whether it's 12:00 noon or 12 midnight. And it's it's a burdensome problem to the neighborhood. And what we're saying is you can't do that. I agree. I mean, I think we're already saying that by the limitation of the people you can have. We've said it that one. You can't have more than 24 after 10:00. Oh, yeah. That's just within the time frame because during 7 to 10 you can have as many people but like a special event may have paid vendors come whereas just a family reunion, you know, or you just have dinner. Well, as is defined in here, like a even if if you rent out a place and you've got 24 people there and you want to have a wedding that's just your family, nobody's paying to go to that, that would still be considered a commercial special event on there because the the owner is making the money from the rentals and stuff. So, it it's it's not like if you're charging admission for people to come into there, that that wouldn't be the thing. It's basically the event in there. And I don't say the difference in the the number of people it it it's more goes to the likelihood of this thing. This provision was inserted though. I didn't include it in my original draft. I met with all the coun I talked to most of the council members oneonone just to see if they had any particular things they would want to add to it. Uh and uh several of them mentioned commercial special events because as Mr. uh Gibson had indicated uh most of the companies that were advertising online or properties were advertising the commercial special events previously and initially I was just going to approach it from you can't advertise for like you can't advertise like this is a party house you know but then some some of the council members though wanted just a straight prohibition on it and some of the the

short-term rental ordinances around the state have this language some don't. So, uh, this is your time to recommend either changes or cutting it out, you know. But, Mr. Gibson, if I charge $5,000 to rent the property and they have a wedding, I haven't charged them $6,000 to have the wedding. Understand? They're paying the standard fee. So, how would I from a code enforcement perspective say you, the owner or the agent, have made a fiduciary gain because you've allowed this wedding? They paid the standard fee to get through the door. They can do once they go through the door the way this is written, they can do anything they want from 7 in the morning till 10. Actually, that's not the way it's written at all. No, no, no, no. If you want to go back to page 55 under commercial special events, it defines uh the holding of two or more of these events in a 12-month period. What's a commercial special event? But you defined it as a commercial special event. Yeah, I'm just trying to tell you it what you were saying, uh, the individual property owner would get in trouble if two or more of these events happen, no matter if they're the ones advertising it or not, if they allow their guests to do it. Okay. So, how So then, yeah, finds that that it was a wedding. What if it finds that it was a family reunion? The police, code enforcement. I I I mean, so you're saying you've had two weddings. Prove it. I know I'm being devil's active question, but I know that's what that's kind of was going to be my point. The family reunion is one totally. If you get 10 people from your family and you do it, why could you that's basically every time you're pregnant, it's family reunion. Haven't seen these people. So, and if it's a wedding, what if it's a wedding with hey, I only have 10 people. But you could have a graduation party that's even more crazy than a little family wedding. So, I mean, I'll say I mean a lot of this stuff, as I understand because I mean like like Mr. Burn said some of this, you know, a lot of this is coming from council input and

stuff. Some of this is is not it's it's around the probability of problems. Um, when you plan a wedding, you're planning on 50 to 100 people showing up at that house. If it's you and several of your friends running out several h houses and you happen to end up at one of the houses, that's a happen stance. It's not probable that there's going to be a large number of people there in an outdoor setting with noise. a a reception, a band, that's that's probably not going to just break out because you and several of your friends decided to converge on one house. Same thing. It it just it's these special when you're planning an event. That's when you know you're going to have these large numbers of people probably outside of the the maximum occupancy level in there showing up for the event. They're going to show up for a period of time and then they're going to leave. If it's just people are coming and going and yet you got 10 people show up over there because they're all family, you know, you get a bunch of people come in and then you and your family go over to visit them because they're family. That's not for that. It's for the planned events that come. I I understand that and I just maybe it isn't written clear enough cuz I mean I would What about a Christmas party? I want to I want to rent one of these and have a Christmas party and have I think I see a consensus. Are y'all recommending that it only be prevented from advertising for those events but not prohibiting? Yeah, I think so because I think once you start because you don't want the the craziness how are we going to advertise the Bird Harris uh option for everybody? We we don't do that, ma'am. We don't say sue the city for bird harris claims. We don't do that. No, I mean but you said that they can apply for it. It's in the it's in the ordinance. the grandfather, but you're not going to to um I mean public notice goes out. Okay. All right. The only other I just need to thing I

