City needs to regulate rentals
To the editor:
With regard to The Breeze story, “Rental registration fee hike spiked.”
This was one of the best ideas led by and presented by Councilmember Long.
We are all tired of unregulated vacation rentals. You do not have to live by them. I do. Three to be exact.
Not all register or use previous rental registration. In some cases, the rental is rented for less than a week or an extended period of time that goes beyond the concept of weekly vacation rentals. Code enforcement allows small signs to advertise these rentals. Why not allow big LED signs like the Holiday Inn?
I came to Cape Coral 55 years ago. I bought in R1 residential. Now we have business next door to my house.
These visitors come to have fun in the pool like the Hilton Hotel. Cleanliness is a joke in these rentals.
Upkeep to the property is lax at best. We have code violations which code enforcement ignores.
The founding fathers, the Rosens, billed the Cape as the biggest gated planned community in Florida. It even had an industrial park and Del Prado was zoned R-1 and R-3. Back then the land use plan was followed. Now the land use plan is like a slice of Swiss cheese with car washes and storage units etc. There were no trucks allowed unless garaged. Trucks are fine but now we have work trucks with ladders, vendor trucks on swales, people operating businesses from home. This is due to the failure of Code Enforcement and Public Works.
Our Cape Coral looks like it is suffering from a case of blight.
Councilmember Nelson-Lastra, the ball in now in your hands to serve up a plan for the residents who suffer from a failing system of self government.
Lou Navarra
Cape Coral