Airbnb filed a lawsuit
against the city of Miami Beach on Jan. 4, 2019, alleging
that new restrictions on short-term rental platforms violate
the federal Communications Decency Act.
As Miami-Dade County experienced a spike in COVID-19 cases
in July, hotels were allowed to stay open but not all guests
were welcome.
Short-term renters were barred from booking weekend stays at
privately owned rooms in hotels and condominium buildings,
upsetting property owners who make a living on vacation
rentals.
The county’s restrictions on day-to-day vacation rental
stays, like those sold by Airbnb and Vrbo, were eased
earlier this month to create an exception for rentals at
hotel or condo units. But on Miami Beach, an international
tourist destination that has cracked down on short-term
rentals in recent years, the practice remains illegal under
the city’s stricter COVID-19 emergency orders.
Roused from their scheduled August recess by frustrated
property owners lobbying for a loosening of the rules, city
commissioners gathered at a special virtual meeting
Wednesday to approve a plan modifying the city’s order to
reflect the county’s amended rules.
City Manager Jimmy Morales, who holds unilateral
decision-making powers while the city is in a state of
emergency during the pandemic, heard from commissioners and
more than a dozen vacation-rental owners before signing a
new executive order that will roll back the restrictions
beginning Saturday. The new order will limit room capacities
to four people, or six if the occupants belong to the same
family. Morales also extended the city’s state of emergency
through next Wednesday.
Rental operators told the City Commission during the meeting
that the current rules created a “competitive disadvantage”
that favored hotel operators with deeper pockets and more
political influence.
Condominium and hotel units make up 93% of the 1,949 legal
short-term rentals in Miami Beach. The city prohibits
vacation rentals in single-family homes. Under the
coronavirus restrictions, vacation rentals remain banned in
apartment buildings.
“It makes absolutely no sense and is crushingly unfair to
treat short-term rentals, which meet or exceed the standards
of hotels, completely differently than hotels,” said George
Wollner, president of The Carlyle condominium building on
Ocean Drive.
Gigi Bush, the vice president of the condominium association
within the Casablanca Hotel on Collins Avenue, said the 250
unit owners at the hotel have been hurt financially by the
restrictions.
“I feel that we need to be treated as equal to hotels as we
are exactly in the same building, especially when we are
using the same security and safety measures, and are serving
the same people,” she told the commission.
Property owners like Roxana Romero, who owns three vacation
rentals in Mid Beach, said condo buildings are safer than
hotels when it comes to the spread of coronavirus because
they don’t have packed bars or restaurants.
“Those of us that are doing things legally, we were the ones
being burdened by all of this,” she told the commission.
The new order drew opposition from the Greater Miami and the
Beaches Hotel Association.
“Now is not the time,” said Wendy Kallergis, president and
CEO of the hotel association, during public comment. “We are
very concerned that short-term rentals are not compliant
with COVID regulations.”
Commissioners did not vote on the new order but offered
their support to the rental operators.
“The word fairness does stick with me,” Commissioner Mark
Samuelian said after hearing from property owners. “These
folks are also operating legally...They’ve taken all the
steps that we’ve prescribed.”
Miami Beach — and the county at large — first prohibited
vacation rentals in March as the city grappled with
COVID-19. After allowing them to return in June, the city
again moved to ban short-term rentals July 15 as coronavirus
cases countywide began to surge. The city blamed nightly
rentals for contributing to crowds of young tourists in
South Beach.
Key health metrics, like COVID-19 hospitalizations and daily
positive-testing rates, have trended downward in Miami-Dade
in recent weeks.
“You want to punish the bad behavior and not punish those
who have not done anything wrong,” Morales said Wednesday.