all right let's call this meet in order call the meter to order that hammer um do a pledge of allegiance guys uh Jeremy if you wouldn't mind sure please stand in face the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the repic for it
stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all have the invocation by Pastor Keith capy of Club Z let's pray father we thank you we bless you for the privilege the honor to come before you and seek your wisdom and Direction Lord we seek your Providence
we seek your uh your sovereignty Lord to govern over this committee we pray for all things things be done decently in order pray for all our commissioners Lord uh that they would have good judgment and Clarity of mind that the wisdom they used would be for the better
or the the good of our community Lord God I pray that the the uh the issues on the table tonight would be uh would one be one that we all be respectful to one another Lord so we give this time to you
we ask this in jesus' name amen am did you clear roll call commissioner Jackson okay I got all right commissioner Jacks commissioner huton here commissioner tal here vice mayor
Williams mayor pey here you want rep yeah I on the okay he may have to step out for conversation all right no problem um we want to do a we can't hear you yeah the mics aren't on turn mic up hello
it I get a approval of the consent agenda I want to pull G3 on commissioner Jackson behalf just for further discussion other than that I move to approve the consent agenda with G3 pulled for discussion excuse me you say you want to
pull G3 g3l three for an acknowledgement discussion all right thank I agree okay got a approve uh Motion in a second all in favor I I motion passes um that's okay
any public comments about items that are not on the agenda and if you do want to speak tonight um I'm going to be a little bit different usually I'll let you just come up and and speak without having to put a card in Prior but because we have so many people I ask if you do want to
speak tonight please um I'm only going to be taking uh cards so if you want to speak on an item make sure you get that card in before we um before we start that uh John Dylan John Beach uh as you well know I've been
watching the uh beach access construction the uh communicate back to the cape design the concern is the the height of the poles been in the ground the design requires 10 ft they got RFI out so they're not getting it that far
down in the ground that may be fine my point is once they cut it 10 about 4 ft from the ground level we've got poles between 7 to 14 and 1/2 ft above ground level now when they cut those off the city purchased those pipe those poles so
you make sure that contractor provide those cut off poles back to the city since the city bought it so take it back to their construction site and reuse it for theel you make sure the city gets every them transfer back to the city that's my main concern we pay for it make sure we
get that top part off thank you Jenice Scott good evening uh everyone um today I wanted to say that today is my day to brag it's just one month from the
swearing in of the great president Donald J Trump an incredible Whirlwind of a month that has been Trump's chief enforcer of executive orders Elon Musk is doing what
has El eluded former presidents for four decades that we know of president's promise to shrink the government the federal government and investigate the spending of our
hard-earned money and it always being thwarted by bureaucrats so here's Doge Department of government inquiries enforcement it it's long overdue reveal and will reveal the fraud waste and
abuse it's been wonderful to see what's on that list of trillions three3 trillion dollars just amazing so Elon Musk though what a guy he's eminently qualified to accomplish what he has set out to do for the love of technology and
For the Love of the great United un States of America his SpaceX now launches more than one time a week sometimes we get to see it all aren't we lucky it's difficult for people of rard County to Fathom how any astronauts
would be left in Space by their government because of politics he's going to send a SpaceX rocket up to pick up the two stranded astronauts that'll happen in about three or four weeks
after spending years and money to elect state county and Municipal representatives for us the people the voters it is more than disappointing when their policies go ignored when the will of the electorate is just ignored or thwarted by unelected
administrators and bureaucrats you all know what I'm talking about so you all can go on YouTube and watch president Trump and Elon Musk interview with Hannah it was there Tuesday evening just go to YouTube it's right there you will be
amazed at the AI Innovations and medical and I mean I'm just telling you the things that's so exciting and I'm probably going to be too old to enjoy them all so I wish you all the very best of luck and health with it thank you thank you Dennis okay um staff
reports okay okay um yeah two items this evening uh yes sir yes ma'am I mean um uh police department update all SUVs ordered for fy2 have been received they are currently in Orlando being fitted and
will include quote In God We Trust yes okay um and the golf course update is the irrigation work is expected to be completed in the next few weeks the chain link for the driving range has been installed with the gate installation pending and the post and
Nets are scheduled for installation in the very near future and that's what I've got thank you Wayne welcome um City attorney okay um yall have in front of you uh a legal opinion that I did that y all requested having to do with um
statutory and local government regulation of electric bikes um it's not for discussion tonight but I just wanted to point out that youve got it now that's all thank you very much uh City commission any reports or
announcements yeah so uh following up on that same topic we talked about we actually approved to execute the stencils for the bike reading that legal opinion uh I'm sorry the stencil for the ebikes I think there's a slight modification that can get that mitigated don't want to take a consensus vote
tonight it's just like I said it's on the left is what we talked about that dividing line is what was the legal implications if we reor orent those icons is just more of a suggestion is the way I interpret that legal opinion so um yes the one on the right I think
you know gets rid of all the legal Hoops that you'd have to jump through with the one on the left we approved it to execute it was just based on that legal opinion or pending that legal opinion so we take a consensus vote to move out with that one on the
right I'm okay with it um I don't think so I don't like it so we've we've got we we're still waiting for um two one two other Commissioners is commissioner Williams going to be here I have not heard from him okay he say he going to
be late so do you want to just defer this until we have the okay can we do that just this to okay all right sounds good uh any from
you um yeah just a little something that you may have noticed well maybe not tonight because it was dark but if you drive up and down Min man across in front of uh cook Beach High School you've they did a beautification um of the front of the school that was done uh mainly due to uh
Cole Manis our facilities manager he did a fantastic job in in recruiting um Florida yards to video and uh do a show on it actually so they have before and after it's uh it'll be I'm not sure exactly when it's going to air maybe in
a month or two maybe in 6 months it may never air uh but uh we'll try to get the video from it and get it on our website if we can um but it's uh it's a great addition to the school and it's kind of kind of the kickoff of what we were talking about you know with the parks and getting it beautified all the way up
and down minim in Causeway so um kudos to Cole for instigating that appreciate it thank you uh I went to my my first uh TPO meeting or transportation meeting uh since uh I'm now the uh the I guess the
board member for for our city and uh I did voice my concerns about the speed bumps and the signs that will be in the middle of the roads uh whether or not they heard me um I I don't know but they were going to bring it back to uh to fot
and just let them know that again that we we did not want the speed humps and it would be a um it' probably be a burden for our emergency services to have to worry about about those as well uh I also asked about
beautification for uh the 520 Corridor maybe some new Landscaping larger trees and stuff like that they said there is money in the budget for that so I'm going to try to see what I can do to um procure us some some uh funding for that
I also asked about widening sidewalks uh between um uh the old wakula motel and um 520 because we do have a lot of foot
traffic and um ebike rentals and scooter rentals and stuff like that so I said it's you know we have 4ot we have 4ft sidewalks in a lot of that area and I really would like to see something at least uh 6 feet or wider because of that
so again this is all stuff that may take years and years to come but just want you guys to know that uh I'm doing what I can to try to help beautify the city and help get our sidewalks widened for for um for safety purposes and see what we can do about
the speed bumps that's all I got you got anything no I'm good all right uh consent agenda uh Josh is here oh um oh so now that you're here you
want to just bring that up real quick you're sure yeah so I we there's a legal opinion that Becky had the City attorney had sent out following up on the um stencil we talked about on the ebike down minute man there was a legal opinion that that dividing line caused
uh some potential issue or some legal liability so I just reconfigured the stencils there's just three of us here we took a couldn't take a vote we didn't have a quorum so now that you two are back I'm proposing just a slight modification people that's we didn't well I wanted to
have everybody here um I mean just I just want to comment on that since we're since we're here talking about it I don't have a problem with it honestly I've had multiple times where I've ridden a bike on a bike path
and um people walking think that bike shouldn't be on a bike path or uh and they would basically bow up and just try to like get in your way so I think this this does kind of remind people that hey you are sharing this path with
other people regardless not everybody these days understand that we actually do share paths so I don't have a problem with that um does anybody else want to second that well I just um
so what are we talking about Cadence wise every 100 fet every 200 ft at the beginning at the end I think the proposal is every street I don't know wasn't the the quote for at the intersections
uh we can just we we were going to place them approximately every 100 to 200 feet that's um so we we can get advice from our consultant and you know get you involved with that too and um come up with a solution to
that so the other thing would be if you're going if this is minute man so are you going to have them all where you're reading them from east to west or you're going to have some that are you can read
from west to east um probably go in both directions and meet in the middle I would go with if you're going to go every 100 ft put one one way one the other
way like one dog's looking one way and the other dog's looking the other way right okay I guess my but my only question is is this going to make it safer is this going to change anything or is this just going to add more work I mean I think it was a $2,000 do