have is that the boat the boat slip and that so I can't write my boat slip out right now. Is that what you're saying? Actually, under I tell you right now under state law cuz I I have a dock. I can't rent my boat slip out to anybody that's considered. I'd have to if I turned in the state of Florida would then start charging me a yearly lease amount uh for a having a commercial lease and then and I know there's an Airbnb it's not Airbnb but something like that for docks out there like like an Airbnb and I'm sure co staff like to know about that as well. I don't I don't I just saw it a couple times on I think I think there's there's something there's a Airbnb for boats. Yeah. I thought it was a slip. Maybe I'm wrong. I I just saw it and I mean I have a boat in mind. So I think it's called rentmyboat.com or something like that. If I can go back real quick. I I just want to make sure that I'm getting good notes on this and I know y'all are trying to do as well. Um so it was the general consensus on there is cuz I know initially we talked about having the responsible person brief them that no special events were allowed there. I think we've kind of moved away from that one and would rather just have it like under the advertising section instead of saying they're prohibited from advertising those things that they have to advertise that there are none of those. They're not allowed there. Is that is that a correct? I mean to me it would be the homeowner that's going to want to say I don't want a party here 40 people is going to be the one that determines that. It would not be easy to determine if it's a I mean plus family reunions anytime I've used an Airbnb just like y'all it's been for a family reunion. So that's that's I put on this bus thing. Yeah. So I would rather have a bus show up to the house to pick up people than have DUIs. So that we he's talking about the huge buses. Yeah. not a great pool or on this charter bus

service is defined as um you know a bus a capacity of a certain amount maybe a length maybe and I forget where we define charter bus and the language code I looked it up it's it's not that specific charter bus service a charter bus service is a type of service where buses are rented by individual organizations for exclusive private use. Unlike an inner city common carrier bus service which follows specific routes with set schedules, a charter bus service is hired for specific trips. Um, so that's like a destined party bus then that it it theoretically would count. So that's another Yeah. Maybe just if we could do it by capacity like so that it's not a mass amount of people the interro. Yeah. I mean but you're saying that but because the way that's working if that's the case they're saying that you can't even have them come pick you up and take you downtown destin. This is why we're here for these conversations for you. If you guys think that the charter bus stuff should be completely removed then then make that recommendation. We'll take it home. Restriction the charter bus. I think there should be a restriction on the charter bus, maybe a lane at the tax. I know what the purpose of it is. Purpose of you don't want the owner saying, "Okay, I'm going to take you from here to to and from the property and that's it." But I think it also encompasses, "Hey, you all want to go out downtown Destin, get a charter bus. We all go together, hoop it up, and come back home." Well, that one I think I think no one wants a Greyhoundsiz bus going down road. I think that was the intent of it is for that type of bus to pull up and people start pouring out of it. Yeah. I mean, I don't want a school bus or anything, but maybe it's just like a smaller bus, maybe a length or a capacity. I don't know. We'll try to figure out how to define that type of bus. So, so can I just go back? So, under um

page 55, we define commercial special events uh wedding blah blah blah. And then under A and B, it says the holding of two or more weddings or wedding receptions at the premises within a 12-month period is a primacia evidence that the events are commercial special events. And we we repeat that basically in in paragraph B. So my last concern is who defines that those events have occurred. If I've not advertised and my property manager has said to the people coming, you can't have these events and the events occur anyway. who who s if and so code the code enforcement people with the police come out at 9:30 at night and say 36 or 10:00 there are 36 people here and oh you're all your last name is all Smith so this is a family event so this is a violation we've recorded it in the city records what records is it recorded if if we go forward with the recommendation we just went over where instead of restricting it, we restrict the or we make them advertise that they're not available. That almost becomes a moot point. We're not really trying if if that's the case and we go away from that. It doesn't matter that those are happening there. It just matters that the owner is not is advertising that they're just not allowed. We would also cut A and B out in that situation because for consistency. Exactly. Okay. Thank you. I'm done. And would that language be would that language be in their application for that where they had to sign and say that there's that's not allowed? Yeah, you can't advert there would be something they would explain you cannot advertise for these certain types of events. That

