HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Short-term rentals are coming under new scrutiny in Hillsborough County as commissioners consider regulations that would give the county more oversight of vacation rental properties.<\/p>\n
County commissioners are scheduled to hold a public hearing Wednesday on proposed rules that would require short-term rental owners to register their properties and have someone available around the clock to respond to problems.<\/p>\n
The county is not proposing a ban on short-term rentals.<\/p>\n
Instead, the proposed regulations would require owners to register their properties and designate a local contact who can respond to issues involving the rental.<\/p>\n
The county is also proposing a $200 annual registration fee per unit, along with additional fees related to inspections.<\/p>\n
The issue has become particularly contentious in some neighborhoods where residents say the number of short-term rentals has grown rapidly.<\/p>\n
In the Bay Crest Park neighborhood in Town \u2018N Country, residents say there are now 126 short-term rentals among roughly 900 homes.<\/p>\n
Residents say the number of vacation rentals increased significantly after hurricanes Helene and Milton, which caused severe flooding and damage in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Samantha Freeland, a Bay Crest Park homeowner, said many residents sold their homes after the storms, while some new owners converted the properties into short-term rentals.<\/p>\n
Freeland said the change has disrupted what had been a quiet residential neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Residents have reported parties, increased traffic, and other disturbances associated with short-term rental guests.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re essentially having businesses that are operating within single-family zoned residential neighborhoods,\u201d Freeland said. \u201cThat the county has zoned us as single-families zoned residential areas and they\u2019re allowing businesses to operate right next to families with no ordinances or life safety inspections.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, short-term rentals represent a relatively small percentage of homes in Hillsborough County.<\/p>\n
There are currently about 3,000 short-term rentals in unincorporated Hillsborough County, according to county information. The city of Tampa has about 9,000 additional short-term rentals.<\/p>\n
By comparison, Pinellas County has more than 24,000 short-term rentals across the county.<\/p>\n
Hillsborough County commissioners have been working on the proposed regulations for months as residents and officials debate how much oversight should be placed on vacation rentals.<\/p>\n
The public hearing on the proposed ordinance is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Short-term rentals are coming under new scrutiny in Hillsborough County as commissioners consider regulations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,558,276,2635,2287,115,135,137,136,278],"class_list":["post-388141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-top-stories","tag-business","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-jason-lanning","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}