High season may be behind us, but Marco Island’s Short-term Rental Advisory Committee is looking toward the future.

On Wednesday, committee members will consider the draft of an ordinance that would require short-term rental owners to register their properties. It could be the first step in city efforts to rein in problem rental properties through local requirements.

Wednesday’s meeting, at 7 p.m., in the training room of the Fire Rescue Department, will be the fourth. The group was formed at the start of the year to address repeated complaints by a handful of residents who reported that they had little recourse for rowdy and overcrowded vacation rentals in their neighborhoods.

At the committee’s last meeting, held March 12, the group voted unanimously to pursue registration requirements for rental properties, and asked city staff to return with some recommendations and more concrete options.

A draft by the city provides for that type of regulation in order to “provide a reasonable means for citizens of the City of Marco Island to mitigate impacts of such rental of single-family detached dwelling units.” It would require owners to register once a year, pay registration fees, restrict occupants to two per bedroom plus one additional person in each dwelling, limit the number of vehicles parked at the residence and display a permit in the home indicating that the owner was complying with requirements.

Registration fees were a topic of discussion at the March 12 meeting, but the committee stopped short of establishing a specific fee. Numbers mentioned ranged from $100 to $400, to be renewed yearly. Fees collected could be used to outsource inspection or enforcement duties, city staff have said.

Fire Chief Mike Murphy and Chief Code Compliance Officer Eric Wardle have both told the committee that their departments are too understaffed to take on inspection and enforcement responsibilities for the untold number of vacation rental homes that exist on the island.

No one knows how large the number is, Wardle has told the committee, because the state of Florida is not required to inform the city of vacation rental homes registered within the city. Though the state tracks such properties, partly for tax purposes, it does not mandate any inspection of the properties.

In addition to the draft ordinance, the committee will also consider a memo from Police Chief Roger Reinke, which suggests “alternative options” to registration.

Reinke suggests more stringent enforcement of the city’s noise restrictions — an effort that would be aimed at the frequent disruptions to life that some residents say they suffer because of noisy rentals.

“This option focuses on the problem of noise irrespective of the type of property ... or the use of the property,” the memo states.

Reinke also suggested passage of a “nuisance property” ordinance, meant to hold property owners liable for the behavior of “tenants, guests and anyone legally on the property.”

In both cases, Reinke included sample brochures and ordinances from other communities that have dealt with similar problems.

Any decisions made by the committee can be drafted into recommendations for Marco Island City Council. The committee does not have rule-making power, but instead acts in an advisory capacity to the council.

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