something right there's it's big issues I think it's awareness campaign it was literally $2,000 it's already approved it was just literally waiting on that legal feedback I know you got yeah so we're going to make people aware that um that they're either riding a bike or
walking I mean it to me it's just a waste to put it on there it's pretty clear that it's a path um and I just think it's a a waste of time um at this point $2,000 I'm surprised that you would want to spend $22,000 to to do
that um if you have a majority vote so be it now the thing is this is not on the agenda I'm not sure why we're having a conversation about it actually should either be on the agenda to discuss so that the public can speak or not well it's commission reports and this well
it's a commission report but this turns out to be an agenda item we're talking about voting on it um we're talking about spending money on it um uh I think the public should be able to speak on it we've got a lot of other things to talk about tonight I think these folks want to talk about some
other things rather than whether we're going to stencil a a bicycle or a person carrying a surfboard across the way so that's all I've got to say I'm voting no against it and I'm done talking about it thank you
go ahead good um you know I I know that there this isn't going to decrease any liability for people that might get hit by a bicycle or
somebody walk into a bicycle either way I mean it is a sidewalk and the rules for sidewalk are pretty much Universal um but I do think that it's a reminder
to people that there's going to be both on the sidewalk so I can support it okay um so do you want to put this off on a on a different day or do you
want to try to have a vote tonight vote tonight you can do it you can do it by consensus and all you need is three head nods and then it's not uh formal vote I do we should do public comment if that's what I was going to say I I agree with uh commissioner Tom malti that if we're
going to spend money on it and we're going to if it would be appropriate as an agenda item and and give people time to weigh it as part of the agenda spring and and Autumn for public comment may be yeah unfair I I kind of agree with you I'd
like to put it on a night that's not as busy and something we could talk about and all right well we got some guidelines now that we're talking about every 100 ft opposite wording opposite directions so and something that might
be cheaper and maybe less obtrusive is on the maybe on the signs that we have already up by the sidewalk instead of doing this maybe put a sign on the on the polls that are already there that says bicycles and and pedestrians share
sidewalks might be cheaper and um less less obtrusive but um anyways so we'll we'll pass on that for night for tonight that way we can get to the to the main attraction um all right consent
agenda and we'll discuss another time yeah we'll discuss this we're not going to vote on it tonight we're discussing it another time okay this is the consent agenda item one approve the January 16 and February 6 Commission meeting minutes staff representative City CLK Department recommendation approve item
two approve the purchase from Kindle signs for a double-sided LED illuminated Monument sign for Sydney fiser Park in the amount of $614 1110 this is a budgeted item staff representative Brad Halo Public Works
water W director recommendation approve item three has been pulled item four accept the quick claim d provided by The Bard County school board for the lift station located on freedom 7 school property this was added 219 2025 staff
representative Brad houso brought a Reclamation move to approve the consent agenda is read second Motion in second all in favor I I I motion passes 550 um items remove from the consent
agenda okay that was item three approve the recommendation to promote Justin Grimes to fire chief for the city of Koka Beach per chapter 2 Article 1 Section 2.6 fire department of the city of Koka Beach code of ordinances the city manager is requesting the approval
of the interim fire chief Justin Grimes to the permanent fire chief for the city of coka beach the term shall begin February 15 2025 upon approval of the commission his performance has been stellar and he has more than demonstrated his ability to be the permanent fire chief for the city of
Koka Beach staff representative Wayne kogo city manager recommendation approve approve um Justin Grimes as the new Fire Chief and U just uh you said it says February 15th is that because of the pay
cycle it's retroactive back to the 15th yes so basically the reason it says the 15th was because of the pay cycle yeah he period so it'll be effective tonight it'll be retroactive faction
correct correct Justin's here too yeah Justin you want to come up thank you guys so much uh I did not expect all that um but thank you thank you everyone um for a guy that has a reputation for
being long-winded uh I'm going to keep it quick tonight um first off I'd like to thank the commission for this awesome opportunity um I'd like to thank Wayne and the city staff for believing in me um I'd like to thank my wife and my
family for supporting me and um I'd like to thank our previous fire chief Ryan Duckworth for his mentorship and um last but not least uh all the men men and women standing back there I'd like to thank them Beach firefighters uh it's an honor
and a privilege to lead you um I'm just a small Cog and the Machine of the KOCO Beach Fire Department um when it's your time in need these are the men women they're going to be there to help you so thank you guys so much and um last uh to
the residents I invite you to come see your fire station come see your Firehouse meet your firefighters uh I want you to see the investment that we put into them and I want you to see the investment they have into your community um and most of all you're going to want to meet him on a good day you don't want
to meet him when you call 911 for the first time so thank you guys just for people who don't know how long you've been with the city of Koco Beach uh I started in the fire surface in 2003 working for Bard County and I came to KOCO beach in 2006 and I feel
like the next gear you became a we've been tied at the hip almost the entire time I I I knew I knew Justin went you know he had dirt on them and and blood sometimes but um not anymore now he's the chief he just rides around the big
red the little red truck you know shouts on shouts on His Radio you I I'm more of a chance of getting a paper cut these days uh you know I try to I try to keep up with these guys and stay up there with them and and keep my skills up um
you know and it's so awesome to see from where we had the fire department to where it is now it's uh it's next level so again I invite everyone commission residents come see what they're capable of they're going to blow you away so so thank you I just brought that up because
he actually this is a proof that you can work your way up you know to a great job and you got to prove yourself every step of the way and Justin did that than thank you thank you thank you guys
very much apprciate it thank you Justin um I'm really excited to have you step up like that all right y as that was on the consent agenda we had a motion second that um since it was
on consent agenda we don't need public comment no it isn't on the consent anymore we moved it we moved it all right moved it so is there any public comment on this item all right we we'll vote on it all in favor I all opposed motion passes
[Music] 5 attraction uh item one okay this is adopt resolution 202- 01 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Coca Beach Florida
providing legislative findings amending resolution number 20236 a master resolution for fees by the removal of vacation rental fees and fines and false advertising fines from that resolution and placing those vacation rental fees and fines and false
advertising findes into separate matrices I incorporated into this resolution and providing for severability and an effective date staff representative Wayne kajino city manager recommendation adopt resolution 2025-the and ask a couple
questions um to hopefully try to get a better idea of who who wants what and hopefully to make this go a little smoother a little faster um how many people by raise of hands are Cocoa Beach residents in
here okay how many are not Coco Beach residents all right so it's predominantly Coco Beach residents in here how anybody raise a hands um are for this
resolution how many are how many are for the raised fees we will but as you as you know it how many are you for the the raise fees could could could I set the table for this first yeah actually let's let's let
let's let Becky set the table here first okay all right I think there is a general misunderstanding possibly with regard to what this resolution does um right now the city of Coco Beach only
regulates um vacation rentals there that are in the rs1 zoning District that is a relatively small area of the city it does not regulate anything having to do
with condominiums or apartments um anything that is outside of the rs1 district so tonight what we're going to be addressing are the fees and the fines relating to the vacation rental that
happen to be located within rs1 and I think there has been a great deal of misunderstanding that somehow this would affect people who own vacation rentals in
condos and y'all get um uh business tax receipts but that's totally different from vacation rental registrations so this does not affect the the condos it doesn't affect the um
vacation rentals that are in other parts of town so I think I I wanted to get that out there because I think there has generally been a misunderstanding with regard to this okay so the resolution basically raises the fees for
registering um it raises the fees for uh fines it raises the fees for inspections as opposed to what we had before which were relatively lower fees so there's a lot of people here that don't want the fees raised because they
have airbnbs and there's a lot of people that do want them raised because they want to try to create a bigger barrier to entry um for starting airbnbs regulation now the I own a business as well and
honestly if you're doing an Airbnb right and you're making some pretty good money on it the fees that are charged is basically one good week of rentals or or less um and it would create less competition for you because the small
fries wouldn't really be inclined to to get into the Airbnb Market um so that being said I think we probably have um the the fees on schedule we could put up there I think
way yeah Karen can you get them up there I I have a couple of bullet points that I'd like to um just throw out there too um the the commission um at the November 8th 2024 meeting tasked the city manager
with coming up with um suggestions and possible solutions to um to this issue and um so a couple of bullet points here as we go through the actual um increases the proposed
fees um is to fund a comprehensive program to regulate short-term rental activity in the city in the whole city the the ultimate program will address the whole city right now it just addresses rs1 or ordinance addresses rs1
as as Becky just mentioned approximately 67% of the 1500 vacation rentals rental units are not owned by residents of the city in FY 2024 the city collected $1 100,313
[Music] City taxpayers fund a significant portion of the cost to enforce city ordinances pertaining to short-term rentals the proposed fee increase will shift the financial burden from residents to short-term rental owners
the city currently does not have the staff to effectively administer the short-term rental program the city has one full-time code enforcement officer who enforces the ordinances for everything in the city