but would that be listed out in their application? I mean that that I don't know they would include an application itself. I mean potentially we could but I mean if they're applying that means they're following the code. If it's in the code, well, it's it's you know what I'm saying, right? I get it. I mean, and we may have some sort of we don't have an application just yet, but it may it may be a matter of initial these boxes acknowledging that you will notify us if you have a change in your responsible party initially here saying that you're not, you know, we may go down that road. I I don't know. Um but I mean this is a very encompassing ordinance to say, okay, well, this one thing you have to sign for I don't I don't know. We haven't decided on and just so you know the code enforcement process if that happened they would get a notice of violation but they could correct it immediately uh by like if if I was renting out a property and I was advertising for I was advertising uh a commercial special event uh for weddings let's say and I received a notice violation from code enforcement for the city of Walton Beach u I don't immediately start getting fined I don't immediately start having anything happening against me because the code enforcement officer will ask me to come into compliance without having to take it before the magistrate and they'll get a certain period of time to do that. So all I would have to do at that point is most likely go on my website and remove all references to wedding uh advertisement. So but obviously we want to prevent that from even happening in the first place. So if it's a frequent issue I'm sure staff could include that in the application like notice to the individual. But even if like they didn't do that uh and they were violating that one little provision, that's an easy fix if you're advertising them for those. Now, if you've incurred $50,000 of advertising expenses somehow putting billboards up or something like that, you might have an argument that you want to have a good lawsuit because you would have violated everyone's charged with knowledge of the land use code if you

haven't read it yet or in the code in general. So, so then if if you do have a property in a neighborhood that ends up attracting a lot of commercial events that aren't being advertised, then what is the recourse? I mean, is it hopefully there's a code violation of some other sort that Well, if it's uh you know, that's where the time aspect of it comes in. If it's a if they're partying past 10 p.m., uh, a noise complaint is going to be made and that's going to start the process of where whether or not they're violating this in the first place because they have more people on the property than 24. Let's just say let's say it's something. So, it would have to be like a late night late night get together, but during the day, I mean, potentially they could just be having weddings. They could just can't advertise. Just can't advertise for it. Yeah. Okay. And cutting down the advertising cuts down like a lot of the problem because if you advertise for it then you get what's called these takeover situations. If you ever heard ever like people from big cities come down and with like 100 people take it over and trash the whole thing in all the neighborhoods. And so uh if you are advertising that you're going to put these big events on you're going to at least most likely avoid. The only other question I have is about the signage on there. Is there a time on that? So you got to put a sign in the front yard now on the house. Did I see something like that on the house? There's there's a sign and a I didn't see a time like when do you like if I'm Airbnb I'm living there supposedly 180 days. Do I only put it up then? While you're renting it out there. Yeah. While you're renting there. No no it is for year round to have it but we we could specify 24 hours a day. 7 days a week I guess is it but until it is recked it's necessary information. Okay. Where's that? So that is going to be all all the time

regardless of if you are there I'm not writing it for January to June but June to starting in July I read July to December but I have to have it up year round. But uh this is good feedback though if you only during the period that the dwelling is off if I can answer on that one. No, but I mean that at the top. Yeah. 8.13.13 says, "Prior to the owner of the single family dwelling unit allowing another person to occupy the single family dwelling unit as a seasonal resident, owner shall post a sign on the property meets the requirements." And then under number seven, I'm sorry, under number six in there, it says the sign must be continuously on the property of the single family dwelling unit during any period that the single family dwelling unit is offered for rent. So, it doesn't say you it doesn't but it just it does say that only it says it has to be up while you're renting it. Okay. But maybe spell that out a little bit clear. We could say it doesn't have to be if it's not being rented, but right now the only requirement is here for it to be up while it's being rented. So, yeah, if it's if you're renting it out for a month of the year and you're living there, you don't have to have the sign up the whole time. Is there any parameters on that sign like size? There is. It's specifically one square foot um white background. Um, font will be black. Times New Ro. I mean, it's got it on there exactly what has to be on there. Times New Roman. Well, that was actually, right? The city council uh council member of the year actually asked that we at the council meeting make it very specific because he he felt that if it we left it open interpretation that causes more problems. And so that that's why we got very specific and I I didn't come up with this stuff just on my own. I borrowed that from another jurisdiction because I acquired I'm not smart enough to come up with something like that, you

