With Florida's tourism season around the corner, the waterfront city with Palm Beach County's oldest ban on Airbnbs and Vrbos looks set to repeal it before the end of October.
The Lake Worth Beach City Commission gave initial approval on Oct. 6 to lifting the city’s ban on short-term rentals offering stays of less than 30 days. Four city commissioners voted in favor, while Commissioner Chris McVoy opposed the move. The commission will vote on it a second time before the measure takes effect.
Commissioners also voted to direct government analysts to write a mandate requiring owners of these rentals, usually listed on the Airbnb and Vrbo websites, to register them with a city database. The registration fee amount and other details will be drafted
and presented to commissioners for a vote at a future meeting.
Call for Airbnbs to pay higher water, electric fees in Lake Worth falls short
Commissioners in August discussed charging short-term rentals the higher electric and water rates that businesses pay than the one assigned to residential customers.
But Commissioner Anthony Segrich said that would be tougher to enforce because many of his fellow short-term rental operators rent out for part of the year, making it a "logistical nightmare" for the city staff to bill them at commercial rates for the city-owned electric and water utilities.
Electric utility director Ed Liberty and community sustainability director William Waters, who oversees code enforcement, agreed with Segrich. Charging commercial electric rates to Airbnbs and Vrbos would lead to a crush of complaints called in to the utility's customer service, Liberty said.
The registry fees that short-term rentals will pay will also help fund city services such as police, firefighting, paramedics, the library and public parks, Waters said on Oct. 6. Money from higher utility rates would go primarily to the utilities.
The city staff told commissioners previously that the ban needed to end to bring city code into compliance with Florida state law prohibiting cities' short-term rental bans. But that law does not apply to bans enacted before 2011. City law since before then has banned what it calls “transient public lodging” that offers rent for up to 60 days.
McVoy said in August that he had opposed lifting its ban because he saw no indication the city's ban broke state law. When he asked Waters and City Attorney Elizabeth Lenihan on Aug. 25 if state law requires Lake Worth Beach to change its ban, both said no.
City officials have debated for years on how to deal with illegal short-term rentals. Despite the laws on the books, Airbnbs and Vrbos operate in Lake Worth Beach.
A search on Airbnb on Thursday revealed more than 500 houses and apartments offering stays, many of them east of Dixie Highway, near downtown or south of there.
Email tips and article ideas to Chris Persaud at cpersaud@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Lake Worth Beach ready to end ban on Airbnbs, Vrbos | Exclusive