this single officer has a current casee load of over 100,000 cases this amount is unmanageable this fee structure is the first step in developing a comprehensive plan to um to address short-term rentals
as I was instructed to do the next step will be modifications to the Str Str ordinances okay so this that we're voting on does not does not stipulate or say that we're
going to be hiring new people at this point this is just to vote on fees correct so we're not adding we're not adding a more burden to the city as in we're not adding more more Vehicles more
um more Personnel more insurance at this point we're just raising the fees and we're not creating a bigger burden on the City by adding more employees correct okay um any commission
comments well what you just said is speak I what you just said and what the city manager responded to Mayor
are a little uh little I'll just say off because and Becky can attest to it that the increase in fees that money has to be spent and accounted for and I've
talked to the city staff and the City attorney about how we account for those dollars that come in those dollars that come in have to be spent in enforcement of the
regulations and the anticipation is to hire another at least another full-time code enforcement officer okay so when you say we're just voting on the fees but we're not adding
any positions the truth of the well my understanding of the matter is we will be adding at least one position and uh Becky correct me if I'm
wrong but because we may not have an obligation to the state to have a balance sheet at the end of the year that we have to turn in that says we collected this much money we spent this much money and it ends up zero there is
uh we will have to have that data because anybody that wants to say uh a year from now did you really uh have to to spend all the money
you raised and we'd have to have that or we could you know there's potential for a either a public records request or maybe even a lawsuit that would say we're collecting more money than we're spending on regulations so we have
to uh we have to use any increases to regulate that now the the beauty of a resolution is is that should we find out that everybody seems to be
coming into compliance uh a year from now fees have been paid expenses aren't as high and that balance sheet says oh my goodness we got in this amount of money we're only spending this amount of money then
by resolution in one meeting we can lower the fees so there's potential it could go down next year um [Music] in so my main well wait wait wait I'm not finished I just wanted to listen to
the rest of the murmuring so this is basically and I I'll leave the stage on this note this is basically a property rights issue from two sides
property rights of the people that live and own in the single family residential neighborhoods and like a neighborhood atmosphere not to say that a neighbor
wouldn't have a a birthday party or an engagement party or something couple times a year and the other side is the property rights of the people that own these properties that are airbnbs that feel like their right is to
make it I didn't mean to say Airbnb vacation rentals and make money off their property okay but that doesn't always make it neighborly when you have these vacation
rentals in a single family residential neighborhood I mean the the owners the Proprietors the property managers they're not there to keep track of it you know and there are a lot of
violations and we hear about it all the time so I'm going to I'm going to support this and we'll see how it goes in the future okay so what I was getting at is we're obviously not going to get 100%
compliance it just never happens so I just wanted to make sure that we're collect the money first before we hire people we're we're growing with it rather than growing and then trying to play katchup cuz you said right now we're taking money out of the general fund to to play
catchup for for this at this point um my only concern with this with this whole thing is I I don't like raising fees for people that are that are doing it
properly I I have absolutely no no qualms about raising the fines through the roof if you're not going to do it right you should be you should be punished you you should it should be so bad that it's like you absolutely don't want to mess with Cocoa
Beach um but to raise but to raise the the initial fees and and the renewal fees 350% it's kind of like what the the county did to us with the with the the
lifeguards they raised our fees from 80,000 to 800,000 I don't I don't want to be that guy so so I would like and I know you guys already did a motion in a second for this but for me I'd like to be a little
bit more reasonable on the registration and the renewals and just hit them hard on the fines any other any other com uh commission comment um yeah speak I I agree with you
mayor in that um the the issue isn't with the folks that have been following the rules and have registered and have come to the city to register their their short-term rentals it has to do with those that haven't come forward and
maybe I might suggest that we um have a a dual fee one fee where hey if you come in within a certain period of time it's going to be x amount of dollars but after I'm just throwing a date out say after April 1st
2025 um the fees are going to this point and um you know to 2 for registration for all new registrations um uh especially those that have been U active for the last
year two years 5 years um everyone that has a short-term rental knows that there's that we require registration but um I'd like I'd like to hear a number of how many we have do we have that did you did
you mention that number City commission city manager in total no in the rs1 how many how many registrations how many how many Str strs are in R1 estim how many have registered 300
and 200 roughly have have registered can you repeat that 300 and 200 have registered um can I get Dave can you get up here and and help help me out with this one total 200 register no
1500 it's the that may be good evening mayor and members of the commission yes sir okay um our director of development services so yeah thank you thank you for coming
up um how many approximately how many um registrations do we have in the rs1 uh District city manager was correct we have approximately 300 R uh vacation rentals in the rs1 and approximately 200 of them are registered
so you you've identified only 300 that's correct okay so the numbers of over a th000 are in obviously in other uh zones and probably mostly condos that would be correct that would be Citywide and yes
the majority of those outside of rs1 are going to be tow houses and condos yes sir that's the only question I had I appreciate it but you probably need to stay there because you'll get some other questions I'm sure any other commission comments on this we're going to have a discussion after public comment correct
yeah you will yeah I just wanted to make it get it out there so that they know what we're thinking so that maybe they don't have to talk as long to try to convince us how they okay I I said I wasn't going to say anything else but when you say that
there's 200 registered and there's 100 that aren't registered it sounds kind of you know hard to believe that we got to hire of one person to get the other hundred registered okay but
but out of those 200 that are registered we get calls to code enforcement to us as Commissioners emails to us as Commissioners about a lot of Regulation issues with those 200
that are Reg so it's not just a matter of being registered it's a matter of being registered and following the rules and you know R and Herd on the people that come to your places to follow the rules
so that's where we need additional code enforcement is to hold a lid on people that have short-term rentals that their clients follow the rules and that currently is
it happens in some places I got to admit I got one right across the canal from me they turn over two three times a week and the proprietor has a no Outside Music rule so I never hear them I maybe
you might hear a little laugh or or a scream from a kid jumping in the pool once in a while but that's it they're just like neighbors okay thank you uh go ahead Becky okay one thing that y'all probably
are not aware of um it is very cumbersome and time intensive to get people to comply and just as an example um a few months ago we had a code enforcement case and I came over and I
was Prosecuting this person who had a vacation rental and had not registered um and it was a three-hour hear hearing and there was a whole lot of work putting that together and that
was just one so it's you know staff time is enormous on doing this sort of thing and it's all done kind of behind the scenes you know y'all aren't aware that we're doing this kind of work but it it
takes up you know a great deal of my time it takes up a fantastic amount of time um and I suspect they you know work overtime just you know turning the paperwork to get all this stuff done so
it it is a serious problem and it's a financial problem because right now from from the paperwork I've seen and the financial information I've seen the just the general taxpayers of the city are paying for the staff and the costs all
involved in this it is not all absorbed in the and it's not compensated for in the the low vacation rental fee that's charged now so right now it's essentially the homesteaders who are
paying for this regulation which under Florida law if you are a regulated um entity like this you should be putting the bill for that regulation and you said that was for
non-compliance that was for not for not registering right for non- compliance which would be for non-compliance but but it just but you've got to get the people in order to get them to comply right because they were saying we had
pictures and all this sort of stuff of um you know they they were obviously having a vacation rental and it and it was over two different special magistrate hearings they were denying it go figure mayor I can I say one more thing
please yeah I I just want to speak you've got a lot of you've got a lot of subject matter experts on the operations and the short-term rental industry out here but I'm your subject matter expert on Staffing and what we need to do and I
can tell you right now we have one code enforcement officer that's handling all of these issues plus all the other code enforcement issues that go on in the city Val properties High grass and weed signs all there's literally hundreds of
issues that that she could be dealing with and she just does not have the time and so we're not effectively getting anything done I can tell you in Canaveral they have three code enforcement officers and and we've got one who is just so overwhelmed so I just that's
what that's what I wanted to say thank you mayor can I interject there's also an issue of safety when you go into a hotel you expect that there's a sprinkler system that it's safe to go into there that type of um emphasis is
not being pursued by our staff because we just don't have the time and there's a lot of safety issues in these properties that we're unaware of um so safety is a big factor and a big concern on my end thank you I agree
definitely want to keep him safe all right let's let's go to uh some public comment here we've got a lot so guys remember you have 3 minutes at the most if you hear somebody else say something that was the same thing pretty much just
basically say you know I I agree with so and so we don't need to make it you know basically I want to know what you guys have to say and what you think but we don't have to hear a whole story on it 50 times um all right
