EDITORIAL: Scolding won’t solve a town’s Airbnb problem

Residents of a small town asked their elected representatives for help in protecting their normally quiet neighborhoods from disruptive behavior and crime. When they attended a local government meeting to press their case, they were served with a scolding by the chief town official.

Ozaukee Press readers know where this is going. This rather unusual example of representative government at work took place in the Town of Belgium. The petitioning citizens are folks who live near Airbnbs that have non-resident owners. The scolding was delivered by the Belgium town chairman.

The root cause of the residents’ worries and fears and Town Chairman Tom Winker’s resulting cranky mood at the April 1 meeting was the December event that turned a house rented as an Airbnb in a town neighborhood into a crime scene complete with a police raid, arrests and felony charges.

Owners of nearby homes appealed to the Town Board to pass an ordinance with some minimal provisions to discourage owners of Airbnbs operated as commercial businesses in their neighborhoods from renting to potentially unruly or dangerous short-term tenants.

When interviewed by an Ozaukee Press reporter for a news story on the situation, several residents spoke of the need for Airbnb regulation by the town. Chairman Winker was not happy about residents sharing their views on Town of Belgium’s Airbnb problem with the newspaper’s readers. The news story was published Jan. 11. More than two months later, he was obviously still irritated.

He admonished the group of residents at the April 1 meeting: “I was disappointed by a handful of people who want to do business in the Press.”

He went on, “The first thing you do—do you call the Press?”

Actually, it wasn’t the first thing. The residents called town officials long before they talked to the Press.

At last week’s meeting they were also told by the town chairman, “I’m not going to allow any comments.”

The Press story was an in-depth follow-up to its reporting on criminal activity on Dec. 17 at a Country Club Beach Road Airbnb.

Alerted by a mother who feared her daughter was in danger in the house, Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office deputies entering the house found the 17-year-old girl among a group of adults, including a 23-year-old man who was subsequently charged with child enticement, sexual intercourse with a child, possession of a machine gun and bail jumping.   Prior to the disturbing happenings of Dec. 17, residents of neighborhoods in town areas near Lake Michigan had voiced concerns over disorderly behavior by renters of Airbnbs and had asked town officials to consider regulations that would affect Airbnbs operated as businesses by non-resident owners. The drama on Country Club Beach Road has lent urgency to their appeals.

The town’s concerned residents and people in similar situations in many communities in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the U.S. draw a distinction between the original form of Airbnbs—quarters rented to visitors by the live-in owners of homes—and the increasing number of properties acquired by individual and corporate owners for the express purpose of operating short-term rental businesses akin to hotels.

The homeowner Airbnbs, whose owners naturally tend to rent their homes only to well-behaving guests, are assets to their communities. The others, in their pursuit of profitable occupancy without regard to their impact on nearby residents, can lead to what the Town of Belgium residents are experiencing.

Wisconsin Airbnbs are shielded by state law from excessive regulation by towns and municipalities. But there is room in the statute for communities to enact rules that can discourage short-term rental abuses without appreciably affecting homeowner Airbnbs.

Belgium’s neighbor community, the Town of Holland, passed an ordinance that limits the number of occupants in short-term rentals and prohibits excessive noise and traffic, among other restrictions. The ordinance, which was upheld by a Sheboygan County court, has provisions that if adopted in some form by the Town of Belgium could help settle its Airbnb controversy.

Chairman Winker didn’t like what residents said in the Jan. 11 Press story, but the article also quoted him at considerable length, including this statement: “I don’t see the Town of Belgium doing anything. We’re putting it in the hands of the Airbnb owners and the neighbors.”

In his lecture to the neighbors at the April 1 meeting, Winker instructed, “Don’t let the Press divide us.”

If that was meant as a warning, it came too late. News reporting didn’t do it, but the town was already divided on the Airbnb issue, and reprimands of citizens by the town government’s chief spokesman haven’t helped.

This surely is not what the people of the Town of Belgium want. Their rural community is an agreeable place to live with a generally well-run town government with dedicated and effective town trustees, chairman and appointed committee members. It’s not too much to ask of those representatives that they work out a compromise that gives a measure of relief from Airbnb abuses while still preserving the right of resident owners to offer their homes as short-term rentals.

Can the town chairman compromise?

Of course he can.

He was probably just having a bad day when he scolded fellow town dwellers asking for help.