Hillsborough County commissioners are set to vote Wednesday on new government mandates for short-term rental owners, adding registration requirements, a $200 annual fee per unit, and inspection costs for property owners who already pay taxes on those homes.

The proposal, up for a public hearing at 10 a.m. Wednesday, would require short-term rental owners to register their properties with the county and designate a local contact available around the clock to respond to complaints. County officials stress the plan is not an outright ban, but it adds a new layer of bureaucracy and cost for property owners exercising what has long been a basic right: renting out land they own.

The push comes after residents in the Bay Crest Park neighborhood of Town ‘N Country complained about a surge in short-term rentals following hurricanes Helene and Milton. According to homeowner Samantha Freeland, roughly 126 of the neighborhood’s 900 homes are now short-term rentals, with some owners buying storm-damaged properties and converting them into rental businesses.

“We’re essentially having businesses that are operating within single-family zoned residential neighborhoods,” Freeland said, describing complaints about parties, traffic, and noise disrupting what had been a quiet neighborhood.

Property owners and free-market advocates have long cautioned that this kind of neighborhood friction is often used to justify sweeping new regulations that burden the vast majority of responsible rental owners along with the few bad actors. The numbers suggest the “crisis” may be narrower than the debate implies: short-term rentals account for only a small slice of Hillsborough’s housing stock, with about 3,000 in the unincorporated county and another 9,000 in the city of Tampa. Neighboring Pinellas County, by contrast, has more than 24,000 short-term rentals and has not imposed comparable countywide restrictions.

Commissioners have spent months crafting the ordinance as they weigh homeowners’ complaints against property owners’ right to use their own land as they see fit. Wednesday’s hearing will determine whether Hillsborough joins a growing list of Florida counties tightening the rules on an industry that, so far, makes up a fraction of the local housing market.

Follow the St. Pete-Clearwater Sun on Facebook, Google, & X

St. Pete-Clearwater Sun: local St. Pete-Clearwater & Tampa Bay, FL news at PIE-Sun.com