PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Scotti Vaughan moved to Indian Rocks Beach eight years ago to be part of a beach community.
“It’s just an amazing community. We do feel really blessed,” she said.
Lately, however, she says some of that sense of community has been diminished as more and more short-term rentals like Airbnb and VRBO flock to Indian Rocks Beach.
“[Indian Rocks Beach] was known that it was wide open, there was no regulation, just come on in,” she said.
Even on her street, she’s noticed a difference.
“It’s just the noise and the partying, and to me, it is just the feeling of just not knowing who is beside you,” she said.
Those concerns and others pushed the City of Indian Rocks Beach to pass an ordinance last year that regulates vacation rentals in various ways. The city ordinance sets rules for both the people who own and those who rent them.
“It sort of stalled that feeding frenzy that we had,” Vaughan said.
Now, much of that ordinance is on the chopping block because of a bill lawmakers in Tallahassee narrowly passed earlier this year.
The bill, Senate Bill 280, sets statewide overnight occupancy limits and allows local governments to maintain a registration system for short-term rentals. However, other local regulatory powers would be diminished.
Supporters say the move is about uniformity and regulating the rentals without overregulating them.
“Many times, local governments are not taking that balanced approach. They want to do whatever they can through these ordinances to stop these from operating altogether,” the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Nick DiCeglie (R-Pinellas County), said previously.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has yet to act on the bill. However, his office officially received the bill last week, which means the clock is now ticking.
He now has fewer than 15 days to do one of three things: sign it, veto it, or allow it to become law without his signature.
“We’ve sent our letters. We’ve made our phone calls,” Vaughan said. “We’ve made our pitches, and we kinda feel like, ‘Okay, the ball is in his court.’”
Vaughan is hoping DeSantis will veto the bill for the sake of her community.
“We live in a single-family residence — a neighborhood. We want it to feel like a neighborhood,” she said.
The governor has not publicly said whether he intends to sign the bill or not.
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