view from the hill

One for the Old Town

by Nancy Klingener

Three cheers for Last Stand.

And for Monroe Circuit Judge David Audlin, too, and nice try, dude, to developer Pritam Singh, who reportedly will not be appealing Audlin’s Monday decision against the transfer of transient licenses from Singh’s Parrot Key development to Old Town neighborhoods.

Audlin’s decision is based on technical land-use legalities (as it should be) — the proposed transfer, he said, was not allowed under the city’s comprehensive plan and land development regulations. And the attempt by the Board of Adjustment (also known as the city commissioners) to create a new five-year rule for vacation rental transfer eligibility was not legal, either.

But the real reason I think Last Stand and Audlin’s decision in the group’s favor deserve cheers is that this is a sorely needed bolster to the integrity of Old Town as a real neighborhood, where people live and work.

The theory behind the attempted transfer of short term rental licenses was that the city is desperately in need of more vacation rental rooms and Singh, who is redeveloping the old Hampton Inn property on North Roosevelt Boulevard, had some excess licenses to sell.

And there were some people with property in Old Town — specifically Simonton, Petronia and Greene streets — who would like to be able to rent them by the night because you can make a lot more money that way.  Otherwise, like the rest of us, they’re stuck renting their properties for the minimum of a month at a time.

This creates a major problem because vacation rentals are de facto hotels, usually with pools and backyards and without the inhibitions that come from hotel staff and security. So you get a lot of hooting and hollering and alcoholic high volume banter, often at hours when normal working people are attempting to sleep or maybe even read a book in their own backyard.

This is anecdotal, sure, but it is also fact, as I can attest from having a vacation rental (now renting by the month and a lot quieter) directly behind my yard.

There are also several guesthouses nearby, and their guests can be a bit loud, too, but at least if they get on my last nerve there’s a front desk I can call to get them to tamp it down.

Even Commissioner Mark Rossi recognized the issue with neighborhood disturbance in the Jan. 4 Board of Adjustment hearing where the vacation rental transfers were considered. “I can tell you straightforward that I don’t want any transient units or nothing transferred next to my house,” Rossi said. And then proceeded to vote in favor of transferring them next to a bunch of other people’s houses.

The primary problem with vacation rentals, though, is the one recognized in the city’s comprehensive plan — the ability to rent your house like a hotel is such a temptation that you cease to treat your house like a house and it becomes a hotel. And when it’s not a house, that means it’s not available for what most of us would consider residency.

Residency means people who live and work in the community and that’s what makes a neighborhood. I may be swimming against the tide on this, but I would like my area of the island to remain, or be restored to, an actual neighborhood. And if we’re so desperately in need of affordable housing, isn’t that what we should be doing?

For way too long, Old Town has been viewed as the island’s sacrificial cash cow, the place where you make money, eat, drink, play — and then, for some, head home to your quiet enclave where heaven knows you wouldn’t want to be disturbed by others.

The problem with that attitude is it’s eventually going to be fatal to the cow. The reason Old Town is such a fun place to hang out, and such an incredible draw for so many tourists, isn’t the easy availability of obscene T-shirts and frozen drinks (popular as those are with the cruise ship crowds).

The reason Old Town is so attractive to cash-paying visitors is its historic integrity, ie. its function and character as a genuine neighborhood. That’s why it’s still great to walk along lanes, see new plantings and old friends.

That’s what makes us different from Disney World, or even Seaside. We are, stubbornly, still a real place.

The Board of Adjustment, falling for the developer’s line that the transient license transfers were desperately needed to prop up a failing tourist economy (though he was there only because he was among those taking hotel rooms off the market), tried to justify the transfers by limiting them to properties that “during the past five years the unit was licensed as a transient rental unit, or the unit was occupied primarily by seasonal residents, tourists, migrant or transitory workers or similar short-term visitors.”

As Last Stand attorney Eric Dadd pointed out in court last Friday, this could mean virtually any property could qualify for transient use simply by booting out a long term tenant and renting it seasonally.

Singh’s and city attorneys argued that the city meant the seasonal use had to be for five years in a row. But that’s not what the resolution says and unfortunately for them, Judge Audlin can read.

Following the Board of Adjustment’s new five-year rule “would open up virtually every residential property in the affected zoning districts to transient use, by the simple expedient of the owner designating the property as ‘seasonally used,’” Audlin wrote.

Some of us may feel like that’s happened already, but most of it’s been under the table and there’s some hope that the city may enforce the laws on the books regarding transient rentals.

With Audlin’s decision, and the courage and commitment of groups like Last Stand to stand up for Old Town, there’s also hope that the neighborhood can act like a neighborhood, and not a theme park.

nklingener@keysnews.com