Miami commissioners voted Thursday to get a grasp on short-term vacation rentals operating throughout the city, with the goal of stricter regulation and a shutdown of illegal units causing chaos in residential neighborhoods.

District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo made the proposal, which instructs the city manager to submit a comprehensive report on the whereabouts and status of short-term rentals of less than 30 days, as well as quarterly updates on condominium buildings that have repeat violations. He asked the city attorney to report within two weeks on short-term rental registration programs created in other cities since 2011.

Pardo’s resolution doesn’t contain new restrictions or order a sweep but signals an effort to sort out the short-term lodging business in Miami primarily run by investors — many absentee — who list units on Airbnb, VRBO, hotels.com and other online platforms. Miami is one of the most popular Airbnb destinations in the world.

“Whereas, as recently reminded in local news events, not all property owners choose to comply with the required State of Florida and local laws, which creates safety and quality-of-life issues for nearby residents, visitors and businesses,” Pardo wrote, requesting assistance to develop “a comprehensive plan to address complaints and determine possible paths forward towards better compliance....”

A Miami Herald investigation of one of Miami’s largest multi-family residential condos found that many hosts are flouting laws that the city is not enforcing. The Club at Brickell Bay, a 43-story, 643-unit building, has been transformed since 2020 into an Airbnb hotspot where 85% of the condos are rented nightly despite lacking required state and local permits, licenses and business tax receipts.

The Club’s former and current HOA board and property manager operate the building like a hotel, with a hotel reservation system powered by GraceSoft installed in the office. But The Club does not have a Certificate of Use for lodging — and the one that the city has on file from 2007 was forged, the Herald found by showing it to a former Club homeowner who said he never applied for or signed the document. That former owner, Alex Fornet, a retired Miami-Dade police officer, has written to the city attorney’s office offering to help investigate alleged fraud at The Club under the former board. Another CU, from 2011, allows a company called Executive Corporate Rentals to rent out 30 hotel units — although the board at the time never approved it.

Full-time owners and residents have complained for years to city and law enforcement officials that their home has devolved into an over-capacity “Animal House” overrun by rowdy tourists and dangerous guests in a building rife with safety and security hazards, including unpermitted walls erected to subdivide units and create extra bedrooms. Last month, a 20-year-old student from Turkey who had been drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana fell off the 34th-floor balcony of the unit where he was a guest and died, according to Miami police.

Pardo has been criticized by residents at The Club for not taking action sooner on behalf of his constituents living in Brickell.

“He’s making this proposal now, after our situation has been exposed, but the fact is we called and met with Commissioner Pardo and his staff multiple times over the past few years and got no help,” said Club homeowner Alejandra Pelaez. “We were told, ‘There’s nothing the City can do.’ We were told, ‘It’s good for business.’”

When Pelaez and other homeowners doing their own detective work managed to lead Code Compliance Department inspectors to units operating illegally, five unlawful lodging citations issued to hosts were dismissed by the city just before they were to be presented at a Code Enforcement Board hearing.

“When our board president needed to make those violations disappear, he went to Commissioner Pardo’s office,” Pelaez said.

Pardo denied he played any role in the dismissals and said he never spoke to The Club’s HOA president at the time.

Following the Herald’s stories, Assistant City Manager Barbie Hernandez sent a letter to The Club’s board on Aug. 11 demanding that all illegal vacation rentals “cease immediately.”

“It is clear your building is being operated as a transient public lodging establishment in violation of Florida Statutes, the Florida Building Code and the laws of the City of Miami,” Hernandez wrote. “This operation creates a significant life safety issue as your building is not approved for fire, life safety or disability requirements as provided for in the relevant codes. All illegal vacation/lodging rentals in violation of both State and local law must cease immediately.”

The Club’s five board members — all of whom are in the Airbnb business and none of whom live in the building — have asked Hernandez for a 90-day grace period and a list of city records. They also hired Bercow Radell Fernandez Larkin & Tapanes, a prominent Miami law firm known for representing real estate developers seeking project approvals, rezonings and variances from local government.

A search on booking websites turned up more than 250 short-term rentals available at The Club in coming weeks, indicating business as usual. Residents report typical traffic in the lobby — and chronically broken elevators filled with housekeepers and rollaboard-toting tourists.

The board, elected June 22, is asking for time to implement plans for a new era at The Club.

“Despite these challenging circumstances, the board is confident that it can work constructively with the city in a way that protects the lawful property rights of unit owners and the property values of the community,” the board wrote to HOA members last month.

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