Local

Key West business leaders cited a third time for illegal vacation rental

By Gwen Filosa

gfilosa@keynoter.com
This four-bedroom Key West condo has been illegally advertised as a vacation rental at $600 per night for more than a year, city code officers said.
This four-bedroom Key West condo has been illegally advertised as a vacation rental at $600 per night for more than a year, city code officers said. Contributed

As reasonable rents continue to disappear in Key West, two leading business owners who often advocate for affordable housing keep getting cited by the city for advertising illegal vacation rentals.

For the third time in 15 months, Chris Belland and Ed Swift, of Historic Tours of America, have been accused by the Code Compliance Department for agreeing to rent two luxury condos at Key Cove Drive for six nights at roughly $4,000 each to an undercover code officer via HomeAway.com and vrbo.com.

The sightseeing tour operators and real estate developers face up to $24,000 in fines for the two condo rental cases.

The city reserved the condos, 4 and 10 Key Cove Drive, according to the complaint, despite the fact the owners have no transient rental licenses for them.

Belland, as the registered agent of Key Cove Landing, which owns the condos, is due at the next code hearing, which starts at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 31 before special magistrate Don Yates at Old City Hall, 510 Greene St.

Friday, the four-bedroom waterfront “Banana Breeze” condo, 4 Key Cove Drive, was advertised on HomeAway.com for $344 per night with a minimum stay of 30 nights, which meets the city requirement for a minimum stay.

Twice last year, Belland signed settlements with the city, promising not to rent one of the company’s several condos at the waterfront subdivision Key Cove Landing.

The previous case was settled with the owners paying the city $5,087 in fines and agreeing to a $5,000 fine that was suspended for 60 months. In May 2015, Belland paid $250 in fines.

Belland didn’t return a voice mail message for comment. City code officials also haven’t heard from him or Swift either.

“Normally, their attorney will contact the city attorney,” said Jim Young, the city code compliance director said Friday. “That’s how we would communicate. They have not called us.”

Gwen Filosa: @KeyWestGwen

This story was originally published August 20, 2016 at 8:44 AM with the headline "Key West business leaders cited a third time for illegal vacation rental."