Bulletin - Miami, FL News Today
Resolution RE.9 orders a 90-day violations report, quarterly lists of condo buildings with repeat violations, and a legal review of registration programs
Miami Commission to Vote on Citywide Short-Term Rental Audit After Brickell Condo Found With 300+ Listings
Resolution RE.9 orders a 90-day violations report, quarterly lists of condo buildings with repeat violations, and a legal review of registration programs
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The City of Miami Commission votes September 10 on a resolution that would order the first citywide accounting of short-term rental violations in years and place condominium buildings with repeat offenses on a public quarterly list.
Sponsored by District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo, Resolution RE.9 (File 19715) follows the city's August cease-and-desist order against a Brickell tower where investigators counted more than 300 vacation rental listings in a building approved for 30.
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What the Resolution Directs
The measure creates no new rule for hosts but instead asks for data. Within 90 days, the City Manager must hand the Commission a list of every short-term lodging violation now pending or brought to hearing in the past two years outside the T3 zones, the city's low-density residential neighborhoods where such rentals are already barred. The same report must examine condominium lodging in particular from licensing and certificates of use to business tax receipts, complaints and open investigations. After that first report, the City Manager will keep the Commission updated each quarter with a list of condominium buildings carrying multiple violations.
Proposed City Commission resolution calls for a comprehensive review of vacation rentals, quarterly reporting on condo buildings with multiple violations, and a legal review of rental registration programs as officials weigh stronger compliance measures. | Source: https://miamifl.iqm2.com/
By the Commission's September 24 meeting, the City Attorney must report on whether vacation rental registration programs set up by other Florida jurisdictions after 2011 have held up under state law.
Why 2011 Matters
Under Florida Statutes Section 509.032(7), a local government cannot ban vacation rentals or limit how often or how long they operate unless the rule was already on the books by June 1, 2011. Miami's zoning code, Miami 21, beat that deadline which is why the city can still enforce it today.
Florida law limits local governments’ ability to regulate or prohibit vacation rentals.
Under the code, a unit rented more than three times a year for stays under 30 days counts as transient lodging which is off limits for single-family homes and duplexes in the T3 and T4-R zones and allowed elsewhere only with an annually renewed lodging certificate of use. The added condition is that any building where more than a quarter of the units operate this way must meet hotel-grade R-1 construction standards.
The Third District Court of Appeal confirmed the city's grip on the T3 zones in December 2018 when it rejected a challenge from Airbnb, but nothing in the code gives Miami a registration system. Whether cities that built one after 2011 have survived in court is the question the City Attorney's September 24 brief is meant to answer.
The Brickell Bay Case
The building that prompted the resolution is The Club at Brickell Bay, a 43-story, 643-unit tower at 1200 Brickell Bay Drive that the city approved for lodging in just 30 units back in 2011 and where investigators counted more than 300 listings this summer.
Abby Dodge
On August 11, Assistant City Manager Barbie Hernandez ordered the association to halt every rental under 30 days, citing overcrowded units that raised fire and life-safety concerns, inspectors turned away at the door and the possibility that the building's certificates of use and business tax receipts would be revoked if the rentals continued.
The association answered by hiring land-use counsel, denied that it runs a hotel and asked for a 90-day grace period with board chair Maria Sindia Borras saying the newly elected board "intends to work cooperatively with the City", though listings on Airbnb and Vrbo still live 12 days after the order.
What It Means for Operators
Hosts in eligible zones keep the same obligations: a Florida DBPR lodging license, a lodging certificate of use, a city business tax receipt and an operational management plan. What changes is visibility as condo buildings with repeat violations would be named publicly each quarter and the 90-day inventory would give the city a case list it has not compiled before.
⦾ Effective date: Vote scheduled September 10, 2026; 90-day report due around December 2026 if adopted
⦾ Registration required: No new registration; existing certificate of use, business tax receipt and state DBPR license rules apply
⦾ Night cap: N/A; stays under 30 days are lodging under Miami 21 and prohibited for single-family homes and duplexes in T3 and T4-R zones
⦾ Penalty for non-compliance: Code enforcement citations, liens, and revocation of certificates of use and business tax receipts as cited in the Brickell Bay order
⦾ Platform responsibility: None under the resolution
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