Jim B Jim VC 110 Melbourne Avenue IND atantic I'm a short-term owner here um oh this one the other one do you need me to start over Jim
vadic 110 Melbourne Avenue indianic uh I'm a short turn on owner here I have what is uh the purpose of the raising the prices of you know for the initial the renewal I'm already opened up and everything I'm Legit here
I followed all your guidelines I pay all my property taxes you know not at not uh homesteaded everything was legit my neighbors had my phone numbers I run a I run a really nice short-term R um I get the the fees being raised up for fine
the fines being raised up for being non-compliant I understand all that stuff but some of the fee it was it was really cheap when we opened and I thought it was ridiculous I'm like oh this is going to this is going to have to change I mean I think the fire the fire guy came out for 50 bucks that was and so it's that's up to this price now
I get it but to go up from for someone open up to from the 525 2500 is ridiculous and the 325 to, 1500 I understand what you're saying too about it's absorbed in the cost but that for Renewal that's and you're not you're
not getting the money from the condos is that what I understand this is just for the 500ish well 3 two two1 300 total 300 total the 300 total in the residential so the 1500 12200 others are not paying these
fees they you want to put this on the blunt of the people in the neighborhoods we aren't regulating them so they the expense isn't there the fine the fines I get if you're not running legit and you're not being compliant that's great I if you guys
want to come check out my place that's fine too I mean I've invited my neighbors to come they have my phone number but I I don't I mean I follow all the rules but I this isn't some of this just isn't it just doesn't seem
right um I guess that's all and the uh I was going to ask about the number of complaints that you have in the residential area daily you were saying there was almost hundreds on your complaints for the
short ter meals I I didn't give a number oh it's not really a back and forth Just we want to hear your is there a number that you that you follow through on like a number per day that a violation served like I said it's not a back and
forth we don't we don't get into the code enforcement or or that's more of a code enforcement side but um was most of this information just ballparked like when he was saying about all the constantly emails and the complaints is that more trying to get
the the neighbors rolling I I can tell you for myself I might get one one a week maybe at at the most one a month some I don't get I don't get a whole ton of uh emails about it but that's that's time okay my house is on an if you guys want to check it
out [Music] [Applause] Margie cro Coto um yeah much like Jim uh so my husband and I have one house it's a vacation rental we've also been in the
city uh since 2002 uh we're seasonal residents can you hear me oh oh yeah uh yeah Margie you should address address the commission cuz you're talking to us sorry okay it's okay and it's 28 West Point Drive By the
way right so you clarified one thing tonight I went through the numbers with fine tooth comb I'm an engineer is what I do um quite a lot of money would be collected if you were uh successfully able to impose these fees on all 1500 that are that was the number that was stated in the
documents you'd collect about3 million if you really actually were able to to get even just the Baseline fees the registration the inspection and so forth close to 3 million so I was really diving into the numbers trying to understand why 3 million I get that you
need additional people um to present a plan like this looks more like a 10-year plan after you've pulled in all these condos and other things not a one-year plan to get that additional 100 units that aren't currently registered I get that you need more people don't have a
problem with that I agree with Jim the fees were fairly modest I don't get that those of us that have followed the rules our vacation runn is a single family home on Dorset Drive we've followed all the rules we've registered since 2021 bought the house remodeled it put a lot
of Sweat Equity into it doing the right things phone numbers with all the neighbors no complaints full stop so I don't get why those of us that are following the rules have no complaints keep a really tight leash on on the guest put all the rules they have
to park on the in the driveway and only in the driveway no noise n none of that why our fees would go up 4X that doesn't make any sense to me just the Baseline registration freeze I also object to the point about safety um we go through all
the inspections in fact we just this year hardwired all our uh fire alarms because that was the requirement from the city we did it we got the inspection we've done all the things that were required we've got the uh Little Sirens on the on the sliding glass stores
everything is the way it should be why our fees go up three and a half four times that doesn't make any sense if you were able to collect all these penalties you'd have far more than 3 million on 1500 units you'd have like 5 million maybe even more depending on the
violations that you see so this plan seems very excessive financially um I think it's geared towards managing the 1500 units certainly not the 300 so I get that you need one or two more people makes sense to me I think you should go for that but
I don't I don't see that this plan is overkill thank [Music] you Vanessa lavit is that right this one right Mr Mayor City Commissioner um I'm not going to stay
long because I completely agree and have the same statement that the previous two people who have come in here uh I just wanted to state that um it just feels exactly that that the raising those fees 300% or more is quite fast and what it's
going to be next year and the year and the year the year after fine I'm complete for it um we are residents here in Coco Beach been 15 years same thing we sold everything we had to come live their life here after coming here 35 years remodeled put sweat everything
with have a family of seven uh and we do short-term rental with our home when we travel because we have a family that's all over the world and this helps us actually also for taxes for family sickness that we may have in our family uh it helps us and we comply with
everything that needs to be done uh we don't make any issues if there's a fine actually at first when we started we weren't aware about the 84 and we get a fine we paid it now we aware and that's how it is I just think that we need a little bit more compassion and understanding in the neighborhood we do
live in a residential I think one home is not likee another home depending where you live um but I guess um if it's has to be black and white um I'm definitely for making really hard fine even completely stopping somebody from
doing an Airbnb if they do not comply um but raising in that much I don't think it will actually remove the problem people will just keep on doing what they're doing but if they are stopped from doing it then we are winning over there and it's completely unfair I
understand there's regulation um at at one point it is a business if you want to put it this way working out of your home I'm a mother of seven so I'm an in architect so I do a lot of things like that and this helps our family um so consider it the business we run also
other business from there condos are businesses everybody is business so why would it be only um those residential not the other I understand that they cannot be governed under Centrum Rule and forgive me for my accent and being very nervous over here um but basically
all I had to say um and I think that might be costing too much money but you maybe look also at the different kind of homes I was more for the 84 when you have a home that has 8 n bedroom and a driveway of 10 in inside your property asking guests that come eight
guests that come to each share a car and they cannot ride their own car I feel it unfair I feel it's unfair everybody can ride their cars so it might take a lot of time but I think not everybody should be looked at in the same way but I'm again definitely for making big fees on
people who do not focus on on on doing what's right thank you that's it thank you well on down art [Music] uh my name is Art hitch uh my family moved here about 20 some years ago from
Ocean City Maryland where we owned a small family Motel an apartment house and we also had some other rentals from town house to residential we paid fees that we weren't happy about also uh I am
past president of the Ocean City Maryland hotel motel Restaurant Association so I still in contact with a lot of my friends back there the airbnbs their vacation rentals have had a major impact on the hotel
motel restaurant of business and as I said a minute ago we had to pay fees I agree that these registration fees are probably a little too high but you have to do something to regulate these and
enforce these because I live in a residential neighborhood we have airbnbs and we have some good ones and we have some nightmares and we know some are not registered I am for enforcement
and hire in somebody to inspect and and do this and I I think you probably need to adjust some of these fees but you've got to do something because airbnbs I'm sorry they do not belong in a
residential neighborhood they belong on the other side of the highway thank you I also was a licensed realtor notion Judy Everly J official
here Judy Eberly Coco Beach I am going to use my outside voice so I hope everybody can hear me welcome everybody that came here tonight um I am a 25e resident of Coco Isles homeowner single home residents
um I hear a lot of a good discussion I agree with what's been said I love that somebody did the numbers and those numbers um I'm going to say it probably three or four times we need more code
enforcement use use a use an inhouse system so that you're not having to look for new people I love I met him a couple days ago and I love that there was somebody that was already from Bard County knows the issue knows the area knows that when we have hurricanes know
when we have power outages knows when um just knows the people hire within let's get some more people I heard $300,000 wow and I I would really like to see a piie chart I understand that's available
online but that was pretty minuscule my the font was a little small but if we were to see what amounts of money came in have come in are projected for our budget for the city of Coco
Beach where those dollars are going I'm sure there are Audits and I appreciate uh that the staff is doing what they can however I just see that if one person is doing the job um of an astounding
number that's violation I understand that if there's a violation it's a violation and if we're not getting to condos if if the code enforcement is not getting to the numbers that he has as a
workload I think the city of cabish is in violation and I am going to ask that the next board meeting that we're all going to be at addresses that put it on the agenda where is the money going why are we
not why are we not helping the city of Coco Beach by spending some of that revenue on that one last thing I want to make sure is said is um non-compliance um why aren't the fines across the board I understand condos and
Tow houses have their own Association where are their accountability to fines and if there's fines um yeah it's a legal system if they're out of compliance and we win the lawsuit they should pay the lawyers not the city of
Coca Beach residents thank you very much Tam liot I don't know if I said that right outside board hi um I'm Tam liot I have been in Bard for over 27 my kids went to Freedom
