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VOL 15 No. 22
March 25, 2015
Tour offers unique variety of homes
Homes ranged from spacious elevated homes to a sprawling historical home to a quaint ground level beach cottage. Page 39
PAT COPELAnD | SUN
Developers, rental agencies threaten city over rental action The city is working on an ordinance to control rentals as well as pursuing a declaratory judgment on the legality of vacation rentals in residential zones. BY TOM VAUGHT SUN STAFF WRITER | tvaught@amisun.com
As the city commission continues to try to get a handle on the runaway growth of big vacation rentals in the
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residential district, rental agents and developers are threatening to sue over the lack of progress or the intent of the city’s actions. The latest to join the action is Pine Avenue Restoration (PAR), the group behind redevelopment of the city’s commercial district. Attorney Andrea Flynn Mogensen, PA, sent a letter to Mayor Dan Murphy and the city commission March 12 threatening “expensive litigation” over the ordinance the city is working on to regulate
vacation rentals. She said the ordinance violates the state statute making it illegal for a governmental entity to “prohibit vacation rentals or regulate the duration or frequency of rental of vacation rentals.” She said it also “jettisons efforts by the mayor and all stakeholders to arrive at an agreement that best serves the city, and instead advances misguided legal positions contrary to law and equity.” Mogensen said extending the ordinance to cover the ROR district along Pine Avenue represents an arbitrary revocation of
PAR’s vested rights in equity, fairness and the law previously established through an extended public process.” Local attorney Scott Rudacille, who works for Blalock Walters and represents a number of property owners in the city, took exception with the declaratory judgment, rental licensing ordinance and the ongoing moratorium on permits for properties with four or more bedrooms or rooms that could be bedrooms. see rental, page 48
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