know. Well, sure you are. But it doesn't say it has to be in English. That's right. That's good. Good point. I like that. I like that. Oh my word. Are we done? No. Alo espanol or French or German or anybody else. Yeah, that's better. All right. Any other suggestions? And now when y'all make your motion, uh, if you're recommending they pass it, but only with your recommendation. I I would say that just that ensures it'll get to them, your recommendations. Uh, because you you passed it with a recommendation, then make changes. You you will before they vote. But uh yeah, if I can though, I want to make sure if it if if all the discussion is done, I'd like to make sure cuz it it's we did talk a lot, but I think the main changes ended up being under the definitions of commercial special event taking out sub paragraph A and B defining, you know, holding two events and that kind of stuff. Um would be removed in there. And then um charter bus charter bus we would need to um add like a capacity or some sort of further definition to define exactly what that is. And then under the uh the advertising under 81315 you you wanted it to change instead of saying that they're not allowed to advertise it that they have to advertise that it's not allowed. Does that did that summarize all the changes and the sign requirement make it clear that when the property is not being rented out they they don't have to have the sign present on the property. No, I Yeah, I think that was in there. I just I just completely I think it's it's more than seven, but I just kind of missed it cuz it's on the top of the second page and the other page I stopped before, but it is arguable that as soon as you start renting it once that you've committed

your property for the year to that. So, I think it would be a good idea spell that. So, I guess if you do make a motion, Mr. Gibson has written down all those recommendations and and so if if y'all y'all can either make a motion to completely approve of the form as it's presented to you, approve of it with your recommended changes or recommend denial and then after you make the motion public comment. Um I'll make the motion that we uh recommend to the city council passage of ordinance 2181 as amended by the notes discussed by Mr. Gibson. I'll second. All right, discussions, public comments. My name is Lori Harrington. I've lived here for over 30 years. My husband was born here. Um, we purchased our home uh before we had children when we were very young. I was a realtor up here on Offabiel south of the um cemetery, Fa. We live at the corner of Flea and Hudson. There's a block there, Clea to Sotier to Hudson, back around to our house. In that block, there are seven. Two of them are boarding houses. And by that I mean they rent out the rooms by the hour, by the night. Um, by the hour sometimes 20 bucks an hour, sometimes um 20 bucks a night. So, and that's I'm I'm going to say this to say we've had the SWAT there. We've had people OD. Um, obviously we have business people in old professions. I much prefer them because they mind their business. They're relatively quiet. They don't charge stuff.

Um, wasn't real keen on it when it when it started. Those have been going a couple probably five or six years. Now we have seven. Um those are the bigger houses. The smaller houses um we've got some four bedrooms, some threebedrooms. Um we've had frats. We had a frat come down and they got the house. We were on the corner. They got the house that was behind us and the house that was caddyy cornered across the street from us in the front of our house for a week. That was so much fun. Let me tell you, it was really fun. We had Club Leva every night. all night long. And when the cops came, because we called, we didn't call. I mean, we had to work. All of us work. That's the problem with these places. These folks are down here on vacation and they're on vacation. So, they, you know, they're having fun. And I don't blame them. We go places, we rent, but we don't act like this. But these people did. So, we had FRATS. We've had that. We've had y'all talked about the buses. Um, we had two weeks ago we had three 15 passenger vans pull up. People got out. I didn't count them. I don't care. Look, as as long as they're quiet and they're acting right and they're not throwing trash, sleeping on the the yards or whatever. I believe in personal property rights. I really do. I believe I should have the ability to do what I want with my property as long as I'm not adversely affecting other people. That's not the case with these. That is not the case with these. We have good owners for them. We have bad owners and the bad owners have ruined it. Like I said, this has been going on for years. I didn't come to the council until September. So, to your point, it wasn't just it's not just that one house in Garson Point. There are 900. There are because I've I've done