7 the other one okay Freedom 7 Elementary um I have a 10un um Airbnb in uh Coco Beach in a residential
area um and I also own space coast vacation rentals and um I have over 2,000 fstar reviews um 4.96 rating on Airbnb so I've dealt with
a lot of Gap um and I'm saying the majority of guests are good people they want to take care of homes they want to be in the community they want to spend their money
here they want to go to restaurants they want to you know rent equipment from A1A Beach Rentals they want to go to coconuts they want to um go on fishing charters they want to come here to enjoy the area and have a good time
um just like staying at a hotel they have families they'd rather be in a home rather than in a hotel without an opportunity to cook and um enjoy uh you know a bathtub bend a TV where they can
lay out you know and hang out on a couch so there's an advantage to these airbnbs um the fees they're outrageous owning an Airbnb you have to pay a lot in insurance for short-term rentals um it's not you know everyone thinks that
you're just making so much money um it's very expensive um there are Channel fees uh booking.com charges 15% on you know to put your your uh rental on there I you pay someone like me a commission on
top of those Channel fees um then there's Payment Processing fees to to run through there um to program locks to have safety measures in place so the lock um is no longer works when they check out and it doesn't start to work
until they check in at 3 so your neighbor doesn't have to be concerned of that person coming in and out um there are so many fees it's astronomical to the person who is owning the Airbnb um so then to impose additional fees on top
of things is asking so much of the owner so I just want you to be um you know a aware of that that at some point doing this is basically shutting down um people from having that opportunity to
own an Airbnb um and when these people who own airbnbs are bringing business so I just want to say that thank you for time just want to say you guys don't Hayward
Dems hey is it Howard or Hayward Davis Davis Hayward Davis thanks for allowing me the time to speak I'm Hayward Davis live in the Cs neighbor Hood we've been here R roughly four and a half five years so my point is this we are not asking for enough
money to those who say we're charging fees too high just listen to what some of me and my neighbors have had to endure over the last year first of all after one party at a short-term rental down the street from us we picked up 16 beer bottles floating in the
canal after another party a dock collapsed 16 people 16 to 20 people fell in the canal bunch of minor injuries bruises scrapes so on so forth one Sunday afternoon my 8-year-old son and I were laying on the dock
reading books when a bachelorette party started next door with heavy drinking very inappropriate behavior for indoors in a strip club not to mention Outdoors during a Sunday afternoon additional Le Behavior to
include two weeks ago another son of of mine and I were kaying down the canal to be greeted by a man with his penis out peeing in the canal with a whole bunch of girls going crazy all around them and two women swimming in the Grand Canal
right in the middle of the boat Channel and yes I suspect alcohol was involved other neighbors of mine and I have had people trespassing on our docks in the middle of the night I have personally stopped people traveling up
and down the canal and highspeed watercraft and far excess of the speed limit endangering our manatees and Dolphins and the list just keeps going on all right look I'm not a short-term rental hater there's people I enjoy when they move in next door I like talking to
them I like sharing with them tips on how to fish what bait works best I like telling about the local floor and fauna but you guys got to recognize you got to pay your fair share all right my point is this we're not asking for a large enough annual registration
fee some think this is subjective so let's make it fact-based two police officers salaries and one Cruiser was roughly $400,000 spread across 300 rentals that's $1,300 a piece just for two cops and a cruiser spread across 1600 rentals that comprise the entire city you're
talking $300 so I recommend that we have a period where we allow the rentals to report in or we allow residents to report in unregistered rentals maybe incentivize them somehow so we update the City database we hire additional contractors to then take that database
and cross-correlate it with 911 records from the county and City police record so we can get a good accurate representation of how many of our public resources are going to these short-term rentals once we know that then we make an AC accurate increase in the cost of
annual registration fees all right thanks that's all my time Michael Jolly said that right I believe Michelle
jol Michael J the Michael yeah oh yo whoa got it doesn't want to let me go leave it on the floor all right uh quick question you said that this only applies to the rs1
district could you didn't describe what that property area or streets does that cover can you answer that but what area of the city is it a specific zone or is it specific homes in
the city specific Z it's specific zones we have a a okay where are that's why I'm asking you where that rs1 zone is if you you should know the zoning of the property that you own you can you can look it up on your so I don't okay
excuse me for interrup so I don't know whether my condo is in that zone well yeah trust me your condo is not not okay there are no condos I understand you described that earlier but we'll address that I spoke to you gentlemen and young
ladies was it a year and a half ago when you started raising fees same fees only having to do with homeowners or residential property and now you're raising fees again for just
them it's going to be as we say in the Florida crackers it's an un it's a self-heating watermelon it's Progressive it'll continue but to address this issue tonight A lot of people complain about condo owners and this gentleman here
addressed he's not getting much money you didn't address the property taxes paid by the rental owners property taxes were you're here in coka Beach are significantly High I pay
$9,000 for 1,000 square foot condominium that is I know that's not your issue and I don't know what percentage you get of that the other property taxes rental tourist taxes all these rental places bring you
in tourist taxes and you are complaining about paying 80,000 so you must get a significant amount of that rental property tourist tax we don't get any it's zero don't get any zero tourist tax you don't get what no tourist tax comes
to the city either way well I pay $ 15 % of my rental fees for tourist taxes I know the state gets the share the county gets a share and I'm sure you people get a share no no we don't uh County takes it then why why would you complained
last year that you were I don't even want to go any further and you must get some of that well then you get sales tax from the visitors either way another gentleman say oh 1,300 is nothing that's a week's
rent or something like that an example of expenses in the past year on myo complex not my but the complex our insurance went two years ago from 200,000 to 400,000 last year to $600,000
now it's $700,000 this is for a 100 unit complex hund $700,000 for our tax that is in the condo tax I I mean property insurance I pay but just for the complex so costs
have significantly increased and I'm sure operating costs have to we also spent $2.8 million on structural repair last year and that was a lot of local property I mean contractors that did the
work so you got a share of their taxes or whatever thank you but thank you very much thank you Michael foron come on down ex well I don't know how I'm going to
follow that but I'll try my best so oron tar 178 June Drive um oh hold this up sorry so uh thank you all for looking into this I mean I was on the planning board in 2018 when we first passed a lot of these regulation well we didn't pass it we recommended to we passed I think
Tim you might have voted on them back then I you know it's always just been an Enforcement issue we've never really had any you know we one code enforcement officer that's been the case since 2018 I think at a period we were going to have a contractor never got a
contractor going so really I mean it is just an Enforcement issue um and you got to pay for it unfortunately the issue is ballooned to a point to where you need funding so these Fe fees that the city manager Wayne has
developed just to hire staff and the hard part is is um you know you're going to hire Code Enforcement Officers they have to work after hours um you know a lot of the problems that you hear complaining about it's not Monday through Friday 8 to5 it's after hours Sundays weekends and the problem
is is right now you're depending on the police officers to address these issues police officers should be running speed Patrol should be arresting bad guys none of our police officers want to enforce Airbnb or deal with Airbnb complaints so just like when you guys did Beach
Rangers it was the same discussion we did Beach Rangers because we didn't want the cops running up and down the beach riding litter tickets so you know you get the right people doing the job like Code Enforcement Officers which they deal with civil issues like this and you're
going to see the complaints go down the compliance go up some of the Bad actors probably will decide it's not worth it and overall just going to make a better experience for not only the Airbnb owners but the residents so I know this is just about raising the fees but I
hope very very quickly there's a follow-up meeting where you guys discuss the Staffing and the plan to make sure that you actually address the the core problem which is simply just enforcing the rules that are on the books today thank you very much thank
you Brian C I'm Brian kley at 989 South Atlantic Avenue um I don't own any uh structure minals in kogo Beach I may in the future but I don't right now um but I have owned multiple short-term rentals in
Beach Delaware in Maui and Hawaii um and so I'm pretty well vered of of the needs to uh to to run it as as a as a proper business um so I I personally have no issue with the short-term rentals in kab
Beach um do I necessarily like the fact that I don't know what my numbers anymore no but it is what it is uh people have the right to do what they want to with their property now but here's the thing when I had my
shortterm Metals I followed rules mostly um the next person did and the next person did but then there's people who don't follow the rules and there's plenty of them who don't follow the rules they don't pay the fees they don't have licenses they uh are you know uh
distant uh uh owners absente te who live in Maryland and and and and Pennsylvania and they don't they they just can't control what's going on and so you have so things run a muck and so there's a lot of cost to the city
one to run the uh to make sure everyone has their licenses make sure the code enforcement the extra police activity Etc all those fees whatever it costs the city should be borne by the short-term rentals it shouldn't be own uh be born
by someone like me who who has no short-term rentals it should be fully paid for by the uh shortterm rental owners it's a business if you decide that the fuse are too much and you can't make a profit off your business you
shouldn't have the business not everybody can succeed at every single business um from the standpoint of the fees going up if the fees go up uh uh to a certain point because that's what takes to fully fund the cost to the city for the
