If County Commissioners hoped to enjoy a vacation in Key West from the contentious issue of vacation rentals, they were disappointed. Wednesday evening's "town meeting" held by the County board drew angry people from as far as Big Pine.
They wanted to remind the Commission how much they were suffering under the County's new ordinance, less than a year old, prohibiting vacation rentals in residential neighborhoods.
Commissioner Wilhelmina Harvey recently decided to bring the ordinance back for "tweaking," but the people who attended this meeting said the County just isn't tweaking fast enough to save them from bankruptcy. Some insinuated that the banning of mom-and-pop rentals was a plot to either benefit Key West hotels, or to free up county housing for Key West wage slaves.
"Rescind the ordinance. Businesses are suffering," said Cindy Cameron. "Tweaking is a travesty."
She had a petition bearing, she said, 826 signatures of lower Keys people who are reportedly losing their shirts while the Commission is "tweaking."
"We want our business back! Stop enforcing it while tweaking if you don't want to destroy the community you say you are trying to preserve," Cameron concluded.
Another man wanted to know what the Commission was doing with all the anti-rentals evidence they had been given, and what direction they had given the County administration. Commissioner George Neugent said he would share the information, and that his direction had been "toward regulation" of vacation rentals.
Don Pollock said the owners of rental property had "from our hearts, pleaded for relief" and were now mortgaging their homes and spending money intended for their children, to fight the loss of their source of income. "The Christmas season is gone. We are still fighting for recovery . . . this was an established tourist business that has been taken away."
The bad news from County Attorney Jim Hendrick: Although there are several ways to tweak an ordinance, there are no fast and easy ways. "There is nothing this board can do to change the law in a short period of time," whether they go back through the Planning Board process or whether they gamble on getting the state of Florida involved in the process. With proper advertising and public hearings, it could take anywhere from a few months to a year.
The City of Key West has just enacted a similar ordinance, so the County meeting may be a taste of things to come in City Commission chambers.
Other subjects brought up at the meeting: Joan Langley and Jim Malcolm of the Key West Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Committee asked the County Commission to coordinate with the City on several sidewalk or bike path issues, most notably Palm Avenue.
Palm Ave. is a County road but is built on Navy property and the City is responsible for sidewalks. They sought design cooperation among all involved to make sure the problems are solved ahead of planned drainage construction.