What’s all this talk about Vacation Rentals?
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
Brevard County currently has zoning protections in place that limit or prohibit short-term vacation rentals in many unincorporated communities and neighborhoods.
On September 15, 2020, the Board of County Commissioners started the process of changing the zoning code in unincorporated Brevard County to allow short-term Vacation Rentals in all unincorporated areas of Brevard County. In addition to this proposed change, any significant changes to our County’s zoning code will remove the protections that have been grandfathered in against daily or hourly Vacation Rentals.
This will open up our unincorporated residential neighborhoods to Airbnb, Vrbo, HomeAway, investors and the vacation rental corporate industry. Vacation rentals will become regulated by the State, and we will not be able to prohibit or set limits on the frequency or duration of vacation rentals in our own residential neighborhoods.
This proposed change to our zoning will be discussed in a series of 4 Public Meetings in November and December 2020.
Unless our communities work together to force our County Commissioners to stop these zoning changes, DAILY Vacation Rentals will be legalized throughout Brevard County! The current schedule indicates these changes are to be finalized on December 22.
WHAT’S THE ISSUE?
Florida Statute FS 509.032(7)(b) governs all vacation rentals in our State except where local entities had any law, ordinance, or regulation in place prior to June 1, 2011.
District 3 Commissioner John Tobia, who introduced the motion to change our County’s zoning code on September 15, voted for this state legislation when he was a State Representative in 2011. Commissioner Tobia is now trying to change our zoning, under the guise of simplifying the code, which will remove the protections that were grandfathered in from before 2011 and open up unincorporated areas of the County to daily or even hourly vacation rentals. Once our grandfathered protections and exemptions are removed, local jurisdictions and communities will not be able to stop DAILY – or even hourly – Vacation Rentals.
RESIDENTS MET WITH COMMISSIONER TOBIA ON OCTOBER 23:
On Oct 23, 2020 eight residents from the South Beaches area met with Commissioner Tobia. Tobia was not swayed by their concerns about Daily Vacation Rentals moving in to their quiet family neighborhoods.
Residents told Commissioner Tobia they do not want residential family neighborhoods all around Brevard County to turn into Vacation Rental resorts owned by investors and corporations. They do not want the crime, noise, trash and traffic created by daily vacation rentals, or the negative impacts of many more daily visitors on our dunes, turtle nests, and lagoon.
Commissioner Tobia claimed he has never had a single complaint at his office about short-term vacation rentals. He said his mind is made up. Over half of John Tobia’s campaign donations came from developers.
WHAT CAN BE DONE:
Please tell your friends, neighbors and everyone you can about this proposed zoning change! Share this website! Visit our Get Involved page to sign a petition, take a survey, contact our Commissioners, volunteer or donate, if you can! We need THREE of our FIVE Commissioners to vote AGAINST this change on December 8 at 5pm. Please attend the December 8 meeting, even if you can just stand outside and hold a NO DAILY RENTALS sign!
Thank you for helping SAVE OUR NEIGHBORHOODS and SAVE BREVARD COUNTY from Airbnb, Vrbo, vacation rental corporations and the big money interests who would profit from destroying our homes, our environment, our lifestyle, and our communities!
