Key Takeaways
- Florida beach officials discussed capping vacation rentals at two guests per bedroom plus two additional guests
- Only about 11 percent of properties in Bradenton Beach are owner-occupied
- An earlier flat 10-guest cap drew pushback from owners, and a final commission vote has not been scheduled
Florida officials in a popular beach town floated a rule last week that would cap vacation rental occupancy at two guests per bedroom, plus two more, a formula city leaders say balances short-term rental revenue against neighborhood noise complaints.
The Gulf Coast city of Bradenton Beach, part of the Anna Maria Island chain near Sarasota, held a workshop to sort out occupancy and noise rules for an island where rentals dominate the housing stock.
City officials discussed a cap of two guests per bedroom, plus two additional guests, for vacation rentals, according to local ABC affiliate WZVN-TV.
Mayor John Chappie said only about 11 percent of properties in Bradenton Beach are owner-occupied homesteads, meaning nearly every resident lives beside, across from, or behind a rental property.
“Just about everybody in our community lives in a neighborhood with a number of rentals across the street or beside them or behind them,” said Chappie.
Rental owner Ken McDonough, who has owned property on the island for close to 15 years, said an earlier proposal to cap every home at 10 guests regardless of size drew pushback from owners worried about losing income on larger properties.
“When you have three to 400 residents and, in any one day, we could have 5,000 people on this island coming to rent,” McDonough said. “90 percent of them aren’t a problem, but when there is a problem, it’s always a rental, never a local person causing a problem.”
That plan mirrored occupancy formulas already in place in neighboring communities, an approach cities elsewhere have used as they weigh short-term rental rules town by town.
McDonough said he backs the two-plus-two framework but questioned how the city would enforce it given the sheer volume of visitors passing through.
Related: Residents blame poorly managed Miami short-term rentals for ‘Animal House’ chaos
Enforcement questions remain unresolved
City commissioners have not yet scheduled a final vote, and the enforcement mechanics raised at the workshop remain unanswered.
Anna Maria and Holmes Beach, the island’s other two municipalities, maintain separate occupancy formulas, meaning owners with properties across all three cities still face a patchwork of rules even if Bradenton Beach adopts the two-plus-two standard.
The commission’s next move will determine whether the compromise formula becomes binding or faces further revision before a formal ordinance reaches a vote.
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