In 2011, the State Legislature passed House Bill 883, which was approved by the Governor and became effective on June 2, 2011. Most significantly, Florida Statute § 509.032(7) was amended by adding Paragraph b:

(b) A local law, ordinance, or regulation may not restrict the use of vacation rentals, prohibit vacation rentals, or regulate vacation rentals solely based on their classification, use, or occupancy. This paragraph does not apply to any local law, ordinance, or regulation on or before June 1, 2011.

The second sentence of § 509.032(7)(b) makes relevant laws, ordinances, or regulations that existed prior to June 1, 2011 immune (aka grandfathered) from the effect of the first sentence of § 509.032(7)(b). Therefore, the Town’s zoning laws should have rightly continued to act as a prohibition of STRs in the three residential zoning districts and a prohibition of rentals less than a month in the 4-RM and 5-RMO zoning districts.

In 2014 the State Legislature passed Senate Bill 356, which was approved by the Governor and became effective on July 1, 2014. Florida Statute § 509.032(7) was amended as follows:

(b) A local law, ordinance, or regulation may not restrict the use of vacation rentals, prohibit vacation rentals, or regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals solely based on their classification, use, or occupancy. This paragraph does not apply to any local law, ordinance, or regulation on or before June 1, 2011.

2014 Senate Bill 356 was a significant victory for local governments as it allowed them to enact new vacation rental regulations and to make these regulations specific to vacation rentals.

Thus, the Town of Melbourne Beach laws prohibiting STRs in the three residential areas were in fact “grandfathered” and remain unaffected by the 2011 and 2014 state legislation. We also know from the interview of then Melbourne Beach Town Manager Robert Daniels by the Vero News in 2018, four years after the 2014 legislative changes that this was the position of the Town and until then it had gone unchallenged. Town Manager Daniels was quoted as saying, “This is their gold mine to them [STR owners]. They don’t care about your community, your standards or the people that live next door. They care about making money.” He continued later saying, “The Town currently allows rentals but only in its multi-family districts. It is a violation of our zoning unless it is in a multi-family district, and that’s where something like that should be, instead of in a single-family district where people pay good money for their homes there.”

In May of 2020 Mayor Jim Simmons, along with commissioners Sherrie Quarrie and Corey Runte, approved Ordinance 2020-02 which added Chapter 74 Vacation Rentals permitting vacation rentals in zoning districts 1-RS, 2-RS, 3-RS, 4-RM, 5-RMO, and 8-B . Commissioners Steve Walters and Wyatt Hoover opposed Ordinance 2020-02. Our present Town Manager, Elizabeth Mascaro, who replaced  Robert Daniels  in September 2019, has interpreted Chapter 74 to permit vacation rentals throughout the Town without objection from the Town Commission.

Ordinance 2020-02 opened the flood gates for vacation rentals in every neighborhood in our Town! However, Subsection 74-22 of Ordinance 2020-02 states that “the registration requirement does not constitute an approved use that would otherwise be prohibited under any other town ordinance.” Moreover, there is no provision in Section 74 that makes Ordinance 2020-02 the superior law if it conflicts with any other ordinance. Therefore since the Land Use Development Code is adopted by ordinance as an appendix to our Town Code, it could have, should have, and still should be argued that our zoning laws have always prohibited STRs in the residential areas of our town and are also prohibited them in the 4-RM and 5-RMO zoning districts, if the rental is less than a month. To take it a step further, Subsection 74-22 of Ordinance 2020-02 specifically says, “The registration of a vacation rental is not an approval of a use or activity that would otherwise be illegal.” Therefore, since the zoning laws only permit STRs in the mixed use area and ocean areas in town and then only if rented for more than a month, it should be argued that any STR in the residential section of town is illegal. It would also follow that the registration requirements only apply to the 4-RM and 5-RMO areas. However, none of our commissioners have taken this position. All they keep saying is that there is nothing they can do to prohibit STRs. As we now know, this is and always has been untrue.

How the Town has dealt with STRs

Since Chapter 74 was established in 2020, the town has worked with willing STR owners to register and inspect their STRs on an annual basis. However, the town has made little effort to identify unregistered STRs and make them register.

For example, it took the town nearly two years to compel the owner of the unregistered STR at 204 Cherry Drive to appear before the code enforcement special magistrate at a hearing held on 8/30/2024. The only reason this finally happened was because of repeated citizen complaints about this STR and citizen demands that the STR owner be held accountable for not registering. In fact, the Town tried to close this case twice as shown in their case notes.