Miami commissioners back mayor in his fight against Airbnb

MIAMI (AP) - City commissioners are supporting Miami’s mayor in his fight to restrict rentals through Airbnb and other home-sharing platforms.

The commissioners voted 3-2 Thursday to reaffirm zoning regulations prohibiting short-term rentals of single-family homes in Miami’s residential areas. According to a Miami Herald report (https://hrld.us/2ob8IvK ), City Manager Daniel Alfonso said code compliance officials could start targeting Airbnb hosts who placed their names and addresses on the record to attend the meeting and protest those regulations.

“We are now on notice for people who did come here and notify us in public and challenge us in public,” Alfonso said. “I will be duly bound to request our personnel to enforce the city code.”

Airbnb’s head of public policy in Florida, Tom Martinelli, said it was “reprehensible” for the city to threaten the dozens of hosts who argued their rentals are a boon to the city.

The commission’s vote doesn’t change any existing regulations. Opposing the measure, Commissioner Francis Suarez said it was “embarrassing” that Mayor Tomas Regalado would ask commissioners to direct city employees to enforce current laws, and Commissioner Ken Russell said short-term rentals aren’t a nuisance.

According to city records, code compliance officials have documented up to 17 violations per month since October. Regalado presented the resolution to commissioners after pledging earlier this week to crack down on short-term rentals that he says create nuisances throughout Miami’s communities.

“This is more than taking the temperature,” Regalado said Thursday. “This is about sending a message to the residents.”

Roughly 3,500 Miami homeowners rent through Airbnb, including nearly 1,000 in residential areas where the city says the activity is illegal, Martinelli said. The company says its hosts are mostly middle-class homeowners who rent their homes about three days a month to help pay bills.

Commissioners supporting the mayor said hearing from hosts who rent investment properties on Airbnb convinced them that home-sharing is now a major industry.

“I personally believe that Airbnb, short-term rentals, however you want to call it, is the death of the single-family neighborhood,” Chairman Keon Hardemon said.

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Information from: The Miami Herald, https://www.herald.com