KELLY FARRELL / Staff

Rental Housing Advisory Committee member George Percel keeps the conversation going about drafting a nuisance ordinance at a meeting Wednesday evening. This week's meeting was supposed to be the final meeting before sending the short term rental housing ordinance draft to the Marco City Council, however another meeting was scheduled to complete the draft next week.

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The final meeting of the rental housing advisory committee Wednesday evening, wasn’t exactly final. The committee, which is attempting to draft an ordinance to require short-term rental houses to be registered and impose fines to owners as well as renters for nuisance violations, will meet again next week.

The issue that seemed to cause the most delay in completing the draft was how to hold rental property owners and managers responsible if their renters perpetually are a nuisance to neighbors. At the same time, committee members also wanted to hold renters accountable for the violations.

Nuisance violations discussed included leaving trash out too long or overflowing into the street, illegal parking such as on sidewalks, boat trailers left out and noise.

Currently the City of Marco does not have a nuisance ordinance, but rather a nuisance violation that is somewhat vague, said Code Enforcement official Eric Wardle.

Wardle added that although he was in favor of registering rental properties, he believed that two nuisance laws on the books may just be redundant.

The board continued with their mission to target nuisance rental homes, but acknowledged another problem.

“All the discussion about rental housing has brought to light a problem we weren’t aware of in the past,” said committee member George Percel.

Percel said that nuisances by all types of residents were a problem. He reminded the committee that at a prior meeting former police chief Roger Reinke informed the members that more than half of nuisance violations were committed by long term renters and owners.

At least two of the committee members, Karen Salvi and Ken Honecker, said they lived next door to “nuisance rentals” and explained the problem is accountability when new temporary neighbors are coming in each week.

Keith Dameron explained it this way: “It’s like ground hog day. It starts all over again the next weekend with a new renter.”

Salvi said she was disappointed that the MIPD did not make reports of nuisance violations.

“The owners are always saying to me, ‘prove it.’ How can I prove it if there is no record of the complaint,” Salvi said.

Interim police chief Thom Carr said that because nuisance violations are not a crime, they do not fill out full reports, but do enter the occurrence in their computer system.

“ ... But if you give us direction of what you want us to do, we’ll do it,” Carr said.

Committee members agreed that keeping a tally of how many renters at a given property were visited for nuisance violations would allow code enforcement to hold the home owner responsible.

“If there is a consistent problem, then the rental agent or owner is not doing their job,” said committee chair Charles Kiester.

Rudy Lanzwitcz owns five properties on Marco and called himself a “responsible” landlord. In the past three years, he said only one renter violated a code by leaving jet skis in the driveway.

“I just think we need to strengthen the noise and nuisance laws that are already on the books ... I’m a responsible owner, so I’ll register my properties, but most of the irresponsible owners won’t even register their properties,” Lanzwitcz said.

The board voted 9-1 on a motion to notify property owners or managers immediately when a violation by a renter occurs; to create a nuisance ordinance that will apply to everyone, and to require Marco Police to make a report on every nuisance call. Keith Dameron was the only member opposed to the motion.

The board also voted

unanimously to approve fines

for property owners as follows: The first violation within any 36 month period would be a fine of $250; the second violation

within the same period would be $500, the third violation in 36 months would be $750 and the fourth violation within a 36 month period would come with a fine of $1,000 and/or suspension of the permit to operate a rental property.

The same violations currently begin with only a $100 fine when committed by any type of resident, short-term or long-term, Wardle said.

The next meeting will further define nuisance violations with language to amend the nuisance code in the “final, final” draft of the short term rental ordinance, Kiester said.

The meeting will be held 6 p.m., May 7, in the Community Room, 51 Bald Eagle Drive.