MELBOURNE BEACH, Fla. – Noisy visitors and the big parties they bring with them are the target of a proposed ordinance on vacation rentals in Melbourne Beach.
Last year, the town’s candidates for mayor pledged to make changes when it came to addressing some guests becoming a nuisance to local residents.
Now, Brevard County’s oldest beach community will debate the new rules in the town commission next month.
“We’ve had a lot of meetings where we’ve talked about it and there’s strong feelings I think on both sides, but we want to regulate the ones that we do have, get the unregistered ones regulated, and make sure that we don’t have this explosion that there’s been in other cities,” Mayor Alison Dennington said.
Wednesday, Dennington told News 6 reporter James Sparvero that the town is proposing maximum occupancy limits.
Per rental property, that would mean no more than 10 guests and four cars, and the cars would have to be parked in the driveway.
“So you can’t park them in the grass,” Dennington said. “We’ve also revamped the noise ordinances related to short-term rentals.”
Mark McBride is one of the residents complaining about noise from vacation rentals in his neighborhood.
“I have an STR to the east, a short-term rental to the west, and one behind me now,” McBride said.
The resident said he believes the ordinance would get results.
“While the state has certain mandates, we have control over ordinances, fees, schedules, etc,” McBride said.
Another local, who just spoke at a town hall Monday, said he thinks the ordinance wouldn’t be fair to the property owners who’ve rented their places for years without trouble.
“Show me the rationale for placing undue burden on the STR business class by imposing ridiculous and unachievable guest monitoring mandates,” Gary Prutow said.
The ordinance was on Wednesday night’s town commission agenda, but now, Mayor Dennington said it will be ready for its first reading on Jan. 15.
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