short-term rentals then um the fees should go up to that point I'm not I'm not telling it to rake anybody over the coals but people complain about how how bad the the fees are I can tell you my my last uh house I rented out in um as a shortal in Maui it
cost me $155,000 in expenses and fees before I even got my vental license I mean that it was just just crazy and um so so it's really not not that much money here uh that that people make it
you know make it out to be um like I said it's business if you can't run the business you shouldn't be you shouldn't have the business and that's got it and and the one gentleman who didn't know what the rs1 zoning is is basically all the areas in K Beach
that's single family resident low density and thank you Daniel Young good evening Council uh my name is Daniel young I live on June Drive um I'd like to start with a personal story I live adjacent to an strr and for four
years I've witnessed a consistent turnover of guests sometimes every week without a gap despite this not once has their been their presence been disruptive or inconvenient I hear all over town and here tonight a growing disdain for sdrs signs posted telling tourists they are
not welcome and I wonder if this fee hike is just part of a broader effort to cut down an st s given the vocal opinions of many residents it feels like more of a tactic than a necessity we know tourism is crucial with a $2.95 billion spent in Bard
County by visitors last year a reduction in Str availability would have a direct effect on our local businesses and economy the council is proposing a fee of $2,800 this is almost 10 times higher than any other city in Florida this is drastically out of line with other
cities feed as Florida's most expensive County St John's uses a tiered approach and charges at most $600 for a 5 plus bedroom unit Florida's highest St Str fee is in ismeralda at $1,300 but this is a unique situation
where the key with the keys where cost of living and Regulatory environment differ significantly from other parts of the state there seems to be one of two things happening here one we really need to find we really need the funds to offset toward needs or two the council
is trying to restrict SDR opportunities either way I fear that this could place Us in violation of the Florida vacation rental act exposing us to liabilities despite many detached single unit uh units being the minority many
Str owners are residents of this city I beg you not to harm your neighbors your constituents who handpicked you to act in their best interest increased fees will lower the number of available s strs hurting these businesses and the broader Community the real fight here is with the county to
get our fair share of Tourism funds not imposing higher taxes on your neighbors and make no mistake if fee is a tax lastly as a voter I could not vote for someone who backed this proposal a movement I hope our entire Community Support will support thank you for your
consideration [Applause] I think it says Marcus grunther br oh the mic hey all right thank you for listening I have three units that are condos I didn't know this just
applied to rs1 except the code enforcement new person is going to apply to condos um I have three condos that are airbnbs and we've been doing it for a little over 3 years now my wife's been managing them it's been great we've had probably 400 reviews and it's going well
and we it's in a condo complex so I talked to all the neighbors and kind of mixed but generally positive appeal of it um as far as the funds go the 400% increase like he said I feel like it's just to get around the fact that you can't ban short-term rentals as per
state but you are just trying to financially prevent them from being done so you're just kind of like looping around that state law maybe that's why or maybe maybe that's why or maybe it's just that you want to yeah tax your
neighbors like it's a huge increase and then it's only on rs1 which is weird like I have a condo so this apparently doesn't affect me but why is I still had to get the um um uh I had to pay to register and I'm going to have to pay for a renewal and I had to get uh the
same not a sprinkler system but a um the wired in smoke detectors emergency lights and a tagged fire extinguisher that I have to do every year so if I have to do all of those safety things I'm still doing basically the same thing so I'm still paying money in um why do I
have to you know eventually it's going to go up for me too if it goes up for rs1 it'll go up for condos later so that's also weird anyways that's it I just oh also wanted to say I my units are cheaper they're like 200k so I don't make as much as the people with the
million dooll houses and it's going to disproportionately affect me when you jack up the rates so I do like a tiered system that would be something to consider that would be nice as well anyways thank you for your [Music] time Elise Johnson
good evening uh my name is Elise Johnson I'm a rental manager um in the city overseeing about 15 properties the majority of them are condos but I do have several single family homes um all of my rentals are fully licensed and inspected and I take pride in ensuring
they meet all of the regulations and that my guests have a safe place to stay while visiting Coco Beach I here tonight to oppose to oppose the propos osed license fee increase you've heard from many tonight that these fees are unreasonable um how they
risk damaging our tourism economy and how the effectiveness in in solving issues like noise and parking remains unproven I agree with all of those rebuttals but I want to offer a personal perspective from the owners I
represent many of them have owned their properties in Coco Beach for years decades even these aren't faceless investors these are people who have made this city their vacation home for themselves their children their grandchildren they have been a part of this community for years and hope to be
a part of it for years to come for a long time these owners have never rented out their homes it wasn't until recently that they have turned to rentals to offset increasing cost of ownership primarily Rising insurance premiums and taxes most of these owners are on fixed
incomes they're not renting to get rich they're renting just to hold on to their homes that means so much to them and their families The increased fees will force them to choose between keeping a cherish cherished piece of their legacy or letting it go the proposal targets everyone not just the bad apples
currently circumventing existing regulations the properties and owners I represent are compliant they follow the requirements they meet the requirements they have a local contact and their properties are safe they have the right to use their property as they wish without being penalized Coco Beach is a
special place because it balances tourism and Community my owners and I are part of that I ask you to reject these excessive fees and work with us on a fair targeted solution that addresses the real issues without punishing those who call this city home whether
full-time or for a few precious weeks of the Year thank you Jill Forbes good evening I'm Jill forbs from 945 South Atlantic and for the last five months I've been working with the city since I presented the agenda
item September 4th on the large quantity of uh estrs that were advertising for over the eight maximum um I can tell you in working with the city um I've also identified a
lot of properties in rs1 that are not registered and not um filing their BTR the business tax receipt in working with the city they literally have one person
trying to do code enforcement for the buildings that are going on in the property uh Viola other violations besides Str strs it takes more than just this person to do it um I feel bad some
days because there's repeat offenders that for months are still advertising or on weekends some of the people when code enforcement isn't here the Str Str raises the amount over eight on a Friday
night and so it has booking on the website for 3 days until Monday morning and then they lower it back down to 8 uh so there's a lot of shenan inin going on I call it whack-a-mole because um some of them just pay the fine and
keep up the bad behavior and it it's labor intensive I can tell you that from working with a uh a meeting several times with the people in code enforcement in the city so um I'm hoping that the fines and the fees get approved
today and that we have a program if sdrs are going to be in the city on a permanent basis then um we need somebody to support that program uh on its own I mean we have 300
properties today uh in rs1 I believe it's much higher than that I just sent over three uh links uh the other day of properties that were not registered so um and that's just the tip of of the iceberg with with some of the other
issues that are going on in the sdrs thank you missy barley good evening mayor Commissioners and my fellow citizens uh my name is Missy barley and my address is 421 South bevard Avenue um
Airbnb has been around for 17 years and it has enhanced some lives and it's been a detriment to others we currently have 12,000 residents um and just since July 1 of uh 2024 460 btrs have been issued
rental scape is the what the city is using as a thirdparty uh format platform to to find out who's uh listing and who's not um so far they found 316 unregistered
homes uh there's other third-party uh platforms out there one of them is called rabu um I just pulled that up before the meeting started um they say that uh there's been every year there's been a growth in
Coco Beach is 72% according to Airbnb me that's another for format total available listings are 1999 another format's called air airb tis uh they say that there's 909
listings and that our town they actually put this in their their narrative Our Town um is lenient and the local government is not strictly enforcing short-term rental regulations on the average and there's a 70% occupancy rate
um I I have a feeling there's a lot of airb out there that aren't being discovered and kudos to you Jill for doing your due diligence and finding them um well on the one hand I don't want government to say what I can and cannot do with my home I feel that has gotten
out of hand um I would like to what I've heard tonight as a parent who didn't know how to parent and let their kid run a muck um that was my mom she was a single single parent and I did whatever I wanted when I wanted until she got wiser and wanted
to crack down and um I buck that I'm like well I've been getting away with this for so long she's like no these are the new rules and I'm like I'm out of here you know I'm going to go surf and and keep being naughty and I I did for quite a while too um too many of the
area homeowners and their representatives do not care about our town I'm also a realtor while we may not be able to stop vacation rynolds we can certainly make it more advantageous for our city and her citizens it seems a whole lot of
people would rather ask for forgiveness rather than permission I would like to see stricter fines I've managed several airbnbs in the past and I always kept my owners and their neighbors in mind like I went and handed out business card said if you see anything please say
something all of my clients including myself did it out of necessity to live in an increasingly more expensive neighborhood in closing I'd just like to say that um thank you very much I wrote too much
I wrote too many notes um I can't read your last name very well but it looks like Denise Sturman sterman good evening Council my name name Denise sterman I live at 8 uh 33 Catalina Coco is Boulevard happened to
