Special magistrate finds 138 Esther Drive in violation; owner offers partial payment

Special Magistrate Lonnie Groot entered an order finding that the property at 138 Esther Drive operated as a vacation rental without required registration and failed to pay local business tax for the period the city asserted in this hearing.

The city presented screenshots and system records showing an active Airbnb listing for the address dating back to December 2019 and evidence staff said showed operation without a business tax receipt and without required vacation-rental registration. Danielle Crawford, a city staff member presenting the case, said staff issued a notice of violation in January 2025 and later issued two citations on Nov. 4, 2025: a $250 citation for operating without required registration and a $100 citation for operating without a local business tax receipt. A life-safety fire inspection initially failed on Aug. 20, 2025; a respondent no-show at a subsequent reinspection prompted a $250 no-show fee, and the property later passed reinspection on Dec. 9, 2025.

"This is just showing that there was a live listing with 95 reviews," Danielle Crawford said as she introduced screenshots and other evidence, which the magistrate admitted into the record.

Respondent Isabella Raymond told the magistrate she had difficulty accessing the city website when staff initially notified her in January 2025 and sought in-person help. She said she traveled from Orlando for business and missed a reinspection appointment, calling the $250 no-show charge "astronomical." Raymond said she wanted to resolve the matter and offered a partial payment.

"I want to pay the outstanding fees," Raymond said; she offered $1,396.70 toward a total the city cited as $2,746.70. City staff said accepting that payment now with a later return to pay the remainder would be acceptable provided the rental did not operate until all fees were paid.

Magistrate Lonnie Groot said the city had evidence of operation for several years but noted statutory and ordinance limits on recoverable periods. He explained the city would seek a reduced enforcement window: two years of local business-tax assessments and one year of vacation-rental registration fees rather than the full period of alleged operation. "I'm going to enter an order finding two years of failure to pay the local business tax and one year relative to the rental registration fee," he said.

The magistrate also clarified he lacked authority to waive certain building or fire-department fees, saying: "I don't have any jurisdiction over that." He directed the city to calculate the precise amounts within the enforcement window and finalize the written order; the city indicated it would accept the offered payment arrangement and allocate the funds to the proper accounts.

The magistrate's order will be entered in writing and distributed by the city; staff said the respondent will receive invoices by mail or email and should expect the registration to be reviewed annually.

What happens next: the city will compute the exact amounts the magistrate ordered (within the two-year/one-year enforcement time frame), apply the accepted payment, and issue the written order. The magistrate noted that remaining disputes about other departmental fees are matters for the city and its departments, not for his order.