Heron Bay HOA fight continues, underscoring stakes of rental rules
Four rental provisions are headed to mediation as some homeowners push the Parkland HOA for tighter restrictions
Sep 28, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT
Key Points
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Heron Bay HOA board revised rental regulations following public outcry, removing some rules while ongoing disputes remain over others scheduled for mediation in November.
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Landlords and local property owners claim retaliatory enforcement and lack of authority, while many residents support even stricter leasing restrictions.
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Real estate experts note that HOA disputes rarely impact broad market values, though potential future limits on investor purchases could affect buyer demand.
The fight over rental restrictions in Heron Bay isn’t over.
After the new board at one of Broward County’s largest homeowners associations backed off the most contentious landlord rules following an outcry earlier this month, opponents are preparing to take another shot at some of the remaining provisions while supporters are pressuring the board to impose stronger restrictions.
The Heron Bay board unanimously passed a revised set of regulations Sept. 3, eliminating provisions requiring landlord orientations for every new lease or renewal and preventing tenants with rule violations from renewing or leasing elsewhere in the community.
The Real Deal was blocked from attending that meeting, but attendees said about 200 of the 10,000-plus Heron Bay residents showed up at the Fort Lauderdale Marriott Coral Springs Hotel & Convention Center where it was held. The meeting was not available to owners via Zoom, as previous meetings have been.
The board’s attorney, Tripp Scott’s Matthew Zifrony, said a majority of attendees at the meeting supported the rules, with many now calling for the board to amend them to be stricter.
“Not only are we happy with [the board] restating the existing rules so that everybody sees them in a second place, we want you to go a step further and put in screening requirements and put in limitations on when you can lease,” Zifrony said. “We need even more. That was the resounding 99 percent of the people that were at that meeting.”
Some landlords are continuing to push back against the rules, claiming the board doesn’t have the authority to pass them. Four rules will be the subject of a mediation scheduled for Nov. 17, according to landlord A.J. Steigman. Those rules:
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Limit owners to one lease per year and require tenants to go through another tenant registration process if they want to renew their lease past the year
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Prevent short-term rentals of any kind, including Airbnb, interval ownership and time sharing
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Hold owners jointly liable with their tenants for damage caused to the association’s common areas
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Require prospective tenants to attend a tenant registration before moving in.
Steigman, with his partners, owns 17 properties in Heron Bay, which includes more than a dozen subdivisions with more than 3,100 homes across Coral Springs and Parkland.
Since Sept. 14, he said he’s received five violations — one from the master board and four from the Tuscany subdivision board — in what he claims is retaliation against him and his tenants. Tuscany did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Zifrony denied that the master board’s violation was retaliatory, saying the board immediately offered to work with the tenant on the violation. He said the board has no control over violations issued by the subdivision boards.
In police body camera footage obtained by Steigman and viewed by TRD, the president of the Tuscany HOA board said Steigman is “being fought against” by the Heron Bay masterboard and Tuscany subdivision board for “renting to troublemakers.”
“We’re all trying to build a police notification every time until we get enough that we can throw him out,” the board member said in the video.
The footage was from Aug. 20, when police responded to a call claiming a Black teenager who jumped the pool fence was related to the children of one of Steigman’s tenants, Latesha Cobb. Cobb said that claim was false and said the incident is part of what she described as racially motivated harassment by residents and the HOA, TRD previously reported. Steigman was issued a violation the same day, without evidence, that the teenager was a guest of Cobb. The violation was dropped nearly two weeks later.
Tuscany did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Cobb said she has since filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Steigman said some of his other tenants are also filing HUD complaints.
HOA disputes and real estate
The Heron Bay dispute highlights a trend playing out across homeowners associations in South Florida. Communities are increasingly trying to control who rents homes and how properties are used, while landlords want flexibility.
Ben Solomon, owner and managing partner of ALG, said disputes can, in some cases, have broader real estate implications, though he acknowledged he wasn’t sure if that applied to Heron Bay.
“Generally speaking, communities don’t want negative publicity,” he said. “They need to be mindful of conducting their business within the members and not letting it spill out into the public view because it can cause reputational harm or reduction in values of communities or the homes in those communities.”
He also said investors should be cautious about what they buy and look for communities that are rental-friendly.
Carlos Fong, owner and chief appraiser at Expert Valuation Services, said it’s too soon to tell what kind of implications the Heron Bay conflict might have, saying it could take anywhere from six months to over a year to see a market reaction. But, he said, small HOA issues generally don’t affect market value.
However, Michael Citron, a real estate agent at Parrot Realty and one of the top agents in Heron Bay, said issues within a community can impact regulations, which can have market impacts.
He said the changes to Heron Bay’s rental restrictions and screening processes were in part catalyzed by a viral rap duo known as the Island Boys, who rented a home in the Falls subdivision.
TikTok stars Alex and Franky Venegas, who are twins, allegedly used the property as a content house, allowing a revolving door of unauthorized guests, throwing frequent parties and filming videos. In 2022, a SWAT team raided the house and arrested a man who at the time was accused of murder. Police also responded to domestic incidents at the house.
Citron said incidents like those have sparked HOAs across South Florida to tighten rental restrictions.
“One bad lawsuit or one bad thing happens, and they’re pointing the finger at the HOA and the management companies,” he said. “I understand they have to protect themselves as much as possible.”
He said he doesn’t think a change in property values would be imminent with the rules that Heron Bay has implemented so far. But that could change if Heron Bay moves forward with stricter regulations. Citron said a possible restriction could be preventing new homebuyers from renting out for the first one to two years.
“That would certainly change values,” he said. “You’re limiting a portion of the buyer pool of the community of new buyers to non-investors, and I think that would be detrimental.”