be neighbor of the gentleman who came up here earlier with the horrific story of uh short-term rentals we have four on our Canal three are awesome one is not so I came tonight mostly to listen because I really didn't understand what the ruling was so it's been super
helpful tonight and I appreciate these forums um like Missy mentioned I struggle with the I want government to tell me what I can do with my property what I can't the residential issue with the zoning issue we're a single family home I
thought when we bought we're in a residential area not a commercial area which makes me think there's not business in my neighborhood and I I so I struggle with that trying to understand what's fair and what's not um I had a friend who taught swim lessons out of
her home in Coco Beach and I know she was harassed for running a business out of her home because there were too many cars parked in front so I struggle to understand why that business owner was not allowed to run her business but we can rent so I I really am sitting in a
gray space and trying to listen and understand I also came tonight to understand um you talked in the beginning about these fees and fines I'm starting to shake now if they were to deter more
rentals if that's the per I think that maybe we need to be clear on what that is if if it's to deter then it it does feel punitive if it's to fund code enforcement that's fantastic I'm in full support of that so I guess I don't I didn't know if the
council's clear on that sounds like there's Florida legislation that says we cannot regulate how many vrbos or short-term rentals are in a community um it was my understanding in some other states they can have percentages in a city you can only have you know whatever
3% of of rental so I don't know what the laws are on that but I would encourage you know if you can give residents like me Clarity on that that might help us understand how we structure this and if we're going to do fees and fines to deter additional rentals or if we're
going to do it to fund something so I don't really I mean I I guess my my first vote is yeah raise the fees to to be able to fund this definitely I don't want to be incurred in that as a resident um but I love to stay in vbo so I kind of sit in the middle on this so I
just wanted to thank you for your time and for helping educate all of us in the community thank you good John Newton good evening Mr Mayor and city councilman um my name is John Newton I have a new home at 3360 South Atlantic
Avenue I'm now a coco beach resident I lived in parar County since 1970 graduated from satellite high school attended University of Florida served in the military and was Bank president of SunBank here 30 years ago loan money for a lot of the buildings commercially here and at the Port I was
Sun Bank branch manager of the year because I loaned to build the port turning Basin the West turning Basin did that as a bond issue um been away for a long time did a lot of other things but in the last couple years I've been trying to figure out how to retire sold a big building and decided to try a
couple of vacation rentals and um I've been doing that for about a year and a half and recently bought a house here in Coco Beach to do that with not the one I'm living in but um as many people said uh there are a lot of tough challenges a lot of cost to be part of this business
it's very labor intensive very Hands-On if a person's trying to do it by living in another state they're making a big mistake and I think that's what's led to a lot of these problems that people have with neighbors because no one's local paying attention to what the hell is going on in the house that they're renting and I think that's
wrong I have made a lot of notes but most of what I said has already been covered but I'm going to talk about a few points that I think is important um my recommendation for you as a city is to make the priority the enforcement
not the fine not the fees fees are not a deterrent fines are a deterrent if you want good performance and good attitude and Good Conduct from your neighbors find the hell out of them make it important make it meaningful make it painful so the owners get smart and do what I've done I have agreements in my
leases that say nothing after 10:00 outside no sound determined by the neighbors uh no party environments are ever going to be occupying one of my houses there are families pure and simple and here's another thing I did tonight I was thinking about this
meeting and I went and had dinner with my girlfriend over over at Taco City and I started thinking about the economic impact of these visitors the people that stay in my house typically stay a week at a time and they eat out almost every
single night with their eight people assume that's $20 ahead do the math that's ,000 a week from that one week's occupant if there are 1,500 of these in Coco
Beach do the math I wrote in about 10 minutes 50 Cocoa Beach restaurants that I know about that are probably thriving and there are 50 because there are this many people coming here that aren't staying in hotels CU I guarantee you stay in a
hotel you eat at the hotel I've been a business traveler for most of my life I know that's the case but we need to hammer the fines the fines the fines this is the last comment Ashley [Music] O'Brien good evening I wasn't going to
say anything but I didn't hear anyone else mention this so I was going to bring it up um choosing to rent a property as a landlord as a short-term rental and in incur all of these um costs and fees and
fines and taxes is a choice you always have the option of renting it longterm you can do that I personally own a property and I rent it longterm and I enjoy that the
longterm rental also contributes significantly to our community as I do as a resident I go to tiny turtle and and the Fourth Street beastro and whisk and grind and I have beers at Jonathan's
I I participate in my community as well as does my long-term renters so please make sure that you're considering that these fees are paying would pay for code enforcement which is important and that
um and that they have a choice they don't have to incur these fines unless they choose to do a short-term rental okay thank you all right public comment is now closed commission
comments any I'll start so um wanted to thank everybody that's here and everybody that emailed us I think uh this week we got a number really good and insightful uh from you know pro and con on the topic so thank you guys for
the inputs you've given I thought a lot of them were really thoughtful right we we got a lot less of the just copy paste and actually folks going through and really kind of weighing in on on on pros and cons even just within the email so I appreciate that um and and I think
that's probably what probably hear all the Commissioners say something similar but um we've we've got uh my wife and I um some folks that are are really dear to us who are good friends here in the community that that have an Str Str and
so they're the folks that I really think about when I think about this topic um he's he's uh stationed at the Pentagon so he's not here because he doesn't want to be here he's not here because he can't be here um and so when I think about Str strs I don't put it in the
context so much of a business but I think about the folks who are near and dear to us who own these properties and have made the decision to make them an Str Str so my comments are in that context that I'm thinking about those folks and I have a great friend who came
and gave some very thoughtful comments as well um but I think for me the matter comes down to we have we have right now a fee schedule that has the 300 so homes paying in about this is rough math not
exact values but about 237,000 to the city and based on what we we've looked at and the cost to the city and again because as commissioner Williams noted we can't make money off of this but these are costs of the city the estimated cost are something closer to
723000 right and so that means residents are carrying the cost of that difference is about 486,000 now are we exactly where we need to be on the fee schedule well there's some learning that needs to be done and we have a number of unregistered but for
for me and again I say this in the context of of knowing that this impacts folks I care dearly about it is unfair for residents to carry $486,000 worth of payments for businesses that they don't benefit from
that's just not [Applause] fa you know we've heard a lot about you know find them find them find them but then on the other side the coin we're here we don't have a code enforcement officer to go out and and create these
fines okay so we got to fund that code enforcement officer on top of what uh Josh has said that it's costing all the regular taxpayers uh close to half a million dollars uh a year to to fund the people
that are in business so I stand behind my support of it and I know I got some murmuring but we have to do the books we have to keep records and if everything everybody starts coming into compliance and there's a lot less uh code
enforcement work being required and a lot less lawyer time being required and staff time and police time looking into all this and we can't account for the money that we're spending then the fines go down so I got some Flack about about
that earlier but we need to get this money in so that we can get that other code enforcement officer and cover the additional cost of the city and who's next you want to go
Tim yeah I'll go um Mr Dicky could I see manager could uh I have Mr dicki speak uh again answer some questions for me sure thank you so there's um uh been some
misinformation and non-information um rs1 is residential basically single family residences um and and that's what this these fees
are surrounding we also have Str strs in other zones do we have a plan for those zones are we um are those zones being charge registration fees application fees
btrs and those fees yeah thank thank you um currently only Str strs in the rs1 district are required to register so the that's roughly 300 now those
Citywide whether you're in rs1 or any zoning District you're required to have a business tax receipt so Citywide btrs just rs1 registration can I ask you a question with that why probably going to ask that
question go ahead why why is that well a business tax receipt is um required if you're going to run a business in the city so whether it's so that really is not does isn't dependent on what zoning District you're in if you're if you're
running a business you have to have a BTR so every business in the city restaurants bars dry cleaners attorneys if if you run a business in the city you have to have a BTR therefore that's why Citywide Str strs are required to get a
business tax receipt um registrations are limited to rs1 now I wasn't here when that ordinance was put into effect so maybe maybe Becky could speak to that on why it was limited to rs1 at the time I don't know okay um it's my
recollection that um the commission believed that that was the most serious problem area and that's what they wanted to do you know to start off and I think there was going to be some sort of
consideration going forward at some point maybe to have um the the coverage be expanded but to try to do the entire city would have just really been with
the Staffing that we have it would have been impossible so and and the business tax receipts are completely different from the regulatory registration um under Florida law one is a tax and the other is a regulatory fee
never the Twains shall meet they're they're they're just different um and it is confusing but they everybody in the city who has a BTR needs everybody in City who has a business has to have a BTR but only the
