EDITORIAL: A sharp turn to short-term rentals

It took a couple of years, but Town of Belgium officials are finally getting it about the problems that unregulated short-term rental businesses cause in the town’s residential neighborhoods.

“We’re to the point where we have to do something. We can’t allow short-term rentals to change the culture of our neighborhoods.”

Those were the words of Belgium Town Chairman Tom Winker at a meeting last week.

Amen.

Winker and Charlie Parks, the town’s zoning administrator, proposed an ordinance at that meeting that can quell some of disruptive effect of Airbnb-type rental properties on nearby homeowners.

The Town Board should codify the proposal into town law and at last give the homeowners the protection they’ve repeatedly asked of their town government.

Criminal activity in an Airbnb rental in the town that led to a police raid and arrests in 2023 crystallized the campaign by residents to get help from their town government, but there have been a number of other examples of disturbing behavior by short-term renters.

The 2023 incident occurred in a house in a small, normally quiet residential neighborhood on Country Club Beach Road near Lake Michigan. Airbnbs in places like this, which have some of the appeal of a resort area, often attract renters who are more interested in having a good time than in lodging.

This becomes a nuisance when it results in loud, late-night partying, speeding cars on narrow roads, trespassing and generally unruly behavior, all of which has occurred in connection with Town of Belgium short-term rentals.

The town chairman’s epiphany concerning the need for short-term rental regulation represents a breathtakingly sharp turn in the town’s approach to the Airbnb issues, but it is certainly one in the right direction.

In the past, homeowners who petitioned the Town Board for Airbnb regulation were repeatedly rebuffed at town meetings. At one of them, they were even scolded by the chairman for talking to an Ozaukee Press reporter for a news story about the problem.

Winker was quoted in the same story, saying, “I don’t see the Town of Belgium doing anything. We are putting it in the hands of the Airbnb owners and the neighbors.”

The idea that a dialogue between Airbnb owners and residents would calm the situation proved to be impractical. For one reason, some of the owners aren’t that easy to find. A number of the short-term rentals in the Town of Belgium have out-of-state owners, including six from Illinois and Indiana, which underlines the fact that these are not neighborhood homes, but businesses operating in residential areas.

If the board approves the proposed ordinance, those owners will have to operate their rental businesses according to rules that will limit conflicts with neighbors to some extent. 

Winker and Parks navigated through the obstacles set by state law that restricts the regulations that towns and municipalities can apply to Airbnbs and came up with a workable draft of an ordinance. Essentially, it would allow rentals in residential areas to operate only six months of the year and require seven-day stays.

Besides mitigating the impact of existing short-term rental properties, the time limits would discourage investors from buying or building houses in attractive neighborhoods for the express purpose of operating them as small hotels.

A positive side effect of passing the ordinance would be, for want of a better term, a nicer Town of Belgium. Townspeople have eclectic interests and backgrounds, but they have in common that they live in a community of farms, compact lakeshore neighborhoods and rural homesteads in a pretty setting that includes a state park. They should get along better than what has been evident at confrontational town meetings. The proposed short-term rental ordinance can be viewed a peace agreement.

Make it law.