the research. I wrote an algorithm. I pulled it off of the websites. There's a lot of them. and less than a hundred have permits through the county of the 900. So it's it's largely unregulated. If people would self-govern, if the people who were visiting would self-govern, if the owners would self-govern, if the managers would self-govern, I wouldn't be here. But that's not what we've had. We've had people dozens of people walking up and down our street all hours of the night. I mean, that's that's legal. It's legal. It is when you call the police during the disturbances that are after 10. Oh, they're there in a minute. We have We have amazing police officers. We have amazing community. Do they settle down? Do they settle for a half an hour, an hour? But the problem is that is that. Okay, let me address that really quickly. So, I have these guys here. They're here this weekend. We go over, hey, we're we're easy people. We're like, "Look, we have to work at 5:00 in the morning. Can you can you guys like keep it down a little bit after 11? We're not even the 10:00 people, you know, just so we can get some hours of sleep when we have to go to work. Can you keep it down?" Most people are okay. Not all of them, but see, those people are gone in two days or a week. I mean, if we're lucky, they're there a week, but usually they're not. Usually, they're there for the weekend, and then we have people, you know, two or three days a week or whatever. Last summer it was Memorial Day to Labor Day. Every day, all day, different people through. Do you know what I mean? So, the problem is I call the cops. The people who are there, they pipe down. Two days later, we got a new batch in. So, I'm, you know, listen, I don't want to I don't want to be that person. I'm not that person. Do you know what I mean? If you'd have asked me a year ago today, Lori, what's your thoughts on

Reynolds? I would have said, "Yeah, you know, it's okay." I'm hearing that you're in favor of this ordinance, but last Yeah. I mean, y'all got to do something. I mean, quite frankly, I wouldn't grandfather. I understand why you are because I've done the research on it, but I wouldn't grandfather. I would say, and 24 people in a house, my house, based on y'all's thing, I've got 2200 square feet. I have four bedrooms, 15 people in my house. I don't even like 10 people in my house. Do you know what I mean? But that's just me. It's my house. But all I'm saying is the problem with the noise ordinances and stuff like that. You got people who are here on vacation. They don't care during the week that you have to go to work. You know, they don't care. They're here on vacation. And and I don't blame them. I go on vacation. But the other thing, you have such turnaround of people that even if you call the cops and you get them quiet for a day or two, you got new people in, they're back down here. You talked about the takeover thing. The frat was close to that, but we've had worse than the frat. Well, let me ask Mr. Gibson a question then. So, is this ordinance going to No, no, no. Go ahead and stay up there. You can speak. Mr. Gibson, does this help with that? Because if they do not if it's the the person who's actually controlling the property, the one that's managing the property, not necessarily the owner, but the the one that's within 30 miles that's managing the property. He's responsible now for educating these people that are coming in. Can we take that right away then? I mean, what is our what is our recourse if they're not educating these people or the people are like she said, they don't care. So, so there is an enforcement section at the very back of this with with some of the options that are out there. But, but yes, that is kind of the intent of this one. Right now, we do know there are some problem houses out there. We do have some residents who don't want to just call the cops every time, but

that's where now we have these signs out there. Well, now, okay, here's the responsible party and I'll happily blow up their phone. Call the responsible party. They are now required to come in, figure out what's going on, settle them down or evict them um is what really the intent of. So, what happens when they don't settle them down or evict them? That's when can go after the ownership and owner may find a new responsible party. Okay. And there's criminal penalties, too. Actually, they keep inciting against civil citations and $500 fines as well. Well, hopefully that will help. By September, we were done. We were going anywhere but Fort Walton Beach. And we've lived here for well over 30 years. So, thank you for coming. I mean, it and we've loved our neighbors, loved our neighborhood, but the last last summer did it. I mean it was we had the single soldier to come speak. I appreciate that. Thank you. It's a trickle down. So, you know, a lot of times when these get forced, it would you wouldn't have if you have a real problem owner like it sounds like she has near her her owners. Uh it wouldn't be overnight that it the problem gets fixed. It take a couple months cuz they'll start getting cited and and penalize the owners and responsible party. They'll realize this is serious. we got to, you know, act and start being responsible runners instead at that point. So, the first season it probably won't bring immediate relief. You know, if you wrap someone truly as bad as those people are, I'm going to run a vacation by owner up in Thank y'all for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, yeah. See the criminal penalties 60. Hey, this was 60 years. Yes. So, chair, any further discussion? Nope. All right. Can I have a vote? Did you move the motion? Did we make Oh, sorry. I'm the mover. Move Robbie to Shaker. All righty. And motion carries

621. Planning supervisor reports. I don't believe I have any. All right. Board member reports. Anybody? All right. Thank you very much. We are returning. [Applause]