Way It Was Written um only the people in the rs1 have to get the vacation rental registration yeah i' I'd like to add to that the BTR fees that are collected from the short-term rental properties
are not used to fund code enforcement officers that is that's an important point and they they should not be because those are taxes so I mean and there are technical legal reasons for that because if you
start using if you start using your tax power for regulatory purposes you can lose your tax power there's case law on that so we have to keep them separate okay thank you
um you know something that uh doesn't try to make an analogy of uh running a business um a couple analogies I guess you know running a business out of your home you know do you do you want a restaurant next door to you and a RS one
District we can't do that um you can't have a FedEx facility there um or a drop off I don't believe either um or a bar or any other business uh kayak rental um or anything like that
in a in a single family uh residential Zone um short-term rental is basically a hotel room um and you know it could be 2 days could be one day could be a week two
weeks maybe a month I don't know uh but you know for for for these short-term RS some somebody might want it for a month uh but in essence it's a hotel room and uh and it's again short term as it stated so
um that in itself is is a business so we've got some businesses that are following rules and some aren't uh businesses get uh pilford on a regular basis shoplifting who pays for the
shoplifting everyone else that buys products at that business no one pays for shoplifting for that business that doesn't do buy anything from that business follow that so the people that should pay for
the um illegal use of Str strs or non-registration should be those that have that are the sdrs not the rest of the public just want to make those statements that's where my head is another thing that hasn't been brought
up is that the short-term rentals uh don't actually pay individually for uh bed tax it was brought up earlier about the TDC um that the TDC charges a bed tax to hotels hotels pay his bed tax it goes to
TDC TDC is is not Coco Beach Coco Beach gets no money from TDC unless we arrange something with work something out with them with Parks or or some other thing like that and we've got some issues there but as it turns out Airbnb and
that Consortium pays our local TDC a million dollars a year in bed taxes separate totally separate issue you know so the folks that have the Str strs don't see that on a line item uh but in
fact they are paying that through the fees they pay Airbnb um so so they are actually paying that to the TDC and as um gentleman mention are thinks that we're getting money from the TDC we do not get any
money from TDC or bed tax that needs to change so gets to the the the Crux of this whole issue is the fees um the uh whether it's registration Annual fees and all um and
fines folks that are paying that are doing the right thing you know we want to try to keep those particular fees down so they've already paid you've already registered you should be locked in almost grandfathered into to a certain level those that aren't
um should have a a a new fee and I'm going to suggest a fee of an application fee of $11,000 up until a certain time and after that then it goes to 2500 um the the annual
renewal um I like that at um at 1,500 but the but the fines need to be need to stay where they are um is there a way to I mean do I have concurrence with the this is just the the sheet you
um you have that on your or you don't have it on but yes I was I looked at it before so I'm suggesting that the vacation rental application registration fee can we can we do something like that where
we where we have a a time frame where it's a certain level and if the short-term rentals decide not to register their rentals with Cocoa Beach then then they're going to get hit the folks that are already here that have
already they're doing the right thing as I'm sure all of you are um or else you wouldn't be here um because why would you be here if you're not already paying and registered because you're outting yourselves by being here right so um is that something we can do is
that duplicative of the late fee already or is that different in your thought it's it's different in my thought I think I think it's I think it's an exorbitant fee to char charge a a a substantial application fee um if
they're willing to come in yeah you know within the next month or 60 days or whatever we can legally you know the time frame should be I don't know what that is or whatever the commission determines that may be um but uh I think
we've got enough publicity now on this subject that everybody that has a a short-term rental knows what's going going on and um you know it's their own fault at this point I I could draft something like
that um we've had this regulation I believe for six years so probably they've been operating under the radar for six years so so um commissioner ult if you were going to uh want to make a change like that at this meeting we have a
motion on the table right this would be it would be an amendment yeah right okay I understand I just want to have a discussion about that of where that would be well if you make an amendment and you get a second then we can have a discussion yeah good
point all right so um yeah I'd like to make an amendment to the um to the exhibit a which is all the fees they've been redlined to change change the patient rental application
registration fee to $11,000 and um for for a 60-day period and um after that 60-day period goes up to $2,500 are you saying 60 days
from now 60 days from when day 60 days from now so what about the people that come in 6 months from now and they want to start it then they got to pay the 25 they've if they can good point um if
they can prove that they're just opening Airbnb now we're having discussion without a second yeah we are good point I I will I will second that um so that we can discuss this but I want I think we want to do some amendments to it absolutely okay yeah so that's what I'm
thinking is um is an $1,000 application fee if they volunteer to come in if we find that they're in violation then it's a 20 well then that'd be that'd be a fine we can't charge that' be two different do fine well if they don't come in they get fine
you you could have um you know a forgiveness period I have seen that on some ordinances to try to get those extra hundred ones to come out of the dark and uh
register going save their time as well yeah that's I I have seen that done on on other on other things um can I make a suggestion or a possible we're in discussion discussion
um I say from now on if you have a short-term rental within 30 days you come in and register or you get the fine and you have to pay $1,000 registration
fee um I think anybody starting a new Airbnb like you said 30 days if they don't register within 30 days they get a $2500 fine and they have to pay the registration
fee I think um I would like to see renewals at around 800 00 that's what I'd like to see reg new registration is 1,000 renewal is 800 and you have a 30-day grace period other than that it goes to the 2500 fine may I
have a comment so um the part about that there was a little bit of touched on discussion that you say $1,000 for 60 days get people to come in compliance and it goes 2500 and
the mayor said well what about the new Airbnb why are they going to have to pay $2500 they should only have to pay ,000 well it could be somebody that's been an Airbnb under the radar after the 608 period and they're like oh I'm going
to get caught I'll go pay the ,000 so that's not going to work plus we need the the funding coming in to to fund the city staff that we're currently paying for so let's go ahead
let's go ahead and pass it as it is and as I've said I think twice that when we do the rack and stack we can make adjustments this is a resolution it can be changed in one meeting okay I'd like to hear from Jeremy yeah no I I like the user fee
model you know it makes perfect sense we're throwing out numbers somewhat arbitrarily with no real tie of what the cost side is right we're cutting costs here different programs but the ultimate goal is to get user fees to fund code enforcement right away so I'm I'm a fan
of leaving it as as for leaving it as is and know that we have the flexibility to adjust it legally we have to tie off the cost side with the with the the fee side so we can defend that it's easy enough to change later as as needed but I
support this so for me like I said I I can't I can't support um charging up upstanding people $2,500 to to register their business I
it but it's it's absorbant to me but I I can totally stand behind the fines and the and realistic fees so I can't vote for it as that I I want the fines but I can't I can't I can't do it to the
people that are doing it right yeah I I think we get ourselves as commissioner H mentioned I think we get ourselves in trouble if we start changing things that are based on calculations we we we've got to be careful um and and I think
this to commissioner Williams Point as well um I I I agree with you I this this is not meant to be or at least my rationale is not meant to be an attack on somebody right it is meant to Levy
costs where the costs are and my understanding is that these were built around utilization of those cost as they as they come in and are levied on the city changing these I I think we can as we learn more or if we learn more
that would drive us to change them but if these are built on our understanding of what we're spending as a city we need to be careful rough you know shooting from the hip on those changes even if they sound Salient and I'm not saying they don't I think I think where you
guys are thinking seems reasonable I just would be careful on changing the numbers without having actual facts I'd like to call a question and vote on the amended Motion in the motion say again I said I'd like to call the question and
vote on the amended motion and then the main motion so the amended motion would be Tim's motion yep y um $1,000 for 60 days not with with the 60 days or or with what I was saying the thousand and then
the 2 my motion days and 1500 did we say, 15 karon what did you record when he made the motion that got seconded vacation rental application
$1,000 for 60 days after goes up to 2500 and then that's the motion that was the motion a 2500 is going to go down to th000 for 60 days that's the amended for the first 60 days that's right to get to
get folks to come in that aren't registered for the first days1 it goes to this schedule yes even for the new people yes I'm okay if we would have dated that six years ago all right how about this
no no I want I just want to know something real quick um it's got to be voted what about the renewal what's the renewal price 1500 it's still 1,500 that's too much like it said okay all right we
can't profit from this if we go Jimmy with the revenue sign it's going to not fund the code enforcement favor of the of the amendment I I all opposed n all right we'll vote on the original
um motion now all in favor is there any more discussion on this original motion or are we done with that discussion and the original motion call the amendment a question to vote on the amendment and the main motion if this fails then we will then
we can discuss again and and renegotiate we have the main motion again just to be the main motion is as written as written all right all in favor of the as written I I I all opposed n all right
motion passes 4 One well the people have spoken the commission has voted what language and uh I think we can call that a wrap